CENTRE KERB

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 75, 30 March 1939, Page 10

CENTRE KERB

NEW GORGE ROAD

A FOUR-WAY HIGHWAY

Within a month the earthworks on the new Ngahauranga Gorge Road would be completed, and before the Centennial- Exhibition opened there would be a four-way highway 60ft wide through the gorge, said the Minister of Public Works (the Hon. R. Semple) at the meeting of the New Zealand Road Safety Council today. There would be only three moderate curves instead of the 40 bends on the old road.

A safety principle entirely new for New Zealand was to be applied to the new road, the Minister continued. There would be a centre kerb lOin high and 9in wide in snow-white concrete, with a white shoulder lft wide on either side. The embankments would be fenced with white posts. In the construction of the road hills 150 ft high had been cut down in six months, whereas that part of the work would have taken between five and six years with the old methods.

The proposed road from Johnsonville to Porirua directly along the old Main Trunk railway line would not be ready for Exhibition traffic, but both the Gorge Road and the Plim-merton-Paekakariki Road, as well as improvements to the Hutt Road, would be completed in time, said Mr. Semple. The Plimmerton-Paekakariki highway was twelve months ahead of schedule, despite what, some people had said about the sea holding up the work. The Hutt Road improvements would include the provision of a centre kerb between the city and Ngahauranga, and that stretch would be one of the finest highways in the world.

The Minister added that the basis of any road safety campaign was safer highways. It was essential that New Zealand should have better roads, and the Government was taking all steps necessary to that end.