HUTT PIPE BRIDGE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXV, Issue 149, 25 June 1943, Page 7

HUTT PIPE BRIDGE

UNDER HEAVY TRAFFIC

AUTHORITIES CONCERNED Correspondents, both of whom use the pen-name "Traveller," have asked whether the Hutt pipe bridge is safe under the' bheavy traffic it now carries, for they fear such an accident as happened at the Whirokino bridge. The answer is that the bridge is considered quite able to carry the traffic, but the authorities are none the less concerned because of possible damage, through heavy vibration, to the water mains carried below the decking, and upon which Wellington almost wholly depends. The bridge was built about 30 years ago, as much to carry the mains as to carry traffic, which was then light, in weight and number of vehicles. Since the industrial development of Eastern Hutt and bus running the bridge has carried heavy traffic, and about five years ago the effects of vibration showed in the pipe joints. New rules were then brought in, restricting loads to 10 tons and spacing the vehicles out. In the past year traffic has been further increased by military vehicles and by heavier industrial and bus loading. When representations were made to the military .authorities action was at once taken. American guards at each end of the bridge check loads and insist on all military vehicles, stopping before entering the bridge proper, and then crossing at less than 15 miles an hour. Heavy tractors, special trailers, and tanks are sent the long way round, over the concrete bridge at Lower Hutt. As a further safeguard convoy distance hag been stretched out to 50 yards, whereas civil trucks and buses can, under the present bylaw, trail the leader at 10 foot distances. These rules are followed by both American and New Zealand military traffic. Civil traffic does not. Just as New Zealand military traffic is quite willing to be directed by American guards, so all military traffic could be directed by an authorised civilian traffic officer detailed to the duty of looking after common interests, but it is the policy of the military guards not to concern themselves with civil traffic. So to maintain a full control over all traffic it would be necessary, under present' custom, to duplicate the guard at each approach, a military guard and a civil inspector. A detailed examination of the understructure is being made, and if signs of strain are found definite action will be taken, by further limitation of loads and speeds or even by closing the bridge and sending all traffic the long way round.