THE ROADING QUESTION.

King Country Chronicle, Volume XIX, Issue 2053, 9 December 1924, Page 5

THE ROADING QUESTION.

GOOD GRAVEL HIGHWAYS. A recent visitor to Wellington was Mr W. Calder, chairman of the Victorian County Roads Board, which is equivalent in that State of our Main Highways Board. Mr Calder has been on a tour of the world examining road construction methods in different countries, and in summing up his impressions in the course of conversation with a local engineer said the great outstanding thing lie had learned from his tour was the wonderful results that could be obtained with gravel roads. Mr Calder said his colleagues in Victoria would possibly be disappointed when he returned and talked gravel, but the splendid gravel roads now maintained in relatively small cost were remarkable.

Reference was recently made to the fact that gravel roads in certain parts of the United States are now being maintained in perfect order under a traffic of as much as 900 motor vehicles a day. A year or two back Mr Charles J. Bennett, State Highway Commissioner for Connecticut, stated that gravel roads would carry up to 500 motor vehicles per day with no trucks in excess of eight tons, total load. In some parts, however, much heavier traffic even than this is now being satisfactorily carried on gravel. As New Zealand’s arterial road traffic. ranges from 500 vehicles per day in the vicinity of the larger centres of population to an average of from 150 to 250 vehicles per day over the generality of the Wellington to Napier main roads, it is obvious that the recent American achievements with gravel are of the greatest interest to

It appears from Mr Calder’s statements that gravel roads constructed on up-to-date lines are giving much more satisfaction than macadam. One of the essential points with this type of road is to maintain a coating of loose grit over the surface, and an American practice is to spread tin’s coating evenly over the road in the summer months, giving a flat crosssection with little camber, and in the winter months to bring it back into the centre of the roads so as to provide the typical gravel road crown. Mr Tyndall, assistant engineer to the Highways Board, who was recently in the United States, also returned much impressed by the American methods of gravel road maintenance, and in the work of Mr Benliam, engineer to Hurt County, has put in hand here and there on the county roads during the past month or two since he took over, evidence is already accumulating that marked improvements can be effected by a proper use of our old familiar road-making materials. The idea prevalent in certain circles that the only alternative to pot-holed macadam with obsolete rule of thumb maintenance is a costly hot-mix road, at £4OOO per mile, or even more expensive concrete, is one that will not hold water. There are any number of valuable intermediate types, and what wc need to do is to start at the cheap end and work up on the lines of the stage system recommended by the United States Bureau of Roads. America’s achievements with gravel are decidedly well worth our close attention.