RISES OF THE ROAD.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18601, 8 January 1924, Page 9

RISES OF THE ROAD.

HIGHWAYS OF AUCKLAND.

GROTESQUE CONDITIONS.

'HINDRANCE TO PROGRESS.

Most of the main roads out of Auckland are grotesquely inadequate for the greatly increased traffic which now uses them. Their names only, like the Appian Way, are distinctive. There is the Great South Road, with its alluring suggestion of distance; there is the Great North Road, with its miles of pipe-clay, and at least seven different kinds of adhesive mud; and there are . all sorts of rural tracks with local designations. Even the Eangiriri Road has quite an impressive title— strangers. After ram one appellation is applicable to them all. It does not, unfortunately, represent politeness. These disgraceful roads have another unique distinction: They have three dimensions: Length, breadth, and depth, the third dimension being provided freely and frequently by mud holes. Of course, there are stretches of highway along the main arterial roads which indisputably have been subjected to the enterprise of civilisation, but these merely emphasise the notorious primitiveness of the neglected and forgotten lengths of clay, sand, dust, mud, and conglomerates. Fifty motorists returned to Auckland during the week-end by way of the Rangiriri track. They found it, after the plumping rain on Friday night, to be in an infamous condition. It was a slithery switchback of pot-holes and mud-plas-tered ridges. Petrol and profanity took them through the disgraceful place in the end, but their . memories of the grotesque experience will not, of course, find happy expression in advertising the otherwise delightful touring attractions of Auckland. There is a deviation in process of construction along the toe of the Rangiriri Hills, but it is not yet a Public Works Department masterpiece. Something appears to have gone awry in respect of the supply of metal from another State department, and the new road remains a mockery. The reason for the hitch is a Cabinet secret. Peers and a Physician. The harshest provincial opinion about some of the Auckland district roads ib complimentary compared to that of fartravelled tourists. Two visiting peers and a physician have had something to say about the woes of motorists south of Auckland and in the thermal zone, and their verdict is anything but flattering, though here and there entertaining. Lord Leverhulme was more expressive in action than in Words. Ho abandoned his projected motor trip to Rotorua, proceeded by train, noticed that the roads were worse than they were on his previous visit many years ago, and hurried to Wellington, where he found consolation _ in jazzing at the local cabaret. As a jazz enthusiast his lordship missed many new movements by not motoring all the ffi way to Rotorua. Lord Strathspey has said that the roads around Rotorua are not bad but are disgraceful. He makes a business point of the sorry condition, and contends that New Zealand is losing a tremendous amount of tourist traffic owing to bad roads. The only answer to his argument is to say nothing and make, the roads better. A Canterbury physician recently diagnosed the roads from Wellington to Auckland. In a pafient a similar diagnosis would have represented a desperate case. The chart was brief and vivid. " From Taupo. to Rotorua is 56 miles; it takes five hours. The road is nothing but holes and Bumps. An abominable trip." Then from Rotorua to Hamilton through the Mamaku Bush, declared Dr. Gerald Russell, the journey "is a frightful nightmare." And so on, with a pleasant exception between Cambridge and Hamilton, to the notorious Rengiriris. Here the clay track of 12 miles convinced the doctor that the locality is a no-man's land, with the road quarried by the shells of heavy artillery. Again, an abominable road between Papakura and Otahuhu, and finally the joy of the concrete roads of Auckland city. Economy of Good Roads. In all countries which are not classified by th© League of Nations as "backward communities' the economy of good roads is realised and an attempt made to secure such economy. Local government attaches more - importance to good roads than to anything else. New Zealand is still far behind the times. Progress in road construction is patchy. It is obvious that motor traffic is nob much more "than at the beginning of a. great and inevitable expansion. The increase in Auckland city alone last year was a total of 3649 vehicles, an. advance of 46 per cent. In the Waikato district motor traffic is relatively enormous, and increasing rapidly, due largely to the expansion of dairying and the economical use of motor transport of cream to the factories. The registration of motor vehicles at Hamilton totalled 948 as against 540 in 1922. In the last three months of last year the increase was 130 per cent. The fact that 62 motor trucks were jtegistered shows that it is not a matter of touring and joy-riding. Rapid transport n.eans good business, and it is essential to trade development and the extension of practical land settlement. Expansion <-f motor traffic is world-wide ; it is an nitst-iiding feature of modern commerce and general progress. One of the most cogent arguments put forward in favour of a omprehensive scheme of modern road contraction in England was the fact that on one main road in the Midlands, where five years ago only one motor-car passed a given point each minute of the working day, the rate now is 360 an hour. In the United States and Canada the expansion of motor traffic is like the growth of the beanstalk in the fable. And in these countries the main roads are being improved all the time. Administrators have passed the talking stage; the work of making old roads better goes steadily forward.

Roads of the Future. It has to be admitted that there is at long last a prospect of better roads in the Auckland district. A policy has keen adopted by the Government, and some preliminary organisation has boen effected. But the programme of construction is still in the air. The Minister for Kailways and Public Works, Hon. J. G. Coates, declared at Kaeo, in North Auckland, on Saturday, that the Government's policy is to construct roads that will be feeders to the railways, and to ports. "It is endeavouring to get people to the railways on good roads instead of letting them flounder their way through mud." In order to obtain funds for the maintenance of capital road construction under the new Main Highways Act, it will be necessary to adopt some form of taxation, and also a more uniform system of traffic control. Mr. Coates favours a petrol tax as the fairest way, in his opinion, to make the users ' of roads pay for maintenance, and he made a special appeal to farmers not "to raise a howl," as he thought exemptions could be provided for the petrol used for farming machinery. In .North America concrete roads are maintained partially by direct rating of adjacent lands on the betterment principle, but the chief income is obtained by a petrol tax of 3 cents per gallon. This latter tax works well in practice, and especially in the case of motorists touring different Stales. A car cannot run without petrol, and the tourist must pay the levy before he can obtain motor spirit. The system avoids the vexatious delay and other irritations associated with tollgates. It has to be recognised that good roads require heavy initial expenditure. Auckland Province can afford to spend a great deal more than it has yet spent on modern road construction. The district leads in almost everything save roads, and these are essential to . further and greater development of its resources. It is all. a question of organised co-operation between the various local bodies and the State,, and an equitable apportionment of costs. The reproach of disgraceful roads must be removed. No other territory in the Dominion could equal the response of the Auckland district to first-class roads. Without thorn, much usoful land remains a wilderness.