ROAD-MAKING METHODS

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 9922, 2 May 1925, Page 3

ROAD-MAKING METHODS

THE COST PER MILE. A local county official has been pointing out again the importance of road maintenance as a financial burden on the public. Most people recognise the simple tact that money spent on road maintenance is money largely wasted, hut (comments the “Board and Council,” the official organ of many local bodies in New Zealand) when it comes to suggesting ways of avoiding the waste, the usual proposal is to raise a loan of thousands of millions and build everlasting highways, or at all events to build a road involving heavy capital expenditure paid out of some deep pocket. The authority in question has doubted the wisdom of the present enthusiasm in Wellington in favour of bitumen roacls costing round about £SOOO a mile. A mile of such road a year is a serious burden for most local bodies, especially in view of the need for maintaining all the unconverted miles; and he suggests that perhaps the road so made, unless the foundation is as good as the surface, will prove disappointing. For these reasons he advises consideration of less costly methods, especially the “penetration” method, which will give a good hard-working road with a long life for about £2OOO a mile. The same critic also made an interesting suggestion on the present endeavour of the railways to recover some of the freight traffic, which motor transport lias diverted to the roads. This is that the Railway Department should assist local bodies to obtain a limitation of axle loads. This would to some extent control the heavy traffic in favour of the railroads, and would protect the roads against “ruthless exploitation.” Incidentally, “Board and Council” points out that scientific control of road-loading needs more than weight is to be taken into consideration. It is rot sufficient to say that an axle must not be loaded beyond so much, if the axle load can be carried at any speed. Other things being equal, a onetori load carried at 20 miles an hour is as disastrous to, a road structure as a four-ton load carried at ten miles an hour. The protection of roads against destructive traffic shocks is tiecoming more and more necessary with the development of speed in heavy vehicles like the big motor lorries now in use.