COST OF ROADING

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LII, Issue 17130, 4 September 1926, Page 15

COST OF ROADING

CONCRETE V. BITUMEN

HOT MIX CHEAPER

WELLINGTON, Sep!. 11

A reporl from Auckland that "permanent paving ill concrete was now cheaper than bituininised hot-mix, is not endorsed by local authorities concerned in I'onding work. The report suited (hat the Mauukuu Cotmtv Coun-

cil had accepted a contract for a section of concrete reading at a price that would work out at £7i)oo per mile, whilst the Main Highways Hoard was mentioned as the authority for saying that a hot-mix road would .cost £7700 per mile. Local authorities stated ;hut there must he "a catch somewhere,"

as ao hot-mix roads in Wellington or suburbs have yet worked out to as much as £7500 a mile —not even the llufl road, which was laid down when no one concerned had any experience in the new method of paving. Even that—a live-inch road —was put down at a cost of Os 11 |il per square yard, choreas, it was stated, a similar road to-day iu concrete could not bo laid down at under TSs per square yard. There had been some costly stretches here and there, owing to the discovery that there were no foundations for a road, but at 30s per square yard (the city engineer's eslimate for the Hint road) the cost only worked out at Si)2;")0 per mile (including' preparation), whereas the price for concrete roading in the north did not include preparation cost, but was only for the concrete slab. Even at the very most, it was declared, the price for a hot-mix load had worked out at nearly £lllOO per mile below what Maniikau County was going to pay.

The City engineer (Mr. A. J. Paterson) said that the whole thing had been settled in America long ago. In Louisiana (U.S.A.) the hot-mix people had a standing challenge that they would put down roads at half the cost of concrete roads of the same thickness, and it worked out to about the same thing in New Zealand, a.s jMsinukau County would Jind iu the fullness of time.

When the present contracts are completed some time next year, Auckland will have a concrete road extending from t'apakura. in the smith, through the city to Henderson, in the north. 11 one takes iu the Queen's Drive, the Day's Bay road, and the road to Upper Hll'lt, Wellington already has over that mileage of uol>mix roads down. without considering such streets as Cambridge Terrace, Chuzneo, Tarauaki, Tory, Wakelield, and Victoria streets, and .lorvois Quay, so that Wellington may be said to be holding her own in permanent paving mileage.