MOUNT ALBERT ROAD

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 843, 11 December 1929, Page 11

MOUNT ALBERT ROAD

HIGH MAINTENANCE COSTS ANOTHER POLL PROPOSED The recent rejection of the loan proposals of the Mount Roskill Road Board for concreting Mount Albert Road, from the Royal Oak to the Mount Albert boundary, is causing the board no small concern. The engineer, M.r. John Dawson, reported at the board’s meeting last evening that the Main Highways Board, which has been sharing the cost of maintenance for some months past, is also dissatisfied. The engineers of both boards agree in condemning the existing system of dressing the road with scoria, which is ground to powder by the wheeled traffic, and blown away in dust. The ratepayers having refused to sanction a concreting loan, Mr. Dawson .recommends trimming the surface to a uniform shape and dressing it with a layer of chips and some suitable blinding material, at an estimated cost of £l,lOO. The Highways Board, he points out, has £2OO left in hand of the current year’s allocation, and is prepared to find its share of the proposed expenditure. Discussing the report, Mr. G. E. Tansley considered that it constituted a good lever with which to induce the ratepayers to realise the wastage in trying to maintain a main highway with scoria. Horses and drays, he said, were everlastingly on the road, piling up maintenance costs, which were now equivalent to the interest and sinking fund charges on a loan for a concrete road. Anything cheaper than bitumen was sheer waste of public money. He contended that the question of a concreting loan should be placed again before the ratepayers, and urged that the Main Highways Board be asked to agree to the existing conditions until the question is settled by another poll. Mr. S. I. Goodall: The ratepayers are not in the frame of mind to support a loan for this highway. An alternative scheme would possibly meet with their approval.

Mr. E. A. Pearce, chairman of the works committee, declared that Mount Albert Road was a short cut between the north and south main highways, and was used principally by outside tourists. Three Kings Road, in his opinion, was far more important' to the district ratepayers. He advocated laying that thoroughfare in concrete in preference to Mount Albert Road.

It was finally agreed to adopt the engineer’s report, and to set up a special committee to furnish a report on a comprehensive roading scheme to be submitted to the ratepayers at the annual meeting in May next.