The Taranaki Herald. DAILY EVENING. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1915. THE COUNTY ROADS.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 144779, 8 September 1915, Page 2

The Taranaki Herald. DAILY EVENING. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1915. THE COUNTY ROADS.

In deciding to treat with Soltar or some such preparation forty chains of the Main South Road the Taranaki County Council has certainly taken a wise step, though we hope it will not confine its attention to the particular preparation named, since there are others from which it is claimed better results are obtained. Indeed Mr. Furkert, the Inspecting Engineer of the Public Works Department, who made a special study of this question when he was in England a year or two ago, reported more favourably of bitumen as a road binder. He made inquiries into the results of experiments made near London with metal bound with bituminous matrix containing varying proportions of tar, and found that those with the larger proportion of tar seemed the least satisfactory. Speaking further of bituminous bound roads, he reported that they made a perfect surface and that sections of road which had been down over two years were indistinguishable from work just laid down, and that there had been no cost for repairs. The last few words are worth repeating: “There had been no cost for repairs.” Now the Taranaki County Council is spending nearly £250 per mile per annum in maintaining the Main South Road, which is equal to five per cent, interest on £SOOO. Mr. M'Alliun estimates that it will cost £240 to tar-seal half a mile of road, and that it will cost less than £SO per mile per annum to maintain it afterwards. Suppose we double his estimates and allow that it will cost £IOOO a mile to do the work thoroughly and £IOO a year to maintain it. Interest on £IOOO at five per cent, would amount to £SO a year, and adding this to the annual cost of maintenance (£100) we arrive at an annual charge per mile of £l5O, which is £IOO less than is being spent now. Therefore it will pay the council to spend £IOOO a mile in making a good scaled road. The sealing is not likely to cost anything approaching that figure, but if it is to be successful the road must be, thoroughly laid down in the first place. If this is done and the sealing is successful, as there is every reason to believe it will he, it is likely that the annual maintenance charge will be much less than estimated. The road Mr. Furkert inspected and referred to in his report was, we may assume, thoroughly constructed, and “there had been no cost for repairs” after it had been down over two years. It is scarcely likely that the roads near London carry less or lighter traffic than the Taranaki county roads; hence an equally good road here should last longer without renewal or repair. The thing to ho chiefly avoided is placing Soltar or any other sealing preparation upon a badly made road. Tho foundation should be sound enough to carry the heaviest traffic without giving under it, and the metal should he properly broken so that it will bind. A lot of the machinecrushed metal now being used in the borough is poor stuff which will never give good results; and we do not refer so much to the quality of the stone as to the way in which it is broken. Examination will disclose flat slabs of

stone, sometimes almost as big as a man’s hand, and small unbroken stones as big as duck eggs. These will never bind properly, and it is not giving a sealing material a fair chance to place it on a road so constructed. If it costs the County Council a few pounds extra to take care that the road it proposes to treat is not metalled in this way, and to have it thoroughly well rolled, we feel sure that the experiment of sealing will prove so satisfactory that every year the extent of road so treated will he extended, even if it is necessary to borrow for the purpose. Everything depends, however, upon the work being well done in the first place.