PIECEMEAL ROAD CONSTRUCTION.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17881, 24 June 1926, Page 4

PIECEMEAL ROAD CONSTRUCTION.

To the Editor. Sir,—l join with you in the hope that the concrete and bitumen tramway track which the Tramway Board has laid in Victoria Street, expensive though it is, will justify itself in that the ordinary* maintenance expenses will be less. May* I add, as a motorist, that it is doubly welcome. fact that the big cost is being met by reserves is a bit of testimonial to the board’s financial policy of past years, because if new money had had to be found, the interest charges on it would be heavy, and might more than offset the saving in maintenance. I am inclined to question your belief that the whole road width, bv cooperation with the City* Council, should have been treated at the same time. Your points are (1) Road should not be pulled up twice because of inconvenience to the users: (2) Great loss by not employing men and plant already* there to make a complete job; and (3) Loss later in joining up. As to No. I—ln order to maintain traffic the Tramway Board had to do its work in two sections; first one track, then the other. If it had taken the two together trams would have been stopped altogether, and the same argument would apply* to the road portion. If the council decides to follow the board’s example, it would do one side at a time, and consequently fully two-thirds of the roadway*, including the tramline, would be left open for vehicular traffic. Even if no tram track had been there, the council would (I presume) do one-half of the road at a time out of consideration for every-day* traffic. As to No. 2—T fail to see where this great loss comes in. If the plant and men had not been mobile there would be something in y*our argument. After all, the chief cost is material and labour, and a strip twice as wide would cost about twice as much. As to No. 3—Loss later in joining up. Not being an engineer I write with some diffidence, but inasmuch as the concrete work for tramway is different in character to the concrete work for roadway, there would have to be a “ joining up,” even if the two were done at the same time. The concrete bed of the tramway track is deeper, and the mesh used for fortifying it would not be on the same level as that for the road, even if it was so, that mesh stuff is not made in streetwide widths. So far as the top bitumen stuff is concerned, my* observation while the tramway* track was being done was that it joins up well. The nature of the stuff is that there must be a joining up of new hot with old cold every day. You may* remember that one track was laid first, then the second, with good sealing results, and I think that the same good results would follow if the City Council does the rest of the roAd later on.—l am, etc., ST ALBANS MOTORIST.