GOOD ROADS.

Waipawa Mail, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8362, 28 July 1920, Page 1

GOOD ROADS.

PROGRESS OF RECENT YEARS. The great demand in all parts of the civilised world for better roads has led to a rapid rise of a new branch of civil engineering from comparative obscurity to prime importance as a science and art. The new science, due to the enormous growth of motor traffic, is known as highway engineering, and on this subject Mr Leonard M. Sandston, M.A., B.Sc. (engineering), of Christchurch, who is an authority, read an interesting paper before the last meeting of the Wellington Philosophical Society. The transition stage, said Mr Sandston, through the mass of data and new problems had now passed, so that the way was open for true knowledge and true science in road engineering. A more intimate cooperation between the chemist and road engineer was demanded. In Britain, a Ministry of Transportation had just been created, with Sir Eric Geddes at its head, to deal with the whole road problem; a new classification of roads was in progress, through roads were being laid down, and a new standard of maintenance planned; a taxation or levy on road users was projected, and all existing legislation would be reviewed in relation to the handicap it imposed on motor transportation. IN THE UNITED STATES. After surveying the excellent work and the high plane of efficiency in the personnel of the Department of Roads in France, .where it was proposed there should be established a National Roads Board, Mr Sandston turned to the United States of America, where, in the investigation of the various chemical and physical properties of bituminous materials, and their effect for road maintenance and construction, it was recognised the practice was far in advance of European. The American universities early appreciated the importance of elevating the profession of road engineer to a plane of efficiency commensurate with its national importance. In 1912, out of 92 institutions giving civil engineering courses, 78, or 85 per cent., included a text-book course in highway engineering, as against only 50 per cent, three years earlier. In 1911, Columbia University gave a post-graduate course leading to a master’s degree in highway engineering, and as a measure of its instant popularity, it might be mentioned that amongst those attending that course were highway engineers of standing from all over U.S.A., and some from Europe. A library devoted solely to highway engineering literature was a unique and valuable adjunct to the course. FOCUSSING PUBLIC ATTENTION. At many of the State Universities every year Good Roads Conventions foregathered, and valuable work was done in the interchange of practical ideas, and in the focussing therefrom of public attention on the need for reform in road matters. In 1893 was established the United States Federal Office of Public Roads, which had since done yeoman service in revolutionising road administration and practice, through laboratory research on road materials, practically tests on experimental road sections, spreading good roads propaganda throughout the land, and supervising the expenditure of Federal funds subsidising individual State effort where the office was given jurisdiction over the expenditure in the matter of drawing up the specifications for the work, and inspecting the carrying out of the work. A Dominion Roads Office had been suggested by the various bodies in New Zealand, analagous to the Victorian Country Roads Board, and it was devoutly to be hoped that this initial move for reform would succeed. Courses in Highway Engineering might well be given a plaee in the curricula of the engineering schools of the Dominion, and valuable laboratory research might he conducted in conjunction therewith. MATERIALS AND THEIR USE. The various materials, and especially tars and asphalts, were exhaustively described by the lecturer, who illustrated his points by means of moving pictures and formulae. Bitumens were well adapted for use on roads in Australasia by reason of the physical conditions obtaining. The mining and refining of natural asphalts were shown on the screen, and the microscopic composition of Trinidad asphalt, together with a brief view of the heaviest traffic street on the American Continent, Fortysecond street and Fifth Avenue, New York. Extracts from the official report of the Engineering Department of the District of Columbia relative to the reduced upkeep charges of the asphalt streets of Washington, D.C., through modern methods of construction, were given. The average age of streets resurfaced in recent past years exceeded 25 years. The average age of streets resurfaced in 1916 was 29.6 years; 1917, 27 years old; 1918, 26 years old; and in 1919, 26.7 years old. Many streets eight years old had cost nothing at all in maintenance. Three streets constructed in 1879 had, in 1915, averaged but lid per square yard per annum over the