BAY OF PLENTY BEACON Published Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 1949 OUR HIGHWAYS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 13, Issue 50, 7 February 1949, Page 4

BAY OF PLENTY BEACON Published Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 1949 OUR HIGHWAYS

At its next general meeting, the Whakatane Chamber of Commerce proposes to discuss the condition —one might with justice say the deplorable condition —of the three highways out of Whakatane. The idea is not a new one. Practically every person who travels into or out of this place just now has more or less bitter comment to make on the same subject. Right now sections of the road to Rotorua would be admirable for bullock wagons, a danger to the springs of buggies, and a positive menace to motorists and their vehicles. There is a section between here and Opotiki that is at best a splendid device for speeding up the depreciation rate of any car that passes over it, and at worst a hazard to travelers. The Waimana Gorge, subject of constant attention by maintenance gangs, must be one of the top-ranking white elephants amongst the North Island’s highways. Not far past Poroporo on the way to Tauranga the surface is badly knocked about, hard on vehicles and drivers. Truly, it is time someone reminded the authorities that this is not good enough. Why is it, members of the Chamber of Commerce and others want to know, that perfectly safe and reasonably well surfaced roads are so often ripped up miles at a time and turned into a series of holes reminiscent of bomb craters joined by thin tracks of unstable loose gravel? We are perhaps unfortunate in that we seem to be in the vortex of the Ten Year Plan, or some other long,term plan to give us better roads through toil and blood, tears and sweat. Maybe there is a plan. The theory is not untenable. But what the Chamber of Commerce will probably want to know is just when we might expect it to bear some fruit in the shape of roads that w : 'I carry traffic with smooth con nuity, rather than in a series or leaps from bump to bump. Let it be understood that what follows is sheer speculation, deduction from gossip, one might say. But it .has been suggested, facetiously perhaps, that this is all part of a vast educational scheme, to make us appreciate moderately good roads (when and if we ever get them), not to expect really good roads, and to be humbly thankful for any and every small improvement. Be that as it may, public dissatisfaction is getting beyond the stage of semi-humorous speculation.

We need and want decent roads. And we need them now. A worn-out and dangerous bridge its only gateway to the

disgracefully surfaced highways to the north, and flood-prone gravel tracks its only other outlets, this town is virtually isolated with every spell of heavy weather.

We repeat, that is not good enough.