THE KING'S HIGHWAY.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 2196, 8 July 1914, Page 17

THE KING'S HIGHWAY.

MAKING OF GOOD ROADS.

HOW A BIG PROBLEM IS BEING MET.

NATIONAL CONTROL NEEDED.

p\ HE advent of tho motor has comI : pletely changed the aspect of J_L tlio roads problem in New Zealand. Motor traction has offered i means for tho rapid opening of tho ■back country—given good roads;- and it l; hns provided a most efficient instrument /'for tho destruction of our present roads. These statements may appear paradoxical.'. But it does not follow that 'because motor traffic is rapidly ruining the host of the old-stylo roads that it woujd not he a highly profitable enterprise', to build modern highways that will "carry 'motor services through tlio heart of our back country. It is possible that tho cost of such roads would ,bo altogether prohibitive. : That ir a /matter which can only be determined by. actual experiment. And the sooner that experiment is mado the bettor it will bo for New Zealand. If good motor roads are a payable proposition it is well , that we should know it as early as; may bo, and hasten on building of d net-work of arterial' highways to feed and supplement tho railways. At present all the pioneering and experimental work is being dons by the local bodies, nnd the State has regained a/spectator. This is.:'not .as it should bo. The local bodies have not tho necessary resources, to enable them to experiment thoroughly with tHo various methods of road-making now adopted abroad. Nor are they in a position to send their, engineers to see at firsthand what is dono elsewhere. Unless the State lends its aid there is every prospect of an unnecessary drain on the local taxpayers. Progress will be slow . through lack of knowledge of the best • methods to adopt, and much money will bo wasted m copying the failures in- . stead of the successes .of other lands. ; i Modern road-making is a highly technical.art, and if the large sums voted annually by the State for roads continue to be expended on the old rule-of-thumb work, a great part of them will be wasted. In England the control of ' the national highways is vested in a special Roads Board which either car- ' ries out the work itself or'makes grants 1 1 to the local bodies and supervises their • work. In Victoria, also, a Roads Board ; has been.established. Such' a board.in ■, New Zealand would be the first step to , reform. ' : • : Our present local government system 1 is a haphazard growth. The 118 couni ties of the Dominion are'far from con- ' stituting the best units for carrying on i tho work; of road improvement. A gen-. 1 eral advance in road construction under i present conditions will mean that each of these counties will have to Durchaso ! an expensive road-making plant. The ■ plant required by a county if working independently 'would probably cost ; somowhero about £3000. This, would mean an-expenditure, of over, .£350,000 on machinery alone' to bring-each'county into lino. It is obvious tbat if a central authority,. such as the Eoad Board suggested, were in existence'it would be in a position to prevent a great'deal of costly duplication. .It might, for instance, provide plants of its own which ipuld gradually work through several / counties laying,down permanent 'arterial roads in each. It would be an immense boon to the settlers, for instance, if the board laid down a system of national highways through' all settled lands lands in , course of settlement, .so, designed that no settler anywhere would- be more than, say, at most, ten miles'distant from a first-class modern road. The ; roads • problem is most acute in the North Is- ■. [and, and - when one corned to look over tho map it soon becomes . the amount of roa'dirig' necessary to achieve this-.ond would not-_be nearly.'.so'. : great as might at krst bo imagined. :If the Government -took over tho - mainten-' > ance of. sufficient arterial roads-to effect , this object, drew the. rates on the pro-, perties fronting the State highways; and' ■' left tho maintenance of the subsidiary.; local roads to tho counties,' an. immense : load would be lifted off the'shoulders of ' the settlers. ' '' ■ A few. miles of indifferent by-road be- : r, tweenfa' back-country_ 'farmer's"home-.-stead'and' a good main'ror/l-is not a ■ great hardship. Tho curse of the' back ;: ccuutry is: the' had main' roads on: which the wholo ; ;trAffic ofi a!district.'isyopricen-. ; trated. If'tho settlers in the Ohura dis- ; trict, for instance, had a good .Statci maintained road betweeu the railway , station at Ongarue and thoir county i town at Ohura, the inferior branch roads leading into the different valleys would ! bo a matter ,of only secondary _import- : ance. It is' not the five or six' miles ; over the side road that kills, but tho ' twenty miles of ploughed-up mud and ' bog on tile main road. The by-roads do not hairo to bear a great traffic, and con- ; sequcntly. do not cost a great deal to maintain; their improvement is not a matter of urgency. A few good arterial roads through the back-blocks . over which steam or petrol wagons i could . carry, loads -throughout,-,tie year,"dump settlers' stores at. points' only a few miles .from their homesteads,, and bring out their produce at a minimum 1 of cost would mean more'for'the development of the country' than almost- any other publin work that could bo devised. , The great obstacle to tho construction of good roads iri many parts of the , North Island- is, of .course, . the absence of suitable.stone for metal/ It is pos- ' sible that in many, cases this will make tlie cost' of putting down 'motor l roads in : some districts prohibitive. Tho only ; alternative then will-be to run in so me form of rail -traffic or leave a- district to strugglo on as best it may. where tho . cost -of a 'railway or tramway is not ■ justified. Possibly when the Dominion's enormous resources in the way of water power are'developed a system of electric •''/ trolly lines-will be easily tho most eft'ec- :> tivo way of.: tapping largo areas of ~ country. It certainly is one of the dis- • advantages'of petrol motor traction that ' neither the vehicle, its fuel, nor its » tyres can be produced locally. The • greater the extension of petrol motor traffic, the greater tho amount of money that goes out of the country. With tho development of water-power schemes the • electric motor for road vehicles ' will doubtless come into its own in New' Zealand, and provide a huge demand for power. It is not possible in a brief review such as this to do more than touch cursorily on some of the broader aspects of tho roads problem. The development : of a system of first-class, motor roads is not a project to be turned lightly asido. In districts wliero road metal is scarce and difficult to procure,_ it is obnolis ■ that if a metalled road is to bo buiU at all it should be of as nearly porinaheiifc a character as possible. To fctch motal at a great cost and'waste it on <' :-.iporary work, as is too often done, is a suicidal policy. In most of tlieso districts it. should .bo possible to buiftT in good; roads by doing most of tho haulago of metal by motor wagon over the road itseifj gradually working qut fronrbases at which supplies of metal are available. . Finaliy it is necessary to remember, in weighing the question of roads versus railways, th at. whethor. a di s triot h as. a railway'or not it cannot escape the no-

cessity for a road. The issue is whether it is not a sound business policy to spend enough on tho arterial roads in back-blocks districts to make' them of real value to the settlers. "What this additional cost will be can only bo discovered by actual experiment./ The best method would probably be for the Government to. take one or two typical district's, and build modern highways into them. Tho forty-milb road from Pahiatua out to Pongaroa, for instance, offers an admirable field for experiment. Local enterprise has already provided a motor service, which is now conducted under the most indifferent road conditions, and is able to cover only apportion of the distance during tho winter months. Tho- construction of _an arterial highway down from Te ICuiti to Mokau, and on to Waifcara, would also benefit a large area, of country unlikely to be tapped by a railway for many years to come, anjd at the same timo provide a highway through the island, linking tlio northern and southern main read systems. ,

The days for local control of arterial roads have gone. by. In bygone years, when practically all- road trafßc was local traffic, comity control was.a sound policy. Now, a motor-car will take .0110 'through a, dozen, counties in. a day's run, and it is the motor which is killing tho old roads. Every year sees motoring' within the reach of a larger range of people, and the development of the light, inexpensive car, .now so marked a feature of tho motoring movement, will shortly double and treble tho number of motor-cars in use. i .

The appointment of a road-board, a Public Works Board/ or whatever 'it might, be called, would largely do away with the necessity for a reform of the local government By stem, 'find would' make an efficiency in highway construction and maintenance that is at present' entirely out of the question.