ROAD MAINTENANCE,

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2525, 28 July 1915, Page 5

ROAD MAINTENANCE,

Sir, —May I ask for space to reply to the statements made in your issue of this morning on the subject of road maintenance, as one who has to some extent studied and observed tho methods adopted both in Australia and England not many years ago? What I cannot help calling the "amazing discoveries of. the chairman of tho Hutt County Cmmcil and the City' Engineer" aro^contained in their words, viz.: Tho chairman was reported saying as follows: "The time is past when we can keep a road even tolerably decent with a few men, picks, shovels, and a barrow. ; . . Wc are getting a steam roller." This obvious method, with somo others evidently not within his knowledge, is, fortunately, for road users, well known to local authorities in other parts of the world, and has been, for some time, before tho chairman discovered the necessity I The City Engineer's discovery apparently is that looselydumped metal in a hollowis disturbed by motor traction! Further, that the repair of a road should be done, not by the local authorities, but by, the users, as follows: "Dry loose metal that is meant to be gradually pressed in and become a solid patch of hard metal."; This is the method certainly followed in many of the roads round Wellington, where a road is allowed to wear into holes; whereupon a cart dumps down some, metal in it, and if a lorry or a motor-car happens to pass over it before other people's carts, and so partly consolidate it, out it conies I Most old. women are accustomed to mend holes by darning and'patching, and would not think of trying to make a good job by joining tho new with merely tho frayed ends of the old, especially in the rear of a pair of pants used by her,husband, as she would know it would bo labour lost—unless, of course, he always stood, up., The illustration of the heavy engines on tho light lino' road no doubt is quite as correct as. to 6ay generally tho heavier the mass tho greater the pressure, and that if you have a heavy weight to support you must i construct a corresponding resistance.;

' Tho reply obviously is that if the light lino has proved itself too light to carry the traffic it should be replaced by a heavy line; not that,all users of up-to-date plant should bo stopped running their vehicles.- Yet, Sir, this plan is the only one apparently that the local authorities can think of, as I know that in. somo of the country districts motor lorries have been ordered off the roads. This, reminds one' of the long fight' there has been for theso vehicles to bo allowed to run at all when many years ago, in England, the railway authorities, fearing their competition, induced legislation which practically made it .too expensive for them to-run.

■As to the suggestion of a , tax, I don't suppose the owners of such vehicles would mind this, provided that they had, good roads to travel upon, as good roads save in repairs. ' As long, however, as the present method.ol road repairing exists, I presumo they have a right to object. This plan is to uso a maximum of metal with a minimum of sense, and so costs tho country more, with poor results, than would loss metal properly laid down in the first place, and so maintained that inequalities in the surface caused by traffic are at once seen to, and the road surface restored before holes arc made, first small, and then big. This is the method, at all events, followed in other parts of the world, and somo years ago I inspected > one of the main roads leading out of Melbourne, which must have carried an enormous traffic, and found that four miles of metal properly laid down and maintained was sufficient for tho purpose of all traffic, and motor vehicles were not ordered off.—l am, etc., . , , .. . A.M.1.C.E..