PAVED ROADS

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 96, 17 January 1935, Page 10

PAVED ROADS

How They Are Standing Up to Traffic SUMMER CONDITIONS Concrete Highway Not Infallible Wellington’s paved roads are standing tip well to tlie test in the form of the longest spell of hot weather experienced since they were put down. It has to be remembered that when the term “permanent pavement” was applied to bituminised roads, it conveyed to some people that such roads (some of them paved to 5$ inches in depth) would actually be permanent. Possibly it would take fifty or sixty years to actually wear out a properly paved road, but that would not by any means guarantee a perfectly smooth surface. No road ever laid down can withstand the hammer of heavy traffic for three or four years without showing signs of wear and tear. Possibly the cast-iron roads which are being tried out in some parts of the Old Country would endure in a smooth-sur-faced condition best, but all other surfaces so far devised by man begin to show some effect of heavy trafiic after five or six years, no matter how sound the foundation, how perfect the concrete or bitumen mix applied. Case of the Hutt Road. / In Wellington the Hutt Road—between Thorndon Quay and the railis a? crossing at Petone —is not the road it was. It still has a good surface, and one much superior to the best of macadam roads, but it is furrowed crosswise, causing more or less vibration in every car, according to how they are furnished with shock-absorbers and tires. The Hutt Road was completed over ten and a half years ago. Then, again, parts of it are not all the original road. The section between Ngahauranga and Wellington was widened four years ago aud several stretches have been resurfaced bv the latest method of applying a tine hot mix and honing it down to the level of the highest points in the old surface. This process calls for engineering skill. The mix has to be the right mix; it has to be applied and spread at the right temperature, ami . at the right hour it must be honed. Much data is in the possession of the staff of the city engineer in regard to this work, but even results cannot be guaranteed. One of the best surfaces, achieved through the honing process is the Petone Parade. That two-mile section of the Hutt Road, southward from Petone, done only four months ago, is not so smooth as the Parade. Still, it is a nicely improved surface, and 1such a surface could be applied to the whole of the Hutt Road it would be a bounteous gift to motorists. Concrete Vulnerable. Those who use the main road between Eastbourne and Wellington daily are the best judges of the state of road surfaces in that territory. There is not one who has not noticed that there are the beginnings of corrugations in the concrete road which traverses the flat between Randwick Road and the Lowry Bay Road. When this road was laid down six years ago it was deemed to be the ne plus ultra of all roads, and that such roads would never wrinkle, move or corrugate as bitumen was proved to do in hot weather or under the stress of traffic. The fact remains that the vibratory action on cars is becoming more and more accentuated when driving over this stretch of road. It may scarcely be noticed on the new cars with lowpressure tires, but on cars with ordinary tires this action is very noticeable. One motorist said that the vibration is such that the play of his mirror is so great that the image received is a mere blur. So, after six years only, the infallibility of the concrete road is seriously attacked. Possibly at 10$ rears of age it will be as smoothless as the original Hutt Road. “Fixing” Marine Drive. When Mr. C. J’E Norwood was Mayor in 1926, the road from Lyall Bay to Seatoun was formed, this completing the marine drive round the whole of the Miramar Peninsula. At (bat time it was seriously proposed that a certain part of the drive should be paved each year. Since then the only move in .that direction has been the surfacing of the Worser Bay Road. In view of the development of settlement in that district, the enormous popularity df the bays and the drive, and the comparatively recent acquisition of Scorching Bay as a public domain, some consideration might be given to the surfacing of the road, ’ from the Miramar wharf right round to Scorching Bay—a distance of about three miles only. Pavement in the sense applied to the Hutt Road (which cost 8/6$ a square yard), could > not be considered, bu' the application of that serviceable surface-fixer, the solution known as “MCI.” might be applied, and so complete the most wonderful urban seaside drive in New Zealand. This solution can be applied over a big area for as cheap as sd. per square yard, and so is quite within the bounds of the corporation purse. Moreover the whole job ceuld be done in a week’s time.