HUTT ROAD IMPROVEMENTS

Hutt News, Volume 3, Issue 18, 25 September 1930, Page 5

HUTT ROAD IMPROVEMENTS

WIDENING TO NGAHAURANOA

WORK IN NOVEMBER

In view of the ever-increasing traffic on the Hutt Road, the City and Suburban ', Highways Board decided) last March to widen the bitumen track to 40ft between 'the end of Thorndon Qjuajr and that point where the Ngahauranga Gorge Road diverges from the Hutt Road. The present track is 24ft wide So that the widening decided upon means the addition of an Bft strip on both sides of the track and posibly the provision of a concrete Kerb'to bbviafe thes expensive grouting of the macadam section of the road on the edges of the'bitumen.

This work was scheduled for the next paving season, due to commence next month, but it will probably be November before a start is made, as there is some preliminary work to be cione with crossdrains and culverts before it wil be expedient to go ahead with the new paving.

.When asked recently about the reportedcracking of the bitumen track in places,' the Mayor, Mr G. A. Troup, stated that there was a series of small cracks in the pavement, but whether they would close up on the approach of warmer weather he was unable to say.

It was futile, he considereo, to use tile cracking of bitumen as an argument in favour of concrete pavement on heavy traffic roads, as there was plenty of evidence pointing to the disintegration of concrete under the hammering of heavy traffic. There -was a section of concrete road in. Ghristchuieh* which was badly affecteci and while in Anieriea he had travelled from Vancouver to Seattle on a concrete road, in which there were many far-extending cracks in places big enough to put one's fist into.

"My belief" said Mr Troup, *'is that in all cases where tar or bikunen is used there, comes a time when the substance loses its elacticity, its resilience. It loses its' life, so to speak and when that happens, a crack is likely to. remain a crack. ' *