ROAD CONSTRUCTION.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIV, Issue 4618, 26 October 1923, Page 1

ROAD CONSTRUCTION.

BITUMINISED CONCRETE WORKFAVOURED IN ENGLAND. Mr T. O. Fox, one of the district engineers attached to the Wellington City Council’s staff, returned from a visit to England by the Tainui on Saturday (says the Dominion). Mr Fox spent some fourteen weeks in England, and for the greater part of that .time devoted his attention to studying the various methods of road construction in and around London. Mr Fox gives an assurance that Wellington is proceeding on sound lines, as he found that bituminised concrete is coming into great favour in London and elsewhere in England. Speaking to a representative he stated that he had passed over 70 miles of bituminised road in five counties which were as good as any motorist could desire. In this case the bitumen (sand mixed) was laid on a concrete foundation, and was standing up to the work wonderfully well. In London he met Sir Henry Maybury, head of the roads branch of the Transport Department, and through the courtesy of that gentleman was shown every branch of the work, including the new London to Dover road. This great highway was being relaid from end to end. The basis was old concrete and brick-bats from the London streets, and when that was rolled it was covered with several inches of chalk flints, rolled again,, and then given a surface of bituminised concrete. In London wood blocks on top of eight inches of concrete had been found to be too light a form of construction to hold up against the 7000 tons of traffic per square yard per day, which passed over some of the principal streets, and the - authorities were now laying down from twelve to fifteen inches of reinforced concrete as a foundation for the wood blocks. Australian hardwood blocks had been used in the past, but they had been found to wear round at the edges, and in time became as rough as the cobblestones of Holborn. Blocks of deal and Baltic pine were now being used, as such soft woods wore down evenly under traffic. As giving an idea of the motor-bus traffic in London, Mr Fox mentioned tint the London Omnibus Company had some 3800 buses, each of which weighed about 5% tons unloaded. As each bus could carry 56 people, and they were generally crowded, one could form some estimate of the traffic from that one class of vehicle alone. The latest class of bus was a beauty. A passenger-only had to step up about one foot to gain the main floor, and the old steps had been done away with altogether. In addition to to London Omnibus Company’s big plant there were some 400 to 500 “pirates,” that was busses running independently oyer the same routes as those of the company, using the same destination numbers. Lots of people would not ride on the “pirates” as they only came on a route after it had been opened up by the company.