CONCRETE ON THE ROADS.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 24 August 1916, Page 3

CONCRETE ON THE ROADS.

CONCRETE FOR BRIDGES

Full Particulars of a Most Welcome Innovation, as supplied in a Pamphlet issued by Wilson's Portland Cement Co.

Auckland

(Continued from last week and to be continued weekly).

AMERICAN EXAMPLES

Although England and other settled countries are gradually increasing the number and mileage of their concrete highways it is in the United States of' America where the greatest activity has taken place and where most of the experimental or pioneer work has been done.

We propose devoting some considerable attention to the activities of our American cousins in the matter of good roads, because their problems are very similar to our own, and we are foolish indeed if we do not profit by their experiences. With characteristic push and energy the Americans are surmounting the difficulties which have beset them from the commencement of the concrete roads movement, and they are now making concrete roads which meet every traffic requirement.

Before proceeding to give examples of the method of construction and the cost of concrete roads in America, it will be illuminating to New Zealanders to read an address given by Mr Edward N. Hines before the National Conference on Concrete Road Building held at Chicago, February 12, 13, and 14, 1914.

Mr Hines is Chairman of the Board of County Koad Commissioners, Wayne County, Mich. This county was perhaps the first in America to adopt concrete entirely for making permanent country roads, and so successful have been their efforts in this direction that wide interest in their work was cteated throughout the country, culminating in an enthusiastic agitation in favour of concrete highways for all main arteries or post roads. National Conferences on Concrete Road Building followed, and ways and means have been seriously discussed to build not only main country roads, but a great transcontinental highway from San Francisco to New York. This great concrete highway seems

likely to become an accomplished fact in the near future. It is called the Great Lincoln Highway; and will stretch from coast to coast, affording a splendid motor trip that will attract

tourists from all parts of the world.

One does not require to be a great prophet to foretell that the vehicular traffic of the future will be almost entirely motor driven, consequently our ideas about road-making in this country must undergo a radical change. We should stop and consider the matter seriously before we spend any more money on roads that may have to be torn up and rebuilt in a year or so. We New Zealanders are a long way from the hub of the universe, and new conditions of life as they develop in the older countries do not affect us quite so quickly, but affect us they most certainly do in time, nevertheless. We are always a little way behind in any world-wide movement, however, and therein lies our peculiar economic advantage, if we will

only realise it sufficiently to fully profit by it.

For example, take this case of permanent concrete roads movement in America. It is the result of a new condition of life which has developed more quickly in the United States than perhaps anywhere else, We allude to the advent of the autmobile, America realises that this new condition calls for a different class of road to that which we have been accustomed to regard as the best, and she sets about building it. She has to go through a long period of experimenting before she hits upon the right method of building that road, but she gets it; right at last. That is where we come in. We get the benefit of all America's experimental work if we like to take advantage of it, We can simply step right in and build the road that she has proved will have to be built in the future without having to go to all the trouble and expense of experimenting. We might even be able, to improve on her methods and build it better when we do start, but we have the benefit of starting on the right side of the big hurdje whioh she h^s ha.d to negotiate. There is nq need for us to potter about, putting down an expensive strip here and there to see how it will act. We should adopt economical methods from the commencement, boldly.

[No. 4