HIGHWAYS, ANCIENT AND MODERN

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 9, Issue 555, 6 August 1920, Page 3

HIGHWAYS, ANCIENT AND MODERN

PART 111.

The New Tyranny.

We all of us like good roads, and few of us love to pay for them, but by one of tho Ironies of fate the man who gets the most out of them very often pays the least. When the prophet spoke of desirable young men, riding in chariots, was he having a long-distance vision of the twentieth century motorist? We used to speak once with a comfortable sense of proprietorship of the "King's Highway," because it was free to all his subjects. To-day it is the heritage of the new autocracy, who scorch about on four rubber tyres, and -the remainder of His Majesty's leal subjects only use it by sufferance, and at their own risk and peril. If the common person who only drives horses, or is so grovellings as actually to go abount on foot does not get out of the way, let him pay the penalty, and make what he can out of the coroner's verdict, ""Serve him right. No blame attachable to the motorist."

We (1 have a car. myself, and that is why I use the plural personal pronoun) demand good roads, and wo are going to have them too, and the money-grubbing farmer can pay for them. We know our rights and privileges entitle us to go at any pace wo can screw out of our old "Tin Lizzies," and the Courts are ready to uphold us. The magistrates have, to their credit, long ago grasped the fact that to drive a car at a rate and in a manner calculated to thin out all but the most active of the population is not a really grave offence like baking a loaf till it is half an ounce short, or selling the milk from one of the thousands of cows that do not come up to the standard of richness. The driver cannot always count upon getting off scot free, however, for he is often fined a pound or even two, and if he has not stopped to take his victim to the hospital—or the morgue -perhaps even more, because there is no excuse for leaving a nasty litter in the street. It is a moot question whether even this offence ought not to be condoned in view of the services rendered to the taxpayer. Every cld-age pensioner wiped out is a clear gain to the State, and though the loss of children often provokes a temporary irritation on the part of parents, calm reason shows us that we are saved the cost of educating them. The motorists also claim to be protected from the silly deceptions often practised upon us. A gentle-mind-ed car driver, who, naturally shrinks from unnecessary bloodshed, Jtalls at a wayside inn to refresh himself with just n taste of the pure spirits dispersed by our licensed victuallers. On resuming his journey he meets what fee takes to be two people walking on the road. With careful accuracy he steers between them, and is startlecf by a bump from the man he has not seen, and his radiator is smashed in or his mudguard buckled. Is it a fair thing for anyone to go about invisible himself, but with well defined simulacrum of his figure on either side? And the worst of it is that when the beggar is dead you cannot get damages out of him for injury to the car.

People often get annoyed with us over trifles also. A man who used to be a friend of mine actually told me that because he was bumped into while alighting from a tramcar he struck the man in the motor-car violently across the face with his walk-ing-stick. By some special interposition of Providence it happened to be a Yankee car with a left-hand drive, and the passenger got the blow, but the vicious intent is manifest.'

The Other Side. So far I have written with some warmth of feeling as a car-owner. But I am a farmer and a ratepayer also, and when my motor-personal-ity says to my ratepayer-personality, "We must and will have good roads, and you shall pay for them," I reply, "Not so fast my friend; I pay for making roads—you merely destroy them." And in this part of the world, at all events, the road you want is not the one I want. The one I require leads to the railway, the one you desire runs at right angles to mine, and parallel to the railway. 1 neither can nor will find the money to make a thoroughfare for your sole use and benefit. If you want it

made you must obtain the cash from talxation of motors or from the general taxpayer. I am only able to pay the rates I do now by robbing myself of a portion of what I ought to receive as wages, and if you are depending upon me to furnish a main arterial road I am afraid you will wait for it until the Greek Kalends." However, good roads are a necessity, unless we are always to remain a backward community, and with that assumption it will not be amiss to examine the recent systems 0 [toad-making, with a view to picking out the best one.

A Dustless Road. The motorist will no doubt kill us off with even greater facility on a <lood road because of the pace he vill be able to work up. We appear iot to mind that, for we do nothing o prevent it, but we do mind very much being smothered by his dust. Jne has only to live in a place like,

ay, the leeside of the road in Pa pakura, to learn what a fearful cursttraffic dust may become. Therefore a iustless road must be provided. Con •rete was apparently very much h favour among some of the witn<-s.-><' who tendered evidence to the Road; (jlcinimission, but when we veiled now difficult it is to obtain a bag of •ment to lay a hearth, and how al most impossible it is to get half f I ion to floor a cowshed, we can dis •vss tho proposal as out of the -|uestion, though without any prejudice gainst concrete roads, which cost \ery little for maintenance, make traction extremely light, and are not nearly as slippery for horses ns is I commonly imagined, if the steeper

grades are carpetted. With regard to its cost, Mr. N. Crofton Stanley, C.E., of Wanganui, stated a couple of years ago: "The capital cost of ft concrete road 18ft wide of standard thickness (six inches) is, at present prices, 8s per square yard, without reinforcement, or £4224 per mile, gravel being 7s per cubic yard, cement £4 IBs a ton, labour Is per hour minimum. The annual cost for interest and sinking fund is 1264."

We cannot get either gravel or cement now at anything like these prices, and it appears likely that today a similar road could not be made under £6OOO per mile. There is little use in going to America to find out the price of roads, as cement there is stated to be only one-third of the price it is here. Wood-paving makes a delightful road to travel over, and a properlyconstructed stone-setts track is extremely durable, but the cost of either would be enormous. There are also a large number of proprietory preparations used for road surfaces, each of which, according to its owners, is as infallible as a quack medicine. Then there is the tar-sealing process, where the macadam is associated with common coal tar, sprinkled with metal chips, and thoroughly rolied. This makes an excellent surface, and is very durable if

the stone is sufficiently hard, and is not excessively expensive. Or, to make a still better ro*d, three inches or more of tarred macadam would be laid on the heavy body of metal, of which the Great South Road is cornnosed. We can hardly imagine anyone being so foolish as to pull up that solid foundation lor the sake of laying down concrete. A Practical Suggestion. But why not experiment at once to find out v/hat will really meet the -nse? Is there any reason why, on some portion of the Great South Rd where traffic is heavy, live chain sections should not be laid down at once in each of the materials that nromise to be suitable? This would •>t once give prime cost of eaclu and in a short time yield a very fair indication of the cost of maintenance, the lightness of traction, the absence of glare, the silence or noisiness, the lonse of cleansing, etc., etc., and enable a satisfactory alternate choice to be made.