Costly Highways

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 312, 24 March 1928, Page 8

Costly Highways

MAINTENANCE AND CONSTRUCTION

Future Outlay to Be Heavy FUNDS at the disposal of the New Zealand Main Highways Board will this year reach a peak total. The petrol tax is expected to bring in three-quaiteis o a million? pounds, to which must be added the genera revenue, a grant made from the Consolidated Fund, and le income from debentures, a total of £1,770,000.

IN the expenditure of tlie immense fund, facilitating highways maintenance and construction on a scale unexampled in this country, Auckland should have a substantial share. The first hint of the widened scope of the board’s operations was an alteration in the arrangement for financing main-road improvements within small boroughs. The minor borough councils traversed by main roads, such as those which pass through Puke-

kohe and Ngaruawahia, will hereafter be treated on a much more liberal scale than in the past. Contributions toward the cost of construction and reconstruction will be substantial, and the maintenance subsidy is raised to 30s for every £1 expended. These concessions apply,, of course, only to declared roads, of which those recently gazetted in No. 2 Highways District (the territory most closely concerning Auckland) are as follows: Otahuhu, 1 mile 47 chains. Ngaruawahia, 1 mile 77 chains. Te Awamutu, 2 miles 56 chains. Cambridge, 2 miles 3 chains. Paeroa, 3 miles, 60 chains. Waihi, 2 miles 77 chains. Morrinsville, 1 mile 47 chains. Te Aroha, 2 miles 18 chains. Thames, 4 miles 4 chains. 1 mile 47 chains. Total, 24 miles 47 chains. In addition there are other main roads gazetted in the boroughs and town districts included in the adjq,jn-

ing highways districts, of which all three are wholly or partly In the Auckland Province. PENDING DECLARATION The next intimation of the Highways Board’s extended operations will be the declaration of further roads as main highways. The length of road affected by pending declarations will be 2,600 miles, of which a fair proportion will be in the Auckland Province, though not until the declaration is actually gazetted will the public have official notification as to the roads concerned. Meanwhile the big paving scheme undertaken in the vicinity of Auckland is virtually completed, leaving only one or two minor gaps to be spanned by the long and imposing ribbon of At one of these gaps, that at the Wiri Bridge, the surfacing was completed last. Saturday, though traffic will not be allowed over the new surface for a few days yet. At another gap, the Manurewa overhead bridge, the department expects to start paving work fairly soon. Another work looming ud is the surfacing of the Razorback deviation, a detour cutting out the steep Bombay Hills. GOVERNMENT’S BOLD EFFORT In its highways policy the Government has made a bold effort to grapple with the problem presented when a flood of modern vehicles poured into a country that was without modern communication routes. Since the post-war reorganisation which resulted in the formation of the Main Highways Board, roads all through the country have been levelled, straightened, and better paved, and the Highways Board has pursued such a policy that it has kept abreast with modern methods, and is employing modern and efficient plant. All this has cost money. The separate maintenance and construction funds had, before the institution of the petrol tax, been supported by the proceeds of the tyre-tax, licences and a transfer from the Consolidated Fund. To the Maintenance Fund alone this had yielded, up to March, 1927, the sum of £1,650,000. At the same date the figure for the construction fund, which is additionally financed by debentures on' a £3,000,000 loan spread over ten years, stood at £1,268,000. These figures are eclipsed by the amount at the disposal of the Highways Board for the Immediate future, when it is probable that, for the next five years or so, expenditure may be as high as two millions annua>?. Thus It will be seen that, though motorists may complain about the petrol tax, they have an excellent chance of getting value for their money.