Road Racket

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 331, 17 April 1928, Page 8

Road Racket

GREAT SOUTH HIGHWAY A Study in Contrasts TWO things are noticeable about tlie Great South Road. It presents a most remarkable study in contrasts, and it appears to have got completely beyond the resources, financial and otherwise, of those bodies which control it. In the way of contrasts it possesses very th in u from a perfect concrete surface to a pot-holed, expensive anil dangerous apology for a road. Scattered along its length from Auckland to Hamilton it has every conceivable sort of machinery, except anything in the way of modern maintenance equipment.

for the control, several of the local bodies concerned have ended their maintenance worries by putting down concrete. Papakura is wondering how best to meet the problem of slowing up the speeding motorist. Franklin County is doing it best to maintain a good reputation "or the state of its roads, but is faced with

an ever-increasing annual expenditure. Huntly Town Board, backed by a three-to-one majority of ratepayers, has embarked on a loan to tar-surface its four miles. Waikato County has given up the ghost, and the Highways Board now controls its portion of the road, and bill the county for a third of the cost. The county, objecting strongly, considers that if it paid a quarter it would still be doing more than its share. On the final section, In the Waipa County, the council contents itself with grading great heaps of sand on to the centre of the road, and between whiles comes dozens of miles north of its own centre of Te Awamutu to trap motorists who have sufficient lack of consideration for county roads to travel in excess tif 25 miles an hour upon them. It happens that the other counties

do not share the Waipa view that the the limit should be 2o miles an hour, and the chairman of the Waikato Council is prepared to cede a limit of 35 miles an hour, which coincides with the Government view as expressed In the recently-issued regulations. As to the actual state of the road between Auckland and Hamilton, an inspection was made on behalf of The Sun yesterday. This disclosed that after leaving the concrete at Papakura there was not a great deal of ground for complain" until the road reached Mercer. Round about here are a number of “potholey” patches, small in extent, that a little attention would remedy. This portion is controlled and maintained by the Franklin County. After passing Mercer, and until reaching Hamilton there is only one bright spot in a long and cruel piece of road. This bright spot exists on the scvera 1 miles of road that have been tar-sealed by the Public Works Department since the Waikato County’s section changed control. The tarsealed portion is as an oasis in a bleak desert, and is completely overshadowed by what comes before and after it. On the north, thousands of yards of large metal have been laid and provides a veritable -trap for the unwary driver. The generally accepted practice in road surface metalling is to put down material that will go through a oneinch sieve. Some of the metal on this road might go through a four-inch sieve if it were worked through a piece at a. time—by hand. There are portions of the Great South Road where fine metal has been laid and the conditions are good. No portion where large metal has been <iid approaches this state. The county engineers look on and wonder, but they cannot explain it. The road-user realises that the cost of laying the metal must have been enormous, but the damage to tyres and cars, annually, must exceed it. Southward of the tar, right to the level crossing at Ngaruawahia camp, the road contains an endless variety of corrugations and pot holes that simply shake motor vehicles to pieces, while in the pot-hole area loose large metal on the hard surface accounts for the major tyre damage at present suffered by hundreds of motor-car owners on this road. A set of tyres in daily use on this road is not expected to last more than a month.

The only apparent attempts at maintenance were three graders—one with four horses and two men, and a lonely man with a shovel as his complete equipment!