The Daily news THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 16. ROAD MAKING.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 191, 16 September 1909, Page 2

The Daily news THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 16. ROAD MAKING.

Mr. E. P. llooley, a road engineer from Nottingham, visited Seattle rccoii'.'y and read a paper before the American Hoad Congress. Apparently his ideas about tile construction of good roads have thoroughly impressed the Americans, and are not without interest *o New Zenlaiiders. "The trouble with | road-builders in this country," he said,, ill a subsequent interview, "is that they are still doing the things that we tried and found to be failures, things we ha.c long ago given up." The automobile, of course, has changed the attitude il the public towards the roads. The motorist demands a good road for is car, and the public demand dustless ' roads. One change that will probably come about in the future is that ."o.itinuous lengths of roads will be under one engineer throughout. "Suppose you started out 071 a train," said Mr. Samuel Hill, a well-known Washington agitator for good roads, discussing this subject lately, "and when you got a few miles from the starting-point the passengers became dissatisfied and held an election and elected one of the passengers to succeed the engineer, you would get oil' the train, wouldn't you! Yet we do the same thing with road-building. Wo have our road-building done by county commissioners and town boards, who are succeeded by others when they hinc fairly got started learning the science of road-building." Mr. Hoolcy's, prescription for a good road is being wid j! y quoted in America. "A road should b. built as a solid arch," he said. "The. arch will not he stronger than its weakest part, and unless every part is thoroughly bound down and lilted in w ; lh the other parts it will not last. When the big automobiles go over it they tear loose a little part of the arch, the water gets in, and the road is gone." Less clay and water and more tar in the binding, solid rolling and plenty of it, and clean metal will. Mr. llooley savs, make a road that will last for ever. He claims that the avch need lie no more than six inches thick, and that it needs mi special foundation. "We have roads willi a six-inch arch as I described.'' lie added, "without, any foundation under them where traction-en-gines haul trains of several waggons with five or seven tons load on each, and where automobiles run sixty miles an hour, yet these roads never show wear." Mr. llooley uses foundry :dig in preference even to granite macadam.