NOVEL ROAD-MAKING.

Taranaki Daily News, 19 February 1918, Page 2

NOVEL ROAD-MAKING.

EXPERIMENTS IN VICTORIA. An interesting and somewhat novel piece of road construction, so far as Australia is concerned (says the Melbourne Argus), is being carried out by the St. Kilda Council on the motor tracks on either side of the St. Kildaroad in the section between the Junction and High street. The road-bed consists of six inches of concrete made up of eight parts of bluestone toppings and screenings to one of Geelong cement, without any steel rainforcements except where the Gas Company has trenches under the road. But instead of facing this with wood block's, as the Melbourne City Council is doing nearer the city, so giving it a surface of tar and sand, as the South Melbourne Council did in the case of some experimental concrete sections laid three or four years ago, -Mr. Kelly, the town surveyor for St. Kilda, will provide a surface of about three inches of tarred screenings and toppings of bluestone. Under the heavy traffic this might possibly tend to corrugate or wear in ridges through the crushing and pushing action due to the passage of vehicles. In order to guard against this slips of bluestone were inserted into the concrete while it was still soft. These project about above tlie surface, and they give the road-red iri its present stage of construction the curious appearance of being stuck thickly with stone pegs. The tarred screenings and toppings will be put on next, and they will be well consolidated by rolling. The Milestone slips, which have now become firmly embedded in the hardened concrete, will act as keys, so that no movement of the surface material can possibly take place. A small section constructed on this principle was put down bv the council two years ago, and it is said that fhis has worn remarkable well. As far as High street the motor tracks on both sides of the St. Kilda road are under the control 0 f the St. Kilda, Council, and both will be laid in concrete with the surface keyed as described. The concrete sections of road that were put down by Mr. Aughtie, the South Melbourne Council's surveyor, to test the merits of various forms of reinforced construction, have all worn excellently, and when it is necessary to reconstruct t'hat portion of the motor track that i 8 controlled by the South Melbourne Council tlie reinforced svstem .will ibe adopted. Mr. Aughtie believes that this gives the best results. For surfacing where there is no horse traffic he considers that sand and tar is all that is required, as this wears well, is cheap, and is easily repaired. It, is far cheaper, he points out, t'lian the blocks favored by th? Melbourne City Council, and considerably cheaper also than bluestone keyed surface that the St Kilda Council has adopted.