RE BOROUGH STREET LOAN.

Taranaki Daily News, 12 November 1918, Page 3

RE BOROUGH STREET LOAN.

To the IdHor. Sir.—The BoroujSi Council are again trying- to put through the street loan which the ratepayers rejected some time f go, and the Mayor laid the ease for tile Council before the Chamber of Commerce and the Employers' Association in order to get their support in carrying it at the poll. New Plymouth is in the unfortunate position of having- a Mayor who has no practical knowledge of street formation, and depends solely on the advice of others. The knowledge gained by the Borough In permanent road construction is lost sight of or ignored by the present Mayor and Councillors, and they are adopting a scheme that is utterly out-of-date and under which the work will aot be permanent. Five years ago the then borough engineer. Mr Skitrop, asked permission to put down a length of .oatl to demonstrate tfaat we could have a permanent road at a .reasonable cost. The site selected was from the £oods shed in Currie street to die intersection of Gill street. The engineer stated that it vould be as good a read in twenty years as when pat down, provided it had a light top-dress-ing with tar and sand once a year. This 6ectioii ihas had only one dressing in five pears.- It carries the heaviest traffic in the town, and, in spite of its neglect, is the best demonstration of permanent road construction we have in the borough This piece of i-oad was put down with new inetal. thoroughly well rolled in, soltar sprayed, and a coating of fine gravel put on, then another dressing of soltar with a blinding of fine gravel, and the whole well rolled, and the work is there to-day a 9 a demonstration of howto make a good tar-sealed road. The Mayor's present scheme Is altogether wrong and will not make a permanent tar-sealed road. The first error the Council makea is that when they break up tiiie old road, they put the new metal on top of the oacrified surface. This makes the road surface uneven fev this reason, the old metal is unevenly distributed over tho surface, fifiy per cent Is waste or clay, and seme portions of the road are nearly all tiay. .hi aost towns where they understand down good .oada tJio i.st operation after scarifying is to screen the old metal and cart the screenings a'-7ay fcr use. in nakiug loot-paths. T'hey then get a good level road bed and ice: the old metal ,/itli tli<; -ew.

Now. as regurdc applyrn;: tte tat, I understand that the Mayor's scheme is to put tho stone on, roll and blind it, and after a joar or tffo hrusti the road and apply the tar-dressing. First of all. the stone \7e me is very soft, and in two vears f-ear in our windy ,*t climate wotdd have Jvorn Ku&y twenty jjer cent. Why ,7asto Lv-enty per cert of our roadway? 'fben a3 to brushing the road and applying the tar, what has the tar got to grip cm -when fifty j,er cent of the surface is grit isnd blinding? If our roads are to tar-sealed, tihe metal must be tar-sprayed after jolling before the blinding ia applied. Then as to the nse of ordinary gas tar as a road sealer. ordinary gas tar is very impure, and contains substances that undergo chemical changes after being applied to the road surface and tend to make it brittle. If gas tar was satisfactory, how is it that so many local bodies are using sol.taf, restar, and bitumen "mixtures in* ctead? I wonder if the Mayor has ever had analysis made of the tar tlhe borough uses. I know some of the tar used bv tho borough in the past contained 25 per cent of impurities, some of them distinctly harmful for its successful use for road-sealing. If anyone interested will examine the Currie street section done with, soltar they will find fiat it is always resilient even in the cold weather and never getß brittle. If the ratepayers sanction this loan they are not going to get good permanent roads. On the contrary, they will get roads pnt down by obsolete and out-' of-date methods, and the so-called tar sealing will not stand two years. If the Mayor and Councillors were to pay a visit to Hawera or some of the projpseerro towns in Taranaki, they might'' learn the mefjhods employed by them in patting down permanent roads. —I am. etc.. W. HEALY. lemon! Street Sfew Plymouth.