FOR GOOD ROADS.

Taranaki Daily News, 5 February 1921, Page 3

FOR GOOD ROADS.

NEW BILL BEING PREPARED. TAX ON TYRES. The advent and rapid increase in the use of motors has made it necessary for somebody to look after the national highways. This is the main reason behind the Government scheme of road construction and maintenance which is described in outline by H%n. J. G. Coates, who stated that a Bill is now being drafted to embody the policy mapped out by the Government. By this Bill, he said, the Government sought, not to interfere with local control of the main roads, but to get a greater uniformity in maintenance work than was existing at present. The way of doing this was to define exactly the area to go under the jurisdiction of each local body, and to get each body to elect a board or commission to control the main roads in its area.

The scheme further proposes to set up a fund to augment the sums already granted for the maintenance of the Dominion’s main roads, and this fund will be derived from a motor or a tyre tax. In Auckland, at any rate, Mr. Coates’ own remarks about the proposal appear to be true. The Minister said he expected strong opposition from some quarters, but not from the motorists, whom he thought would be quite willing to pay a tax if it assured them good roads. That seems to be just what representative motorists of Auckland did think, when questioned by the “Star.” The Automobile Association approved of the principle of a tyre tax to build a good roads funds some time ago, and the Good Roads Association, in which motorists naturally struck a dominant note, was also in accord with this movement.

“The roads of New Zealand are not what they should be,” said one gentleman who has many thousands of miles of motor travelling in New Zealand to his credit. “Mr. Coates is quite right when he hints that there is a lack of community of interest. Among motorists the experience of running suddenly off a fairly good road into an awful stretch of pot-holes and rough patches is quite common. In fact, it is often remarkably easy to see where one county ends and another begins, and it Lx not at all rare to find an average road, ‘then a half- mile or so of murderous going, and then on to an average road again.”

Another informant was quite convinced of the justice of a, tyre tax, though he could not see much fairness in taxing a car. By the tyre tax, he argued, every man who used the roads would pay in accordance with his tyre consumption, or, in other words, according to the extent of his travelling and the amount he used .the roads. Motorists are awaiting with mixed feelings to see the text of this new bill. They are hoping that it vfill do good in improving the roads of the Dominion, they realise the task in front of Mr. Coates to bring what he terms “a community of interest” into being is not an easy one.