GOOD ROADS PROBLEM.

Taranaki Daily News, 5 January 1922, Page 5

GOOD ROADS PROBLEM.

VALUABLE EXPERIMENTS. MILLIONS BEING SPENT IN UNITED STATES. /’ ■ -V ASPHALT AND CONCRETE. According to Mr. George C. Warren and Mr. E. Parker, both of Boston, who arrived by the Makura recently, concrete has not yet been absolutely proved as the best material for road-making. The company with which these Bostonians are connected put down the famous Columbia highway, 216 miles long, running from Astoria through the city of Portland, Oregon, and the Columbia River gorge, one of the most beautiful scenic spots in the States. This fine thoroughfare is laid down in a patent asphalt. In the early days of permanent roads ten to fourteen feet was the maximum on the trunk lines, but with the growth of automobile traffic this was found to be quite inadequate, and now the minimum road is sixteen feet wide, but in some of the busier routes twenty and twenty-five-feet roads will be found. These thoroughfares are what we in New Zealand woukl call “country roads” (except as to the surface, of course). With such excellent roads as America is getting the use of the motor truck is extending, and whole fleets can be seen hauling merchandise from town to town. It has been found that fewer handlings and rapid dispatch are points which weigh in favor of the motor as against the railway in what is known as “short haul traffic”. On longdistance traffic the railway is still unassailable, but the motor has a distinct niche in the matter of transport,, and where you have good roads the motor comes into its

Contrasting asphalt and cnocrete road construction, Mr. Warren mentioned that a big point in favor of the first-mentioned was the fact that there was no need to tear up an existing road, as a permanent coating of asphalt could be put down on any surface of an old road. He mentioned that since the war there had been a tremendous increase in the mileage of permanent roads laid down in the States, and hundreds of millions of dollars were being spent. The people were fully seized of the importance of good roads to the development of the country.

After a trip to Sydney Mr. Warren will spend some time in the Dominion.