IMPROVEMENT OF QUEEN STREET.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9049, 7 February 1908, Page 4

IMPROVEMENT OF QUEEN STREET.

WHAT THE BOROUGH WOKKS COMMITTEE IS DOING. EXPERIMENTS WITH TAR MACADAM. \ The Borough Works Committee is determined that so important a business as the asphalting of, the roadway" in Queen Strevt shall not be on any experimental lines, and that "'hen the work is done it will be done as cheaply, expeditiously, and thoroughly as possible. When the estimates were prepared for this particular work, it was generally anticipated that the cost would be about £66 per chain, using broken metal as the foundation. Now, however, it is believed by the Acting-Engineer (Mr W. T. Mansfield) that a much more economical, but equally serviceable and up-to-date road can be put down for about two-thirds this expenditure, and the Works Committee liave very, wisely decided to allow Mr Mansfield to conduct an experiment with a strip of two chains of roadway in Chapel Street, which is now being tar-macadamised. Cr J. H. Pauling, Chairman of the , Works Committee, and Cr W. Pragnell, in a conversation with an "Age"y reporter, yesterday, on the subject of the general improvement of Queen Street, said that they were anxious; that when the work of asphalting was* once commenced the whole job shouldgo ahead without any delay whatever, and that traffic ;n the street should suffer the minimum of inconvenience. "We are giving our Engineer every opportunity to place the work on a proper bisis from the' outset," said Cr Pauling, "and the-tar-macadam now being experimented with in Chapel Street appears to the Works Committee to be a pretty sound proposition. A reduction in the estimated cost from £66. per chain to the region of about £4O per chain is a matter of very great importance indeed, as it means that we shall be able to carry the work . much further ahead than was supposed." The public will, no doubt, heartily endorse these remarks from the Chairman of the Works Committee. ' Queen Street mud in midwinter is,* something to be remembered, and " the further the money available for the improvement of the road can be made to go the better. The Committee is, undoubtedly, working along the right lines in sanctioning the: Chapel Street experiment.