PARK AND CEMETERY. 
216 
ENGLISH METHODS OF ROAD MAINTENANCE AND REPAIR 
From Fngineer'’s Report to Eaton District Council^ England 
Wliile it is common ground that the advent of motor 
cars and other mechanically propelled vehicles has 
enormously added to the volume of traffic to which 
the roads are, and will be increasingly subjected, the 
exigencies of this added traffic must be met by those 
responsible for the maintenance of the public high- 
ways, and must be met in time ; before its effects, al- 
ready serious, become diastrous. 
The experiments v/hich I undertook with a view 
to improving not only the conditions of the roads, in 
order that they may successfully withstand the great 
accession of traffic, but of ascertaining whether exist- 
ing methods of road construction could within reason- 
able limits of cost, be improved upon, may be grouped 
under the following heads : — 
(a) Experiments with various advertised dust-lay- 
ing preparations. 
(&) Experiments in so applying easily available 
miaterial of known value, in re-surfacing or repairing 
existing road surfaces, as to obtain the best form of 
construction capable of withstanding the various cli- 
matic and traffic conditions, and at the same time min- 
imising the formation of dust particles of light specific 
gravity. 
Under group (a) various sections of road were 
treated, in accordance with the manufactures’ direc- 
tions, with (i) “Westrumite” asphalt solution; (2) 
“Westrumite” pitch solution; (3) “Akonia” ; (4) Cal- 
cium chloride. 
The effect of the application of the above materials 
upon a section of road previously swept clean was 
generally to minimise the amount of dust raised by 
traffic, and to protect the surface of the road from the 
influence of the weather ; but unfortunately the results, 
excellent in themselves, could only be regarded as tem- 
porary in character. In every case it would be neces- 
sary to renew the treatment at least four times in 
each year to render it effective, and to do this would 
cost, in the case of the cheapest of these materials, at 
least £60 per mile per annum. 
(5) Oil Tar. I have also experimented with oil 
tar, applied hot to the surface of a section of granite 
road. This application has been very successful, and 
as the cost works out at less than £13 per mile for 
each treatment of a road 7 yards wide, or about ^d. 
per square yard of surface treated, and the effects 
promise to be more lasting than those of other prepar- 
ations mentioned, I desire to continue this treatment. 
The general conclusions at which I have arrived as 
a result of the above experiments are, that with the 
exception of No. 5 (oil tar), the use of such prepara- 
tions is economically impossible in rural districts where 
no road watering is resorted to, as the entire cost of 
their use is a clear addition to highway expenditure. 
and is not modified as it would be in districts having 
road-watering powers. 
Urban districts having a high rateable value in pro- 
portion to their road mileage might conceivably find 
it advantageous to use some such preparations as those 
above mentioned as an alternative to watering the 
roads. 
In the experiments under group (b), in applying 
easily-available material of known value, in re-surfac- 
ing or repairing road surfaces, I came to the conclu- 
sion that in all probability the use of a good granite 
as aggregate, in conjunction with a binding flux of a 
“tarry” or “bituminous” character, would yield the 
best results. A section of road was therefore treated 
as follows ; 
A layer %-in. thick of fine tarred slag or tar flux 
(about ^-in. gauge, prepared with rather more than 
the usual proportion of tar) was first laid on the old 
road about to be re-surfaced, on which a layer of 2-in. 
machine-broken granite was superimposed (the layer 
being two stones in thickness, or thereabouts). The 
whole was then rolled by means of a lo-ton steam 
roller, which had the effect I had anticipated — 
viz., to drive the granite down into the tar flux and 
force the flux into the interstices of the granite in an 
upward direction, thus forming a compact structure 
of granite and tarred binding material of excellent sur- 
face. The road thus treated has a compact appearance 
and promises to fulfill the desired conditions of a 
hard-wearing, non-slippery and practically dustless 
and water-proof road. 
In practice it was found that the proportion of tarred 
flux required to produce the desired effect was about 
25 per cent of the total weight of materials used. I 
am, however, of opinion that if this work could be 
carried out in the hot days of summer, a 20 per cent 
proportion of flux could be used with equal advantage. 
The operation of re-surfacing a road under this sys- 
tem has proved to be exceedingly simple, no water cart 
being required — a most important consideration in a 
country district — as hitherto it has been found impos- 
sible to carry out extensive road repairs in summer 
time in such parts of the district as lie far away from 
an available water supply ; whereas by this system the 
work is much better carried out in summer than in 
autumn or winter, while the proportions of the re- 
spective materials, as above indicated, obviate all dan- 
ger of an excess of tar being introduced in the struc- 
ture of the road, to its disadvantage. 
I consider that a road surfaced as described will re- 
tain its characteristics of compactness and cohesive- 
ness of structure in variations of weather, while its 
resistance to the disintegrating influence of traffic and 
weather conditions will be greatly enhanced. 
