THE SLIPPERY STREETS OF SYDNEY.
Page 24
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
REPORTING to the Sydeny Municipfri Council on complaints as to the slippery condition of the streets, the city surveyor says the complaints as to horses falling due to slippery pavements are not of recent origin, but have extended over the past 40 years, beginning with the introduction of wood-blocked paving, and the tar dressing since -adopted for both wood-paved and macadamized wads has somewhat aggravated the conditions and caused these more or less spasmodic complaints. As most of the adjacent suburbs have adopted the tarring method, the • slipperiness is not peculiar to the city streets, but,is more pronounced, no doubt due to the greater traffic on these,
Since the advent of the motor vehicle there has been a great diminution in the number of horses upon the city streets, a,m1 this is revealed by the number o.f cab licences timed. In 1892 1,300 were issued, compared with. 500 licences issued last year. They are still in the transitory oci8
stages; but when the price and supply of petrol again becomes normal it is anticipated that motor vehicles will completely displaced the horse, as has been the experience in most great cities. Tarring the streets was originally adopted to minimize the dust nuisance, in which it has been completely succeasful; it WAS also found that it strengthened and waterproofed the .cfust, prevented attrition by wind and rain, and greatly lengthened the life of the road, The system is in vogue in all parts of the world, and its adoption here has certainly minimized the blowing of germladen dust into tea faces of the citizens, abolished the mud, and otherwise m.adcle life more p4msant for the inhabitants. Therefore, the city surveyor cannot conceive that, although a dry macadam road provides a better foothold for horses, the council would revert to that form of construction. It would appear, unless the city is to retrogress, that the council must provide better surface to meet the growing traffic. Fast-moving traffic calls for smooth, even surfaces, stable and durable, and maintained at
a minimum n cost. The department's efforts in the past to mitigate the trouble complained of by the cabmen was to use a proportion of gravel with the sand ; this gravel was supplied from one of the coastal beaches, but the contractor has ceased the supply for the past four years, due to difficulty in obtaining a Suitable boat.