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68
regulating where it may have become depressed by traffic or
occasional excavations, and this second laying I estimate at 7/per
yard, or if the cost thereof borrowed and paid off by seven
annual instalments, with 5 per cent, interest and id. per yard per
annum for maintenance, the annual cost will be about 1/3 per yard.
With reference to the propriety of substituting creosoted
beech blocks instead of deal, I can only say that the short term
of experience we have had with them in the Broadway and between
the tram lines in King Street, tends to prove to a great
extent the statements made by the patentees of the system in
Sunderland, but without going so far as they do when they say
that after 13 years wear the blocks shew but little signs of deterioration,
I think it may fairly be assumed that they will last 12
years, and I estimate the first cost at 17/- per yard. The annual
cost therefore would be, assuming you can borrow the money
and repay the loan in the twelve annual instalments at 5 per cent,
interest, and adding id. per yard for maintenance as before, will
be about 1 /11 per yard.
After the first 12 years (the concrete remaining as before
described) the re-paving might be done for 14/- per yard, the
amount for which borrowed and paid off in like manner at 5 per
cent, interest, with 1d. per yard for maintenance, would be 1/7
per yard.
Now as compared with the cost of the maintenance of a Mac
Adam road the cost of wood will be seen to be higher in the case
of the first cost of paving with deal blocks, and also in both
instances with the beech blocks, whilst in the case of the renewal
of the deal blocks it will be about the same, as it is estimated the
cost for maintenance at the present price of broken granite of a
Mac Adam road is from 1/- to 1/3 yer yard, according to the
traffic and also the season.
There is, however, another matter which must not be lost
sight of, which seems to point in the direction of the economy of
wood paving, viz.: the cost of scavenging and cleansing. This is
a somewhat difficult problem to answer without actual statistics,
moreover, if it were possible to answer it correctly to day, the
altered circumstances and increased difficulty of obtaining slopshoots
would demand a different answer in a few years time, but
in Liverpool such statistics have been taken and they may fairly
be referred to here as affording some reliable information on the
subject. In a report on the subject I find the cost of scavenging
on creosoted wood with a bitumenous concrete foundation is
stated to be 2.7d. per yard per annum, while for scavenging Mac
Adam roads it is said to cost 8d. per yard per annum. This