Rudman's city: Flying chips may be thing of the past

All the complaints about chip seal on Auckland City streets seem to be getting through.

The council has introduced new sealing rules for contractors in a bid to lessen the noise and to still at least some of the flying chips.

Transport committee chairwoman Catherine Harland says a bed of large-sized chip will be laid first then rolled twice.

On top of that will come a "much finer-grained chip than they have used previously," which will be rolled as well.

In addition, the transport committee has agreed to a review of chip-seal paving.

Not that I'm exactly holding my breath. Even if councillors decide to phase it out, the results would not start appearing until at least 2002.

From what Mrs Harland says, such a change doesn't seem very likely. Increasing the proportion of smooth seal (asphaltic concrete) "would mean a significant increase in the rates," she says, adding that she doubts "there's any particularly strong desire" to do that. I suspect she's right.

Just how much doing away with chip seal would cost is hard to calculate.

In a report to last week's transport committee meeting, roading service delivery manager Chris Gasson says the annual extra cost would be $5.326 million. To achieve total conversion to asphaltic concrete (AC) would take 20 years and cost an extra $70.65 million.

The extra $5.3 million would come on top of the city's existing reseal budget, which this year is $3.17 million for new chip seal plus $6.13 million for AC. On top of that comes an additional $2 million for the rehabilitation of decayed roads.

The good news is Transfund New Zealand will pay around 43 per cent of any of the above, leaving ratepayers to front up with the rest.

The not-so-good news is that AC, which is used on 39 per cent of our sealed roads, needs a good base, otherwise it is prone to cracking.

According to Mr Gasson, a good base is just what many Auckland City roads do not have. He says the escalating cost of preseal repairs indicates "that a significant proportion of roads have been in need of rehabilitation or strengthening from some years back."

Talking escalating costs, bitumen prices have risen 33 per cent in the past nine months and contractors are clamouring to cover these costs.

All of which leaves us in the anti-chip brigade with some curly questions. Certainly AC is quieter and, according to Mr Gasson, superior to chip seal in many ways - longer life, low maintenance, smoother ride.

Its twin drawbacks are its pickiness when it comes to foundations, and its cost. Maybe the more stringent methods of laying chip seal might be the compromise needed.

Meanwhile, on Great Barrier Island, Auckland City's farthest-flung corner, the snap election was a resounding success, according to inventor cum returning officer Ian Way.

You will recall how Mr Way was using the local voters as guinea-pigs for his new computer-based election system. A couple of weeks ago he mailed postal votes to the island's voters, announcing the trial and giving them 10 days to reply.

Given that he didn't even supply a return envelope or stamp, I reckon the 25 per cent reply wasn't too bad, particularly given the questions.

Processing the return votes into his computer as they came back, Mr Way says the actual counting process when the ballot officially closed was just a fraction of a second. Compared with the Americans who took 36 days and several trips to court to find a President, he declares his trial a success.

The Great Barrier results? Well, 47 voted to becoming a breakaway republic, 58 for the status quo. Asked to choose a bird as island emblem, 54 voted for the kaka, closely followed by 50 for the tui. Least popular was the pukeko with 4. (Each voter had two votes in this question.)

Their favourite colour was green.