No_2_April_and_May__1941 — Page 9

Hong Kong Builder

TAIPO ROAD REALIGNMENT

Photograph A-View of the work on the road, looking towards Kowloon, at a point where the new road is 17'6" above the old road section.

Since the beginning of 1940, motorists who have had occasion to use the road to Taipo, have done so at considerable inconvenience to themselves. Many a motorist has in no uncertain terms deprecated the one, or ones, responsible for the muck and the mess that this carriage way has been in for these many long months.

However, he must have noticed, in recent months, the gradually increasing length of clearing roadway, the reducing number of hairpin bends banked the wrong way, and the gradually reducing time and increasing

convenience of traversing that section of the road which lies between its Nathan Road junction and the Kowloon Reservoir.

And no wonder, for since work started, fifty, sixty, even eighty feet cuttings have been made in the old Kowloon hills, culverts three, four and five feet in diameter have been laid in stream beds, over which thirty and forty feet fills have been built up. All this has been done so that a wider, straighter, more evenly graded road can be made available for the convenience

Photograph B—The beginning of the main line of diver- sion taken prior to the opening of that part of the road.

of the Hong Kong public, and when within the next few months the last of this work will be completed, we shall have, for its length, one of the finest motor drives in the Far East.

One of the most difficult aspects of the whole job and one for which the engineers deserve most credit is the manner in which the old road was kept open for traffic while the new road was being cut through, across and alongside of it.

We have attempted by means of photographs and drawings to convey some idea of the extent of the alterations which have taken place dur- ing the realignment of this road, and the fol- lowing are some statistics which should help clarify the picture.

The width of the roadway will be 22′0′′, with an additional 5'0" width of footpath throughout its whole length.

The length of the old road was 11,485'0" and contained forty-two curves, the new road will be 9,910'0" long and the number of curves reduced to twenty. In the new road, moreover, all curves are transition curves with super elevated cambers designed in accordance with the most modern practice.

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