West Australian (Perth, WA : 1879 - 1954), Saturday 25 July 1953, page 9


Another 'Autobahn' Will

Run To Perth Another controlled access highway must be provided later to convey traffic from Kwinana towards Perth across the Causeway or a new bridge at the Narrows, the Acting-Premier (Mr. Tonkin) said yesterday.

This highway would turn north-east from the pro-posed Kwinana-Spearwood highway at a point south of Forrest-road. Mr. Tonkin was commenting on a leading article in yester-day's issue of The West Aus-ralian which dealt with the proposed Kwinana-Spearwood "autobahn." Referring to the approach of the new highway to Canning Highway, he said that this first part of the new motor road system-now in its inception was intended to bring traffic to and from Fremantle. When the highway to Perth was built with its system of con-necting roads it was unlikely that Carrington Street or Stock Road would be called upon to carry heavy traffic to Canning Highway. A system of controlled access roads conveying traffic swiftly to South Perth or to Canning-ton for the Welshpool indus-trial area and the Causeway would detract from the Car-rington-Street and Stock-Road routes. Interim Period Mr. Tonkin said that in the interim period before these major highways were built Car-rington-Street might have to carry a fair amount of traffic to Canning Highway. Investigations had already been put in hand with a view to the improvement of Stock Road as an additional route to-wards Canning Highway from the proposed Forest Road roundabout. Traffic coming from Kwinana to the Forrest Road round-about would suffer no incon-venience in turning through 90 deg. at the rotary and follow-ing Forrest Road for a short distance to pick up a junction with the prolongation of Stock Road. The Kwinana-Spearwood highway project. Mr. Tonkin continued. was incorporated in the long-term plans initiated during the stay of the town planning consultant to the State Government (Professor Gordon Stephenson). Road Surface Mr. Tonkin said that in plan-ning the route of the Kwinana highway the Main Roads De-partment and the Regional Planning Office had cooperated closely. Railway transport require-ments within the plan for the greater metropolitan area had been considered. In the-early stages of planning. Rockingham Road was consid-ered as an access route to Fre-mantle. There were points in its favour and many against it, and conse-quently it was rejected. Mr. Tonkin said that it would be difficult to make any sort of case that the new controlled ac-cess road be constructed in cement concrete. Cement concrete would cost two or three times as much as a flexible pavement of gravel and limestone rubble with bitu-minous-surface treatment. It was also questionable whether the maintenance of a concrete road was less than that of a-bituminous-surface road. "Advantages" Apart from cost, said Mr. Tonkin, the flexible type of pavement had many advantages over the rigid type. Perhaps the greatest advan-tage was that a bituminous road lent itself so well to the stage construction principle. This method would have to be applied in the building up over the years of the Kwinana Spearwood project. Stirling Highway was a good example of the flexible type of pavement and bituminous sur-face treatment. It was structurally as sound as any cement concrete road and was a first-class road by any standard. It was significant that in America there had been a very positive trend towards bitumin-ous construction. Mr. Tonkin added.