now They Have The Roads

But Not The Bridges

With at least a Quarter of a million pounds of available funds spent (and therefore lost to Papua-New Guinea) there are still areas the Territory that are desperately in need of public works.

, a ii part of complicated Admin tration financial policy and ficial book-keeping—but Eastern lands people are among those don’t think much of it. There, of Goroka, large sections of s are becoming impassable due ie collapse of bridges. ie bridge over the Asaro gave ;he ghost finally in May, and has put more miles of road of use. People at the top of valley are using about 16 miles rivate coffee estate road to get i where they want to go. If vy McFarlane closed down on said Father Michael Bodnar, ie Catholic Mission at Miramar, h lan Downs and I would be cut :rom Goroka.”

The Roads Went Out i 1953-55, when lan Downs was ;rict Commissioner of Eas ern blands, he pushed roads out and west of Goroka with noth much more than his own drive initiative and local labour to ) the job along. e constructed hundreds of bridges 1 simple affairs of bush timber t were, however, adequate for times. The bridges were never irded as anything but tem-

porarv and in those days the road itself was expected to carry only jeep traffic. , , .

As time went on, more and bigger vehicles—with Administration lorries leading the way—toiled up from the coast, were dragged through the

Leron and other rivers, and reached the Highlands to put more and more strain on the old bridges. And the inevitable happened: one by one they are becoming unsafe or col lapsing altogether.

The Asaro bridge has been un safe for all but the lightest vehicles for some time, but in May some one with an I’m-alright-Jack com plex took a lorry loaded with four tons of gear over it—and that was the end of the Asaro Bridge. (In the Legislative Council meet ing in Port Moresby, in May, the Assistant Administrator said that the Highlands road and bridge problem was to be inquired into on the spot, soon).

[?]of these signs on the Highlands road [?] outside of Goroka, give blunt warning to traffic.