And A Cross-Island Road

From an AAP-Reuter Correspondent in Port Moresby Administration engineers are working on a two-stage road investigation programme that should provide Papua-New Guinea with a coast-to-coast road system within 10 years,

, . , T'HE proposed highways will radiate from Mt. Hagen in the Highlands, to the north coast port of Madang and to another port, possibly Middletown, in the Gulf of Papua.

These will link up with the recently completed Highlands Highway which runs between Lae and Goroka and which will eventually be allweather to Hagen.

Trans-island highways will be a tremendous breakthrough in a country which has one of the world’s most underdeveloped road systems.

Total length of roads throughout the territory is about 8,000 miles, and existing roads fall far short of a national road system. It is also a country which probably will never boast a passenger railway line.

Plans for both highways at present

are very much in the preliminary stages.

Estimates of the cost of the Mt.

Hagen to Madang link—reckoned the most vital—range from $l2 mil lion to $32 million, but these are only guesses.

Aerial surveys are being made of huge areas of country and engineers are examining four possible routes from the Highlands.

According to the Public Works Department schedule, a route has to be selected and primary estimates of the cost ready by February next year.

The area that is going to benefit most from these roads is the High lands, where more than 40 per cent, of the total population of the ter ritory lives.

This is the area coast-to-coast roads would open up.

At present the only roads there of economic importance are the feeder roads connecting coffee-grow ing areas with air strips.

Highlands residents have been agitating for an all-weather road link with Madang for many years.

Strangely enough, thoughts for an outlet to the south coast seem to have stirred only fairly recently.

Job For Mr. Dirkis

Sir Donald Cleland, the Admini strator, gave official approval to investigations into the possibility of such a road only at the end of last year.

He had been so impressed by the development and potential he had seen on a visit to Mendi, in the Southern Highlands, that he sup ported residents’ proposals for a road to a Gulf port.

In charge of both projects is Lithuanian-born Mr. Peter Dirkis, principal engineer for the Public Works Department in Papua-New Guinea, To Mr. Dirkis New Guinea is an engineer’s paradise.

“When we say a certain section of road would be impossible this is a misnomer,” he says. “What we really mean is that it would be impracticable. We are limited by the amount of money available.

“We could build an aerial highway —one right up on pillars—all the way from Mt. Hagen to Madang, and the only thing stopping us is the cost.”

Mr. Dirkis is enthusiastic about the road to the Gulf of Papua. He says it would be possible to put through a “Jeepable” track within a matter of months.

“I could build this road in half the time and for half the cost of a

comparable road to the north coast,” he said.

In his opinion, it will be 10 years before the road from Mt. Hagen to Madang is completed.

The terrain poses so many problems that Mr. Dirkis believes it will be almost five years before his department has reached the stage where it can call tenders.

From there money dictates pro gress.

The Administration almost certainly will be reluctant to spend much more than $2 million in any one year on any one road.

So taking the minimum estimate of $l2 million as correct, construc tion will take at least another five years.

One of the major problems of road building in the Highlands is the altitude. General elevation of the area is 5,000 feet and without affecting conventional motor vehicle performance engineers have to map

out a route which does not go much above 6,000 feet.

The highway to the Gulf is already under construction from Mt.

Hagen to lalibu, with a feeder road to Mendi, the principal town of the Southern Highlands.

Air transport has brought pocket development to the Highlands.

But the area could not develop fully while relying on this form of transport alone.

Freight costs have been astro nomical. One example is cement.

In Madang it is $32 a ton but in Mt. Hagen the price is $ll6 a ton.

Road access to the coast should see the rapid development of the timber, cattle and agricultural in dustries which are at present pegged because of the transport problem.

The highway to Madang could also become an important tourist route, opening up some of the most spectacular scenic country in the world.