Sixty-two Miles of Highway Repaved Within a Year: Necessity for the Work The question of road repairing im Shanghai has long been a vexing problem both to residents and visitors. Recently it has almost seemed that a road was hardly paved and opened to the public when it was torn up to either install new electric light cables, sewage drains or for some other purpose.
The reason for this continual tearing up and repaving of Shanghai's roadways is largely attributable to the unprecedented. building operations which have taken place since the war, and several rather interesting figures on the subject have been secured from Mr. C. Har'. pur, Deputy Commissioner of Pwhblia Works.
There are slightly more than 137 miles of roads in Shanghai, according to Mr/ Harpur, which include about 20 miles outside the Settlement. During the past year, it was found necessary to tear up and repave 62.8 miles of roads for one reason or another.
Figures available for 1920-21 show that the number of Chinese houses alone more than doubled, while foreign dwellings and business establishment likewise showed almost a similar increase.
Relief is in sight, however, for it is believed that the necessity for road rebuilding will gradually decrease since with a smaller number of building operations the repairs required on roads will be appreciably diminished.
It is pointed out that Shanghai's population is very congested, there being mor that 800,000 inhabitants living within the Settlement limits, and only 137 miles of roads, whereas a like population elsewhere has usually between 300 to 500 miles of roads, which are generally of much greater width than those found here.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.