Salt Lake Tribune | 1917-03-18 | Page 34 | Good Roads

Some Money! A DETAILED investigation of the condition of -road building- in the sixteen southern and southwestern southwest-ern stales, from West Virginia and Maryland to Texas and Okla-Honia, Okla-Honia, leads the Manufacturers' Record to estimate that at least $100,000,000 will be spent there for road work during the current, year. This figure does not include in-clude i he federal aid road funds which will be contributed to these states. This great interest in road building has been accompanied by a dri ft toward a more centralized control of the work, which is d iseusserl at length in the fame journal by Captain P. St. J. Wilson, chief engineer engi-neer of r he United States oflice of pubjic roads and formerly state highway commissioner com-missioner of Virginia. A Prize Earth Road. Parma township lias won a 5100 prize offered bv the Cleveland Automobile club for the best -maintained earth road in -ii vHimg:v foinn v ( )nio. The money has mi.p .in. i j been given to the i V, 1 township road offi- . J cials and has been . 3 the means of arous-:. arous-:. b: y z.r.4 ing more tlian local -"T interest in the maln------ '" i ; V te nance of earth iT'iSC? roads. The town- dfefZ.. i'-ji-iafcia ship has won the .fTjd" Prize' organizing j- .-v-;; .--.- -JjLzy its maintenance on s:"y-s 'iUi'i an efficiency basis. V" "TNfV Tt invested $100 in a motor tractor with -?r w$k v-hlrli to haul a m i i grafpr it already 'uvned, and during the -ear the grader was used in shaping: the roads whenever necessary. Road drags - were also used after rains in the usual way. except that. 1 he tractor hauled two of them at the rate of a mil in about forty minutes instead in-stead of hauling them by horses. Special attention was given to the road sides, the brush was kept cut, the banks trimmed and' In some places shrubs and flowering plants were set out. The Lincoln Highway. , Of all the monuments t hat have been dedicated to ihe name of Lincoln. 'there is none other so tilting as the Lincoln highway, high-way, the great roadway that is to hind together the east and the west and. In a sense, the north and the south. It is a his: undertaking, the kind that befits the great, man. Thre will be 3000 miles of the main highway and no one knows when it will be completed, that is, when it will be a beau t.i fully Improved road over the entire distance. The road has been laid out and large sections of it have been improved, and it is possible today to travel in comparative comfort over this route that binds the Atlantic to the Pacific. Every year more permanent Improvement is added, and no doubt in less time than was originally deemed possible it will be the grand highway high-way of the United States, a model road from coast to cmst. Some sections are so popular and have so much travel that the present year will nrobajoly see the amount of permanent highway doubled or tripled in order that the traffic may be accommodated. Some day it will be something like that all the way from east to west. It is indeed a lifting monument to the greatest American. Marshall town (Iowa) Republican. 1 i Labor situation. I During 1916 the cost of building some , classes of roads was very high in many 1 parts of the muniry and there are evl-: evl-: dpnees t hat this condition will continue a-"jjgijju"-- sr through at least the 5211eS first half of 1&17. It feA "s&S5h5-: was foreseen by ! r tlilsij 111 a 11 y experienced I -"IPfi contractors. whose I asi?, A n'3 were so high Pwu , ft'i that in some states, "1 such ns New York, it fetA'Sww' was not unusual for kvL' every hid received on fS'''SsL Ptate road work To fJcfyv$f exceed the engineers' p- U.- estimates. Cbntrac- 1 .r tors have not at- I s g - tempted to conceal - i i i -I i Ti'.fri. J the fact that on some work ihelr books show a loss, occasionally oc-casionally quite heavy, which was due as a. rule to the unprecedented scar ity and high price of lahor. Inasmuch as many highway commissions will shortly undertake under-take work, it will be well for them to remember re-member In preparing their plans that the old basis on which costs were estimated is no longer applicable In many sections of the country ; old estimates of road building should be revised and new estimates esti-mates should be based on the condition of the labor market as it is today. Road Superintendents, Some object ion has been raised to the policy of the Pennsylvania state highway depart men t in promoting men on the basis of their service records only to important im-portant places In county road improvements, improve-ments, on tne ground that such men could not know the local conditions as well as those who were resident s. The department has announced tha-t it regards re-gards this as a good reason for such appointments ap-pointments rather than a cause of objection. objec-tion. Men assignpd 1 o counties other than their homes are unhampered by local lo-cal prejudice and are uncontrolled by local lo-cal influences. They are able, therefore, to give impartial care to tha roads under their control, the department holds, ajid to work satisfactorily under the assistant engineer in whose district they are assigned as-signed in a manner most likely to give the best results.