| Show UTAH WILL SOON BOAST ROADS edward T barber agricultural ed tor of the grand junction daily sentinel in last fridays edition of that paper gives the following impression of the road construction work now under way on route no 50 between thompsons Thomp sons and grand junction the weakest link in the transcontinental highway known as V S no 50 has been the strip across the desert west from mack colo to price utah that stretch of desert road has justly gained a national reputation of being he worst stretch of road between the atlantic and the pacific but all of these handicaps of narrow grades deep and dangerous washes down which floods of water rush unheralded from the mountain cloud bursts narrow crooked dug ways are being removed so that by this coming fall that piece of road will be changed into one of the finest boulevards on the continent colorado and utah in conjunction with the federal highway commission are busy building a modern highway along modem lines highway engineers have changed road building ideas to conform with the possibilities of the modem motor car and truck they reason that any modem car will climb any hill and that the driver prefers safety and speed on a straight wide road that Is what we are going to have across the colorado utah desert when the present plans are completed there are a dozen or more road camps now established along this stretch of road both in colorado and utah A new route has been selected that ignores the old road entirely the new route Is being built in long stretches of straight lines ignoring hills the long straight stretches are connected with wide curves all turns are eliminated and reduced to curves when this road Is completed in its entirety the automobile can compete with the airplane in going to salt lake city the new road Is built wide and well drained with a hard surfaced top that fairly dares the driver to speed across it the fills and grades are guarded with white post chain guards as a further safety precaution the fact ithac the road runs across an uninhabited desert removes all obstructions as to a right of way that accommodates itself to the straight line and long curve engineering ideas one short section of perhaps 10 miles of this new road has been opened to the public as a sample of what the completed road Is to be the completion of this section of highway 50 is set for this summer and the broadcasting of that fact to the touring public will make this the popular route across the continent and will doubtless result in greatly increased travel each year in the future |
