Show BUILDING BUILDING OF GOOD HIGHWAYS federal aid road act exerts important influence on legislation in many states prepared by the united states department ot agriculture federal aid road projects ungues are ready for construction in every state this year under the fed eral aid road act of 1916 every state in the union la now in a position to co operate with the federal government in the building ot highways results of tar reaching importance and of even greater potential value than the appropriation of federal funds have already been accomplished by the federal act among the impressive results Is the establishment outright of state highway departments in delaware south carolina texas indiana and nevada and the strengthening of other state highway departments so as to remove all question as to the 10 states which were not qualified to obtain federal operation cooperation co at the time of the passage of the federal act in the past winter more constructive state highway legislation has been placed upon statute books than has ever been enacted in any similar period since the american republic was founded the conditions laid flown by the federal act as necessary to participate in its benefits operated powerfully to bring about the establishment lish ment and strengthening of state highway departments the placing of a vast amount of road construction under supervision the tys and correlation ot road getting road levels preparatory to improving highways work BO to provide the improvements most needed meet traffic requirements quire ments the creation of large funds for construction and maintenance and the establishment liu many states of definite provisions insuring maintenance of highways from the date of their completion the working season of 1917 marked the opening of actual construction vi ork under the terms of the post road provision emhe federal act as feces sary legislative and administrative work made it impracticable to get construction projects under way earlier on january 31 1918 the decre enry of agriculture had approved individual projects aggregating 48 miles and calling for an expends anre from federal funds of and from state and local funds of 9 70 making a total of these projects represent ed applications from 44 states CULVERT OF BEST MATERIAL worse than folly to use boards to take care of roads that have cost much money if the culverts cu lverts are not built of good material they will have to be rebuilt in a few years whatever the quality of the roads they are made to serve defective culverts cu lverts vitiate one of the elementary principles of highway cco and the interests of the tax require that the annual cost of every part of the roads built for their use be reduced to the lowest pos bible figure consistent with em dency manifestly it would be worse lhnn folly to build culverts cu lverts of boards to take care of roads that have cost hundreds or thousands of dollars the mile and it would be none the less foolish or worse to waste money in work of this sort with the use of bad material speed up good roads speeding up construction of good roads is an integral part of government war work efficient transportation is necessary to reduce the margin between producer and consumer united states food administration federal aid for roads the theory that federal aid road construction will not be sanctioned during the war has been exploded by the fact that the government has fixed the price of cement for this work |