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Show THE CITIZEN 4 Now, is there someone else who can suggest another form of automobile tax?. Why not make every automobile owner take out a life insurance policy so that if he is killed those dependent upon him will be taken care of, for a time at least? The trouble with us right now is that there are too many dreamers who are prying into the other fellows business and who are daily scheming how his neighbor should live. From what the Manufacturer has said, we take it that there will be a concerted effort put forth. in all the states to force people to take out automobile insurance, whether they like it or not. We are against the system. If a person wants insurance, that is his business. The government has enough business to look after without getting itself deeper in the mire. GOOD ROADS. the money that has been spent on road building in Utah were turned into silver bullion, there would be enough silver to pave a highway of silver up and down and across the state. Not until the automobile came was there any concerted effort made to construct lasting highways. Some of the most traveled roads prior to the automobile were rebuilt year in and year out and millions of dollars were wasted. Dirt roads are only good for a few weeks. In dry weather the traffic cuts them up and the winds blow the roads away; in the winter months they become soft and impassable. Utah was one of the last to get started on its good roads program, but now we have a number of miles of good roads but we also have many bad roads. Had we started to build our roads from the state boundary lines inward we would have accomplished much more. But we could not see that far ahead. Instead we built our best roads leading away from our larger cities and there we quit because for the lack of funds to go any farther. From the end of our paved roads to the state lines the roads in some parts of the state are nearly impassable and it did not take long for the tourists to know of this. The result was that many missed our state and unless the people of this state wake up to the importance of good roads we will have verv little future tourist trade. Arizona and New Mexico on the south of us are building good roads across their states; Wyoming and Idaho to the north of us are doing the same. We have some mighty fine attractions here and wonderful mountain scenery, but we must have good roads if we expect people to come here to see it. The Chamber of Commerce has recently raised $75,000 to advertise this city and our state. Why waste this money in advertising if the people cannot get here? Road construction should be given a great deal of attention during the coming session of the legislature. Unnecessary boards and chair warmers should be done away with and the money put into a road fund. A state road tax of about a mill would greatly help our road building, that is if the money was put into roads instead of legislation. There is altogether too much overhead in our road construction. The past two years the state has collected three million dollars in round numbers from auto and gas tax and it has taken all this money to pay interest and overhead. There is something wrong with such financial conditions which permit of a system to eat up all the revenue which is collected for building good roads. Road experimenting should be done away with. The best engineers of this country advocate the concrete pavement for durability and economic transportation. And the largest cities of the United States have absolutely prohibited the laying of any patented pavePatented pavement ment, whether that be cement or blacktop. road extra in royalties and up for costs from over $3,000 per wider roads, which amount does not go into the road, but which is a cleair profit. This city and county has paid hundreds of thousands of If all 18-fo- . ot dollars in such royalties for patented pavement. Why has this been done? . Why. does Utah pay a royalty on imported paving material in preference to a much better road material concrete cement the latter which is produced at home? Dont our road officials know that road tests have absolutely and conclusively proven that the concrete highway is the only road which can reduce cost after it has been laid? In tests made by colleges, universities, by states and the govload over ernment, we find that it takes 78. pounds to pull a one-to- n a level gravel road; it takes a pull of 68.5 pounds to move the same load over asphalt, and over concrete the same load can be pulled with only 27.6 pound pull. Of course the saving in gasoline and the wear and tear on the automobile is in about the same ratio. Farmers hate to drive their teams over the so called blacktop. During the summer months, such roads are soft and the pull is very hard and quite frequently the horses pull their shoes from off their feet. In the winter these asphalt and bituminous roads are so slippery that many a good horse has slipped and broken its leg, and many cars have turned over. Brakes are no good on slippery pavements. If patented pavements were better than the known common pavement there might be some argument in their favor. But our best engineers emphatically state that there is no material or physical dj$ ference in the construction and wear. They are constructed about the same and the same materials used. Then why pay a royalty for something which cannot produce better results. We have a good illustration on 33rd South street, going west from State street to the Redwood road. We have the common blacktop and the patented, in a short stretch of road there. In less than one year from the time it was laid the road had to be repaired, both kinds of pavement, and today this part of the Lincoln Highway is a washboard full of waves and ruts, and the people who live in that part of the county are asking that something be done to fix the road. Many automobiles have turned over on this short stretch of road this fall, and in the summer time the farmers take a round about way to get to State street. No fruit can be hauled over this road to the city with safety according to the statements of the farmers in that locality. The people now demand a cement road to replace the present poor blacktop road on 33rd South street. Will they get what they ask for or will these taxpayers again be charged a royalty? When cities like New York, Baltimore, Indianapolis, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Columbus, O., Fort Wayne, Kansas City and many other large cities which only lay the best pavements, absolutely prohibit patented pavements, then why should a much smaller city like Salt Lake City, pay big royalties? In delving into road construction and road materials we find much to correct in road construction in this state, and our road officials ought to turn their attention to the larger road centers of our country and pattern after the substantial roads built in other parts of the country. While speaking of our road building and construction we wish to call the attention of the general public to Utahs short cut to San Francisco. After the tourist leaves Evanston, Wyoming, and enters Utah, he passes through Coalville and Salt lake City and then cuts the corner of the Great Salt Lake and passes on direct to San Francisco, via the Lincoln highway and the Wendover new road. San Francisco donated $50,000 to help build the Wendover road and Governor Mabey jubilantly brought the money home and it looked like an excellent transaction. It was for San Francisco, and unde-:jthe circumstances San Francisco should have at least- donated $5,000,000 for a still more direct road, which might have missed all our cities. Pass em through quick, and land em in Frisco, the logical place to spend their money. Coalville, Salt Lake City and then west to San Francisco, thats the whole story. Just think of it, reader, a national highway comes through our state and there, are only two cities on it. It would appear as if our road commissioners were ashamed to take the highways through the center of our population, unless they are of the opinion that Salt Lake City is the only place a tourist should stop and the only place worth seeing. When Governor-elec- t George H. Dern advocated a large cemer. cross to cover our state in the shape of a highway running from north to south and from east to west, he had the right idea of what was most necessary for our sparsely populated state. Mr. Dern is a competent and practical engineer and no doubt he will give much attention to good roads now that he is in a position to have some say. f - . |