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Show MAINTENANCE OF DIRT ROADS Illinois State Highway Department Makes Comments That Partly Answer An-swer Oft-Repeated Question. All through the central states there Seems to be at present an unexpected Interest in earth roads, and there is a widespread desire to have an authoritative authori-tative opinion on the field for which such roads are adapted. It is a subject sub-ject on which many experienced road engineers are not willing to make any statements for fear of being misunderstood misun-derstood or misquoted, but the road engineer of the Illinois state highway department has recently made some (lade from oJ wagon- tire Cwf from 2'j-Z '-Zf '-PanK ' 1 Plan for King Road Drag. comments that answer a part of this oft-repeated question as follows: -"The earth road cannot, by any system of maintenance, be kept up throughout the entire year to the usual standard of the other types. The use of the road in a wet and softened condition is what causes the trouble. Under the conditions where the earth road is a suitable type, its total cost for construction con-struction and maintenance is less than that of any other type. In dry weather and when it is not too dusty, the properly prop-erly constructed and maintained earth road is by far more pleasant and more satisfactory to travel upon than any other road. With neglected maintenance, main-tenance, however, no other type of road can go to pieces and become impassable im-passable so quickly as an earth road. Nor, on the other hand, can any other type be brought to a satisfactory condition con-dition for travel so quickly and so cheaply after having been impassable. From these peculiar features, lit will be noted that practically the entire pn.blem with earth roads is their proper drainage and systematic maintenance. main-tenance. The opportunity for bettering better-ing our road conditions by properly improving the earth roads is almost beyond our imagination." |