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Show Survey Shows Good Road Soon Repays Its Cost (Prepared iy l lie ir n II -! Kliilen 1 le purt monl uT Ak rluulr ui e ) A good roail Is such a paying Investment Invest-ment tluit It Is the poorest kind of business Judgment to do without It, according ac-cording lo the bureau of public roads of Hie United Stales Department of Agriculture. The bureau produces figures fig-ures based upon u survey of tralllc in Connecticut to prove its contention. An actual count of the trutlic on the Boston Bos-ton post road showed that the average weight of vehicles and commodities passing over the road In nine hours each day was 1,140 tons. Adding one-third one-third as a conservative estimate for the full day increases the weight to 1,-620 1,-620 gross tons dally. Experiments made ut the Iowa experiment ex-periment station show that with gasoline gaso-line at 2,r cents a gallon the cost of moving this tonnage over a dirt road would have been $2(i.44 a mile, assuming assum-ing the Impossible, that such traffic could be carried over a dirt road. The cost of fuel for moving the same tonnage ton-nage over a paved road would be $11.70, a difference of $14.74 a day. On the basis of 300 days a year the actual saving In fuel ulone for moving this tonnage would be $4,422. If the paved highway costs $40,000 a mile, the average av-erage Interest at 5 per cent would be $1,000 a year, which, deducted from the saving on fuel, would leave a balance bal-ance which would retire the cost of the road in less than 12 years. This calculation does not take Into account ojher savings in the cost of operating op-erating commercial vehicles or value of the heavy movement of passenger vehicles. In less developed rural sections the value of the gasoline saved Is reduced In proportion to the lighter travel, but the cost of the roads Is correspondingly corresponding-ly reduced, and there Is no doubt that an analysis and comparison of the highway costs and the vehicle operating operat-ing cost in any particular case will demonstrate the economy of Improvement Improve-ment wherever the traffic Is sufficient to call for any Improvement at all. . |