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Show PAVING PROGRAM OF NATION INCREASED A new autoinoljle was bought in 9l'4 for every 13 feet of rural highway high-way constructed throughout the country. coun-try. If all the new automobiles were strung in line along all the new roads, each would be able to move only five or six feet before traMic would be blocked. The result of this situation is that l!)2r will see the greatest program pro-gram of new road building ever known in America. populous districts already al-ready have started to do what the railroads rail-roads did years ago double track existing ex-isting rights of way. 1'avements in metropolitan districts constructed a few years ago are not wide enough to care for the increase in trattic. Wayne county, Michigan, in which Detroit is located, fittingly look the first step to rectify this condition. That county spent $3,000,000 in 1024 acquiring wider rights of way and will pursue a similar policy t li Is year. The program planned there involves super highways with widths of SO, 120 md 204 feet, according to traiiic demands. de-mands. About 04,1 12,f)G5 square yards of rural highway was constructed last year, equivalent to G.071 miles of 1S-foot 1S-foot road. This exceeded the record of any previous year by nearly ST5 miles. Hard-surfaced highways in this country now total 31,700 miles. The greatest increase in pavement construction was in the building of streets and alleys, which totaled 31,-1)27,802 31,-1)27,802 square yards, or 40 per cent more than in 102.",. This work is equivalent to 0,37$ miles of IS-foot highway, or enough to run a band 54 feet wide from the Atlantic to the Pacific. In addition, contracts for 2,000 miles of hai'd-surfaced highways were carried over into this year. Asphalt pavements laid on the streets and highways of the United States in 1024 total 118,800.000 square yards. This is an increase of 10 per cent over the yardage laid in 1023. Reports from Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona and' Nevada indicate indi-cate that 72 per cent of all paving contracts let in those states in 1924 were for asphalt. Telegraphic forecasts from 37 state highway commissioners and 40 city engineers of cities of 100.000 population popula-tion or over indicate the 192o paving will run 20 per cent over 1024. |