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Show POOR HIGHWAYS CALLED COSTLY Government engineers are trying to dispel three erroneous ideas about public highways to give the country a highly improved system of motor travel. These ideas are : 1. That an improved road is a luxury, lux-ury, to bo enjoyed only If it can be afforded and not essential to the economic eco-nomic health of the community. 2. That all roads, if improved, should be hard surfaced to make it worth while. 3. That roads be built for permanency. perma-nency. These thoughts are attacked and broken down in a statement of members mem-bers of the bureau of public roads to the secretary of agriculture. The Idea of good roads being luxuries, lux-uries, say the engineers, "had its origin orig-in in the early days of the automobile when the motor vehicle was thought to be merely a toy of the wealthy few, and road improvement was thought to be In the Interest of only this special class." Conditions are different now. Automobiles Au-tomobiles are necessities to a great degree, and roads are needed to accommodate ac-commodate them if ' only for transportation trans-portation purposes. "The fact Is," reads the report, "we lose more by not Improving the roads than it costs to improve them. So we may say that we pay for improved roads whether we have them or not, and we pay less If we have them tban than if we have not." Hard-surfaced roads are' not economical eco-nomical in every case. According to the bureau of public roads, the types of surfaces should be left to' the discretion dis-cretion of those who actually use them. "It has been shown that the maximum maxi-mum amount which it is proper to spend for the improvement of a given road is the sum of the individual savings sav-ings accruing from the improvement to the owners of the vehicles driven over it," in the opinion of the government govern-ment road officials. "What we spend for the Improvement Improve-ment of any given road should always al-ways be less than the sum total of savings from the improvement." That the road should be made for permanency is looked upon as an absurd idea. There isn't such a thing as a permanent road, say the government govern-ment men. |
