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Show WORLD'S GREATEST ROAD BUILDING PROGRAM Thomas H. MacDonald, chief of United States Bureau of Public Pub-lic Roads, addressing Sixth Annual Asphalt Paving conference, emphasized em-phasized need for good roads and said: "The program of this nation in building highways has had no parallel in all past history- The cumulative loss to nation now from inadequate highways is prohibitive." pro-hibitive." He then went on to show that there are over 23,000,000 motor cars traveling on our roads and that they will consume 1 0', 720, 000,-000 000,-000 gallons of gasoline in a year. At 20 cents a gallon, the fuel would cost $2,144,000,000. Using these figures, he shows the necessity for improving as rapidly as possible the great road mileages that are necessary to connect con-nect up our rural districts. This will necessitate doing away with much road following section lines, and substituting roads of shorter distances and better surfaces between important points. He pointed out the tremendous mileage of roads initially improved im-proved with rock and gravel which can be surfaced with a waterproof water-proof covering of asphaltic character, thereby salvaging old road investments in-vestments and providing thousands of miles of new hard-surfaced highways suitable for modern automobile traffic, at minimum cost to taxpayers- The United States has hundreds of thousands of miles of road to build. It must save money by utilizing to fullest extent road investments in-vestments already made. |
