Bingham Bulletin | 1918-05-31 | Page 3 | Proper Width of Highways

PROPER WIDTH OF HIGHWAYS Writer Advocates Narrower Roads and Restoring Aores of Valuable ' i Land to Farming. Just at this time many are inter ested in the question, how wide should our public roads be? A number of things should be considered in answering an-swering this question, says a writer in Utah Farmer. The kind of material mate-rial to be used In making the road. The topographical conditions through which the road will pass, the proper drainage of. the road. The speclul use to which the road may be put, if any. For years very little attention has been given to the waste of land in our road building. Land has been cheap and plentiful and years ago we did hot Good Road In West I plre the attention to proper road j building as we do now. Public roads have been of a uniform width of 60 feet and the by-roads about 40 feet They hae been too wide if we were to Judge by the condition In which we And many of them. Wasted land on either side Is used only to grow wet'ds. Why not mcke them the width that Is uRed and plant trees on either side as we have advocated In these columns col-umns before? Then the thousands of acres of land that are now practically wasted could be put to some good use. . Some of the Eastern railroads are teaching us a lesson In this regard for they are farming their right-of-way. On a recent trip East I saw great long stretches' of land on either side of the railroad track planted to alfalfa. Acres were planted to truck , gardening. I understand similar con-1 ditions are to be found In some parts j ef California. , j For the sake of economy In building and upkeep let's build our roads more narrow. Restore the acres of valuable j land to farming. Build scientifically ( constructed roads the proper width : and plant trees on both sides.