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Show ft h h Power Waste On The ' Highways I According to a recent computation tie power that Is going to waste on American highways Is equivalent to the dally work of 350,000 horses. The basis of this statement Is found In the fact that it requires a tractive effort of 218 pounds to haul a ton of freight over a dirt road, as against twenty-eight pounds of tractive effort ef-fort over a smoothly paved roadway. Thus t here is a loss of 190 pounds of tractive effort on every ton of freight hauled over a dirt road. Of course, It Is not practlcableto pave overy country highway, or even a considerable share of them. But the high value of paved through routei between Industrial centers and markets mar-kets Is coming to bo better understood. under-stood. This Is partly due to the sudden sud-den conversion of such paved routes into freight roads by tne use of the motor truck. The government now plans to send 30,000 war motor trucks laden with war material from Chicago to an Atlantic port under their own power. Without well paved roads the establishment es-tablishment of motor truck lines would be lmposstblo or at least Impracticable. Im-practicable. All of which suggests that, whatever measuros of retrenchment retrench-ment in public oxpondlt'ires are undertaken un-dertaken to easo tho burden of war taxation, there should bo no halting In road improvement. And with the traffic bursting from tho steol rails and overflowing on to tho highway, speedy provision should bo mado for giving a pormanent bard surface to tho through routes, in order to savo the wasto of power Involved in dltt surfaces. |
