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Show SAVE MILLIONS BY GOOD ROADS. Between half a billion and a billion dollars would be saved annually an-nually in the United States if every state would improve its main highways to the highest point of efficiency. Calculations just made by the United States office of public roads show that to affect this enormous saying throughout the country coun-try it will be necessary to improve only about 20 per cent of the roads. There are now about 2.150,000 miles of road in the United States. Two hundred thousand miles, or about 9 per cent, are improved im-proved in some manner. To bring the number of miles up to 20 per cent it will be necessary to improve 250,000 more miles. "While this task may seem stupendous, it is estimated that it can be accomplished accom-plished by a probable average expenditure of $7,000 a mile, or ipl. 750,000.000 for a fairly complete system. "Were each state to put $4,000,000 into the improvement of its roads, the work could be accomplished in a very short time. "A complete system of roads," said Logan" Waller Page, director direc-tor of the United States office of public roads, in discussing the road movement that is sweeping over the country, "is an economic necessity. neces-sity. A few figures will illustrate the stupendous saving that could be made. "There are. for instance, nearly half a million automobiles in the United States at the present time; their value, roughly estimated, is close to three-quarters of a billion dollars. There are, in addition, 21,040,000 horses and 4,123.000 mules, the number growing steadily despite thp advent of motor vehicles. The value of the horses is about .$2,276,363,000; the value of the mules $500,000,000. "Then take the "pleasure vehicles. They number 907,000, with a value of $51,500,000. Then take the wagons used for commercial purposes. They number 576,300, the total value being $31,480,000. The wear and tear on thesci vehicles as a result of bad roads is nearly 25 per cent. A complete system of improved highways would cut this loss in half. "The great saving in transportation of all kinds of products, including those of the mills as well as those of the soil, would amount to many millions of dollars annually. In the case of the corn crop of the south alone, no less than $7,200,000 would be saved in transportation despite the fact that most of the corn there is for home consumption. "Wherever a new road is built or an old one improved the value of the nearby laud rises automatically. This increase in iUself is sufficient iu mostcases to pay for the improvement. The profit to the country from this source would be almost inestimable. In fact, it is a very conservative estimate that tho saving throughout the country, from all sources, as a result of the improvement of 20 per cent of the roads, would be somewhere botween half a billion and a billion dollars every year. And this saving could be accomplished accom-plished by an expenditure of $2,000,000 in each state the first year and a much smaller sum -each year thereafter for maintenance. The whole thing depends, of course, upon systematization and all the states working together, but it would seem that the era of road building that has begun is tending towards these results." WTini n II i 11 mini |
