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Show Solving The Good Roads Program "Every road improvement must justify itself on economic grounds," says a United States Chamber of Commerce joint committee. com-mittee. "It is quite possible to improve im-prove a road to so high a type that the cost far overshadows .the operating saving. "If the highway is of unnecessarily unneces-sarily high type, the average overhead ov-erhead charge against each vehicle-mile will be unreasonably high, much more than offsetting the low vehicle-operating and highway-maintenance costs." Many communities and states have found this out at great expense. ex-pense. High-type, "p o i i t i c a 1" roads have been built in territories territor-ies where the volume of traffic offered no justification whatsoever. As a result, the taxpayers have paid for, and must maintain, a forty-thousand-dollar a mile road where a five-thousand-dollar a mile road would have served as well. Science has given us bituminous road surfaces which are called "the biggest money-saving paving material that has been developed." devel-oped." Such a surface is weatherproof, weather-proof, skidproof. and capable of carrying a fairly heavy amount of traffic without suffering excessive wear. Both original cost nnd maintenance main-tenance cost are extremely low They are the average state and county's solution to the good roads problem. |