Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1901-01-02
PRACTICAL ROAD PLAN.
A Suggestion for Obtaining National
Aid That Is Neither Visionary
Nor Unreasonable.

The state aid laws of New Jersey,
Maryland, Massachusetts and New
York, which provide that the whole
commonwealth shall bear from one
quarter to three-fOurths of the eX-
pense Of all highway improvement and
that the rest shall be borne by the
freeholders in equal proportion and
the counties in which the work is
done, have proved very successful and
popular, so that now these states are
noted for the many miles of excellent
highways they possess. Other states
may well follow the example.
If, now, similar plan for national
aid in road building were proposed, it
should stand a good chance OF being
adopted. Suppose, for instance, a bill
were introduced in congress providing
that the general government bear
one-quarter of the amount expended
by each state or territory in building
city streets and country highways
that conform to specifications ap-
proved by a government commission
and that are built according to the
recommendation and approval of state
and territorial highway commissions.
Such measure would, very likely, be
enacted into a law, after the usual
amount of opposition from contrary
interests that is always manifested to-
wards bills involving the appropria-
ton of large amounts of public funds.
The offer of tho ont fo
stand one-quarter of the cost of high
way Improvement in every city and
state would be powerful stimulus
to every community to improve it's
streets and wagon roads. In order
to obtain the 25 per cent. from the
government it would be necessary for
each state or territory to have a high
way commission whose duties it would
be to determine which roads should
be improved, where new ones should
be built and perhaps actually to do
the work with hired gangs of men
or to let contracts to local construc-
tors. This would systematic the
work and open a way to have the
most important roads improved first
and all the work done on definite
plan. The remaining three-quarters
of the cost could be divided accord
ing to the law of each state among
the counties and the AUDITING land
owners on the roads improved A CEN
trail bureau to be established in Wash
ington, or the present bureau of road
inquiry, should be required to draw
up standard specifications for the
construction of roads from all the
different kinds of paving materials
in order that when the roads are
built they will be really good ones
that will not be in constant need of
repair and so that the states cannot
demand from the government any
money for the system of working
out" road taxes on the common dirt
roads.
If every one of our so states and
territories did 100000 worth of road
building and repairing annually, I'M
der such a law, the government would
have to pay only $25,oOO,OOO of this,
which is not an excessive amount COM
pared with the many millions annual
ly expended by the government upon
I1NcI anu HdIDOI anu
canal work.
The government experts have care
fully estimated from statistics gath
cred from all parts of the country
that the farming, mining, manufac-
turing and commercial interests of
the United States sustain an annual
loss due to bad roads, in the ways
mentioned above, of not less than
5000, 1000 900 annually. Spending $780,
100000 a year on road building and
repairing, it would take the country
six years to spend an amount equal to
one years losses, and, supposing that
with the repairs on existing roads and
the construction of new ones every
mile of new road cost $4,000, we should
have 10000 miles of new macadam
road Of the best kind in the country
each year, or 10000 miles in the six
years, equal to an average of 2,400
miles for each state and territory,
which would have reduced the losses
so much that the saving would have
paid the whole cost of the work.
AS soon as we have built an average
Of one mile of first-class road for
every "a miles of bad road now eX-
listing, we will annually save enough
from the losses above mentioned to
equal the government aid of $25,0O0,
900 given to the states; and as soon
as every mile in six of our bad roads
Of to-day is made into a hard, smooth
stone or gravel turnpike the annual
saving will equal the annual total ex-
penditure of $1Oo,O0O,OOO by all the
states and the government combined,
so that from that time on we may
consider that our road improvement
IS not only costing us nothing, but is
actually saving us more money as the
work goes on.-Cleveland cycling Ga
zette.