The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1910-07-28
". ,. BISHOP ON DEFECTS IN OUR AMERICAN ROADS We do Not Keep Our Highways in Repair After Building
 Them -. Suggests Unpopular But Never theless a Probable Effective
 Remedy
 Native BridgepOrter Who Has Travelled Extensively Tells of
 His Observations
(By ". ID. Bishop.l

I doubt if in all of America there are twenty-five miles of road that IS good throughout, according to Europ- can standards.
 There are stretches of good road, quite a few of them, enough at any rate to satisfy any one that We know a good road when we see it and that we know very we'll how to build roads, but when we have built the road we have "shot our bolt'' We are like the fellow who when he had renewed a note said to himself. Thank God, that's paid" So when we have fin, ished the construction of a good road we say, That's finished" and so we regard it not only as finished but as finished for all time.
 After while holes. hummocks and other irregularities appear on the sur face of the road, making travel over it uncomfortable. Do we fix it? I guess not. That road was we'll built, and like the renewed note it requires no further attention. At last it gets so bad as to become unsafe. Then we put up signs Street Closed', and devote several months not to repairing it but to rebuilding it.
 While motoring in Europe, in Eng land and on the Continent I was struck by the very few times Twas confront ed by this sign, and then for very short stretches. They seem to have a faculty there, which is noticeably lack ing here, of keeping their roads in re- closing them up for months at time. It is the invariable custom in this country, I don't know why, of never keeping a public highway in repair. We say in our defence and as an ex- cuse-we Americans are good excusers when our conduct is criticised-"Oh! But you must remember that we are young country. while Europe is an old country and has been at work for years on it's roads," What under the sun that has to do with the question puzzles me. We know how to build a road just as we'll as the Europeans do. We have demonstrated that fact innumerable times. I have seen many stretches of road in this country that compare most favorably with any road to be found in Europe, but when we come to a good, continuous road the comparison ceases and we are not on the same earth.
 I have motored a great deal in this country east of the Alleghany Noun tains, and I have never seen a good road in all my travels. I have also motored a great deal in Europe out side of Russia, and I have never seen a poor road. The cause for this diff ference is not that we don't build good roads but that we don't keep them good They do.
 nave III IIllIlQ HOW d SCrolCn or TOdQ leading from Milford to New Haven, recently constructed. I challenge any one to produce a more perfect piece of road than this; yet in a couple of years, if our long continued methods are adhered to. it will be unfit for travel.
 I knew two years ago of a similar stretch of road from Westport River to Southport in Connecticut It had just been constructed and was then on a par with the road from Milford to New Haven. I had occasion to drive over this stretch of Westport road quite recently. Its condition is a dis grace to a civilized community. Two
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