The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-11-01

road will be finished and how 1t will stand the traffic when it is.
 Highway Commissioner Macdonald, in talking about the road to a report CT, showed that MT. Seitz and he were in accord on a good many points and that he is planning to eliminate one Of the grievances which are troubling Greenwich folk, and that is the diff ference between the grade of the troll ley track and that of the highway. An act of the recent General Assem- bly, which will compel the trolley com pany to make the grade of the track conform to that of the highway is likely to iron out some of the trou- ble.
 To begin with, Commissioner Mac Donald says the stretch of road is two and one-quarter miles long instead of three. and that he did not feel that it would be fair to the other towns of the state to expend s50.O0O on a sec tfon of highway of that length. He was not, he said, unfriendly to the proposal made by the committee of the Greenwich Board of Trade through it's committee, but it was simply question of expediency. The commit tee, he said, wanted a 40-foot road made of vitrified brick with bluestone curbing, and, while the road would be highly desirable, he said that the state could not afford to embark in that kind of road building. He was at tempting to build a macadam road in which the minimum roadway would be 16 feet, but, where conditions would permit,it was wider and carried shoul- ders of from two to five feet He said that, on account of some of the grades, especially through Mianus, the plan of vitrified brick road could not be carried out, for horse drawn vehicles would be unable to handle a load upon it if it were built. In any event a combina tion road would be necessary
 Commissioner Macdonald showed a copy of a letter written by him to Duncan Edwards on May 10, 1910, in which he told MT. Edwards that he would contribute what the state had allotted for the construction of the road under the Clark contract if the town wanted to build a better road. He wrote that he had learned that the trolley company had no idea of double tracking it's line through Greenwich and, that being so, it would leave the track where it was and, that being the case, the expense to the trolley company for a change would to s35.000
 Under date of July 20. 1910, Com missioner Macdonald wrote for the second time to Duncan Edwards, in part as follows: s'I have waited now nearly year for the acceptance of the proposition which I made to your committed. that the state would con- tribute toward the building of the sec tion of road from Stamford westerly toward Greenwich what it would use for the construction of the road. The proposal not having been accepted and having Waited until the people down there are very much ineensed and impatient I have closed the con- tract with MT. Clark. I regret that it is impossible for the state to comply with your proposition, which is tentative, because of the fact that the railroad company will not go into the enterprise further than laying single track"
 Commissioner Mcdonald said that the last General Assembly gave him the power to compel any street rail- way company to make it's tracks con- form in grade with those of a trunk line highway and this will be done in Greenwich as soon as the lawyers get together on the details. The pr1n- cipal question now, he said, is wheth- CT or not the contractor will do the work and the trolley company pay him half the expense or whether the work shall be done by the trolley company and the state pay half the bill
 Commissioner Macdonald said that there is no difference between him and the people of Greenwich as to the width and character of the road that. should be built, except that he felt that roadway composed entirely of vitriffed brick could not be construct ed to advantage on some of the grades through Mianus and, further. that it was a question of expediency. The state could not, in justice to the other towns, stand for such <an expensive road He was in the beginning. as his two letters to MT. Edwards showed, willing to contribute what had been allotted, for such a road as the Green wich people wanted. but if Greenwich wanted a better road than was being built in other parts of the state the town should pay the extra expense. Commissioner Macdonald thinks, however, that his road will stand up under the traffic when it is finished and treated with oil as he expects to treat it.