Pocahontas star herald., 1911-07-14
SAVE BILLION BY
BETTER HIGHWAYS
United States Office OF Public
Roads Calculates 1t Would
Require Improvement OF
Only 20 Per Cent.

lion dollars would be saved annual
ly in the United States if every
state would improve its main high
ways to the highest point of efiicien
cy.
Calculations Just made by the
United States Office of Public Road:
show that to effect this enormous
saving throughout / h e country
it will be necessary to improve only
about 90 per cent of the roads.
There are now about 2,l50,6OC
miles of road in the United States.
Two hundred thousand miles, OF
about 8 per cent, are improved in
some manner. To bring the num-
Der of miles up to 20 per cent 1t
will be necessary to improve $780,.
900 more miles. While this task
may seem stupendous it is estimated
that it can be accomplished by a
probable average expenditure of a
mile, or 81, ,75O,O 900, 900 for fairly
complete system. Were each state
to put $4,000, 900 into the improve
ment of its roads, the work could
be accomplished IN very short
time.
GA complete system of roads,"
SAID Logan Waller Page, director
of the United States Office of Pub
lie Roads in discussing the road
movement that is sweeping over the
country, sis an economic necessity.
A few figures will illustrate the stu.
pendous 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 billion
dollars. There are in addition, 81,
O4O, 900 horses and 4, 1913, 600 mules,
the number growing steadily de-
spite the fact of motor vehicles.
The value of the horses is about
S2, 276, 363, 900; the value of the
mules, 5000, 900, 900.
Then, take the pleasure vehicles.
lhaS number 100000, with value
20 S5I, 500, coo. Then take the
wagons used for commercial pur-
poses. They number $40, 800, the
,otal value being SSl, ,4SO, 900. The
wear and tear on these vehicles as a
result of bad roads is nearly 25 per
cent. A complete system of i'm
proved highways would cut this
loss i'll half
The great saying IN trlnsporta'
ton of all kinds of products, includ-
ing those of the mills as we'll as
those of the soil, would amount to
many millions of dollars annually.
In the case of the corn crop would
be saved in transportation despite
the fact that the most of the corn
there is of the South alone, no less
than 81, 200, 900 for home consump'
ton.
Wherever new road is built or
an old one improved the value of
the nearby land rises automatically.
This increase in itself is sufficient
in most cases to pay for the i'm
provement. The profit from The
country from this source would be
almost inestimable. In fact it is a
verv conservative estimate that the
saving throughout the country,
from all sources as a result OF the
Improvement of 20 per cent of the
roads, would be somewhere between
half a billion dollars every year.
And this saving could be accom-
plished by an expenditure of So,
coo, 900 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 thai
has begun is tending toward these
results,