Montgomery County sentinel. [volume] (Rockville, Md.) 1855-1974, 1912-03-22
Blair Lee Raps Road Engineer.

Baltimore Evening Sun, March 14th.
Were Chief Engineer Crosby of the
State Roads Commission, as adept at build
ing highways as ne is at making reports,
he'd be a dandy" said Senator Blair Lee
this mOrning-at 1915 o'clock, to be exact.
Senator Lee was moved to utterance by a
statement from Mr.. Crosby in regard to
roads in Montgomery county, and, punctu-
ating his monologue with chuckles of keen
enjoyment, spoke. in part, as follows:
1T was by reason of Mr.. CrOsby's expe-
rience with State roads that we were COM
PEELED to request the State Roads Commits
sion to get some other kind of engineering
for State roads in Montgomery county
that Is roads built under the $5,000,000
loan and subsequent loans and paid for
altogether by the State. Experience in
Montgomery county had been so disastrous
with State-aid roads under Mr.. Crosby's
engineering that public opinion protested
against continuance Of that engineering,
the general experience being that the work
was neither reasonably cheap nor reason
ably durable. Nor did Mr. Crosby appear to
learn by experience, and he made the same
mistakes over and over again in the same
neighborhood.
AS to Mr.. Crosby's statement about the
failure of the road between Chevy Chase
Lake and Bradley lane" resumed Senator
Lee, 1T must be remembered that this road
was designed entirely by Mr.. Crosby. He
specified all the details and material, and
the grades and the filling. 1t was built of
railroad stone, all from West Virginia. The
contractor was from New Jersey and the
labor was foreign.
ttMr nroobxy A. e.:i,,-o
southern mile of this road to three reasons,
which he sets forth in detail in his report.
He admits il was a quick failure-and il
certainly was. The road was built in the
summer of 1909, and was almost completed
but not accepted. Presumably the work
was done according to specifications, as
there was an inspector on hand under Mr..
Crosby's charge.
Il photographed this mile in half a dozen
places in the spring of 1910 and showed
the photographs, which illustrated how the
road had cut through, very extensively to
the papers, the Senate and to Mr.. Crosby
He objected, saying the photographs rep
resented only small part and the road
was not accepted from the contractor. The
photos, however, were fair representations
of the condition of the road and the mere
formality of the acceptance of the road,
which had been designed and executed
under his direction, was immaterial as far
as the specifications were concerned. II
was material to the poor contractor, how
ever, and illustrates how contractor has
to make good for Mr.. Crosby's mistakes,
for when the unfortunate contractor had to
resurface the road during the next summer
and, If remember correctly, it was finally
accepted from the contractor in November,
1910.
81 had argued from the photos and the
of the road that the defects were
and prophesied that the road
would 90 to peices the next winter and the
expense of fixing it would be thrown on
the county, just as it had been thrown on
the contractor, who had been unfortunate in
not getting away quick enough This hap
pened, but the wreck of the road was more
fearful and complete than anyone had ex-
pected. The wreck of the road was so COM
plete in six months that the County Com
missioners put 800 tons of rough stone in
the worst holes to enable traffic to Oct by.
81 admit what Mr.. Crosby says-that
this road has been neglected since it was
wrecked, but it was wrecked too quickly for
the Commissioners to have any RESPONSE
bility, and the neglect was merely the neg
lect of an old wreck on the seashore
which is hardly worth the salvage.
THE Brookeville mile was the last piece
of work Mr.. Crosby designed for Mont
eomery county, and doubt if citizen can
be found who does not hope that this will
be the last he ever will design for Mont
gomery county. He allowed the contractor
81 400 for extra work over and above that
called for BY the specifications. and after
supervising the construction on his own
specifications and allowing this extra he
calmly wrote the Montgomery County Com
missioners that, although the contractor
had done everything called for in the speci-
fications with the extras thrown in the
road was not proper to be accepted by the
State. have seen this letter Of Mr.. Cros-
by's or wouldn't believe it."
A half dozen other equally interesting
cases were cited by Senator Lee, who con-
cluded that if Mr.. Crosby could make roads
as well as he could make reports he'd be
dandy"