Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1913-11-21

experience in almost every state in the
union excepting four or five in the
Mississippi valley.
The Hampton men, however, should
not deceive themselves as to the cost
Concrete centers have been laid now
on rural highways in so many states
that the cost il we'll known quantity.
Generally it averages $3.50 per mile for
each foot of width. Mason Citys ex-
perience this summer in building a
mile of 1t verihes this cost as being
equally as standard in Iowa.
highway paved fourteen feet wide
would thus cost approximately $4,000
per mile, but at Leroy, ILL.,. this sum-
iner a most excellent highway pave
mont was built for $4,000 per mile and
* was done by paving a strip nine feet
wide with concrete to carry the traffic
and then building this pavement out
three feet on each side with gravel,
giving in fact a hard surfaced pave
ment of fifteen feet wide for vehicles
TO pass one another, but carrying the
main traffic on the pavement proper.
This style Of construction is quite COM
mon in Ohio, Pennsylvania and New
York where the pavement proper is
most often Of brick nine feet wide with
the rnacadamized shoulders on each
side. Anyone who has Travelled over
them as the T.-R. editor has done. will
appreciate their entire serviceahility at
once. Such pavement would All every
requirement in Iowa and should be
built generally for $1,000 per mile.
But the Hampton men are going to
be "up against It." as the saying goes,
Just as the neighbors down here will
be when they try TO raise the money
necessary 10 pave the Lincoln high
way. A $1,000 pavement will last twen-
ty years or more with little or no ex-
pense for maintenance. It can't be
and 1t ought not to be If il could. At
least twenty five years of taxpayers
will use it and many Of this years tax
payers will be dead before the pave
taxpayers during the next five years
who do not pay taxes now but they
will be using the pavement for twenty
years or more. A perma nent public i'm
provement Of this kind should be paid
for as it is used and this means a bond
issue maturing in equal annual in
stallments during the life Of the pave
ment. 1t is the way permanent roads
are now financed in three-fourths OF
the states and it should be the way in
iowa.
If Franklin county could issue twenty
year road bonds with which 10 pave
her county roads at $1,000 per mile
and should try TO pay half the cost
out Of the county road funds and assess
the other half to the nearby land
benefited her road monies for next
year as already levied under the pres
ent law would pay the county's half of
al least 100 miles Of paved county
roads. The other half would amount to
an annual charge Of $3.50 principal and
interest. per mile which could be d.
vided between twelve quarter sections
Of land all lying within a mile and
half Of the improved road which would
cost each quarter section from $50 TO
$40 per year special paving assess
naent
The Hampton farmers have petit
toned for the pavement They must
want the road Is it not true that our
Legislature devised a sound and equit-
able method Of paying for road when
the taxpayers are willing to petition
and vote for the improvement?