Montgomery County sentinel. [volume] (Rockville, Md.) 1855-1974, 1913-08-01
Statement OF O.'E. Weller, Chair
man OF The State Roads Conn
mission, About Foreign Trip.

Commissioner Miller and myself spent
about three weeks on the other side-One
in London attending the International Road
Congress-. the other two in an automobile
examining, perhaps, 1900 miles of roads
in France. England and Wales, The result
of our observation is not unfavorable to
our roads. The best foreign roads are not
better than the best American roads.
There are simply more of them. That
is the difference. In Great Britain and
Continental Europe the bad road is the
exception. while in our country the bad
road is the rule. This is because the United
States is in comparatively new and form
alive period of its development, with an
enormous road mileage of 2,250,000 miles,
to the improvement of which we have only
been recently devOting our energies.
During the past year have attended
the American Road Congress at Atlantic
City, the American Road Builders Associ-
alton at Cincinnati, the Federal Aid Road
Convention at Washington, and the recent
International Road Congress in England.
These gatherings afford an interchange of
ideas and experiences of road builders and
engineers and are very instructive and
beneficial. The problem of modern road
building has not yet been worked out, but
it will be solved in America and not in
Europe. Our country has taken hold Of
this job in earnest, and we have the money,
the brains, the energy and the courage to
work it out. This fact is recognized by
the Government of France, which has had
NJ. de Pullieny, the Chief Engineer of Roads
and Bridges Of that country, in the United
States for nearly year with a corps of
assistants to secure the best and latest
practice on this important question.
No intelligent comparison Of the Euro
pean roads and ours can be made without
taking into consideration the difference in
conditions. which are more favorable there
than here. The first point to be considered
is that there is practically no new con-
struction on the other side. Their roads
have been in process of building for hun
dreds of years. and their problem is almost
exclusively now one of proper maintenance.
We were much surprised to find in France,
whose patrol system has been held up to
the world as model. that little care is
being paid to the maintenance of their
State Roads according to modern standards.
The only oiled roads we saw in France
were within a radius Of is or 20 miles Of
Paris where the motor traffic is heavy and
where the macadam roads are full of holes
and rapidly going to peices. In the 500
miles Of rural French roads we covered in
five days, we did not see a single road that
had been oiled, not one road roller at work,
rarely ever culvert, very little wheel traffic,
not half n dozen motor trucks. perhaps not
more than a dozen automobiles day,
nearly all filed with Americans, and only
four patrolmen at work, and these were
shaping up the shoulders and not repairing
the road. The only reason the roads of
France are good is because they have not
been subjected to such heavy automobile
traffic as we have in Maryland, and even
as it is they already show signs Of deteri-
Grafton. II they are not protected by a
proper top dressing within the next year
or two, they will begin to ravel and rut and
will degenerate badly.
In England the roads are much better
than in France. but even there as much
care is not given TO prompt maintenance
as we are endeavoring TO use in Maryland
When hole appears in an English mae
adam road. il is not at once filled in with a
patch. but the holes are permitted to in
crease until it is necessary to rebuild the
road. which is then done in sections of
generally from one-quarter Of a mile to
mile in length. In other words. they rebuild
their roads rather than maintain them.
This means great waste Of money and is a
system we could not afford in our State. Il
should be borne in mind that England and
France are practically as rich as the whole
United State and that each Of these coun-
tries Is smaller than some Of our States
This means that they can afford to spend
and do spend many times more than we
do on the maintenance Of their roads.
while their cost of construction has already
been paid for.
Among the many advantages they have
over us are An equable climate. without
extremes of heat or cold, and without
much frost or hot weather; arainfall which