The Oskaloosa herald. (Oskaloosa, Mahaska County, Iowa) 1885-1919, 1914-07-02
POOR ROADS IN IOWA.

| In an address before the Iowa Bank.
ers' convention at Clinton, d. w.
Norris, Jr., of Marshalltown, digress-
ed from shop-talk and discussed the
| omnipresent subject of good roads.
Among other good things he said:
The state of Iowa is spending ten
millions of dollars per annum upon
her dirt roads and bridges and she
can hardly show a mile of hard sur
faced road within ner border, while
the state of Ohio on no larger expen-
diture of tax money has practically
every main travelled country road
paved or surfaced with stone and
gravel. More than half the states in
the union have more miles of improv-
ed road than our own state, and some
of them have ten times as many.
Third in total mileage we stand twen-
ty-seventh in miles of improved road.
OF the ten states spending about the
same amount of money upon their
roads as we do the average amount
of improved roads is four times what
We have to show for our money.
ask you gentlemen, what is the mat
ter with Iowa?
1--WE have designated in each coun-
ty the main travelled roads as county
roads and we have connected them up
so as to create a system of state
roads. We have increased our road
taxes until we now have all the mon
ey we need for making the best kind
OF roads but we are not building any
hard surfaced roads. We do not need
any more taxes. The trouble is tiat
we have not yet learned to finance
the taxes we are paying. We need
banker. When the railroads were
built across Iowa, the promoters had
their engineers run the grades and
build the bridges but they also were
wise enough to have their bankers.
The bankers realized that hill once
cut the grade would stay cut forever,
tlat rOadbed ballasted would carry
traffic for many years, and they went
back east to the older civilizations of
the New England states and of Eu.
rope where the surplus savings of an
immense population were seeking in.
vestment and they said to these peo-
pie, buy our bonds, build our rail-.
roads for us and We will pay for them
principal and interest with our bust
ness. They did not try to build a
thirty year railroad out of one years
freight earnings, neither will we ever
build thirty-year road pavement out
Of one years tax money
up at WinOna, MINI, they are
building sixteen miles of concrete |
paving over country roads eight feet |
wide, with six feet of macadam on
each side for turn-Outs and the con !
tract cost was $1,000 per mile. Out
If Pine Bluffs, Ark, they are building
twenty-one miles just like it and a
contract was let last week in Ohio !
or twenty-three miles out of Zanes-
Vile. A road like that in Iowa on
hirty-year bond plan would cost 1920 |
rer year per mile for principal and in
crest. II we assessed half of the !!
Dad 500 would be divided between
welve farms. This would cost the
quarter section with half mile of
rontage on the pavement $25 per an.
lum special paving tax, SIS for the
text farm back and $12 for the farm
cross the road on the next section
inc. The average county in Iowa
low has $50 miles of county roads.
Is present bridge tax, if bonded
fould completely bridge the county
With concrete and pay for it all in
hirty years with money to tax. Pos
Gritty would have the bridges and no
ridge tax. Its present county road
Ak would in ten years pay the coun- [
VS. one-half the cost of crawling :
very mile of its county road system, [
r in thirty years IL would pay the /
Ounty's one-half of both principal and t
lterest of paving the county road /
ystem." 4