The Prescott daily news., 1914-12-14
SPEND PERCENTAGE MONEY
 FOR ENDURING FEATURES
Mistake to Spend Bulk of Road Mon- ey for An Expensive Surface on Bad Foundation of Poorly
 Laid Out Road.

good roads by county bonds is dis cussed by the authors of Bulletin No. 136, of the United States Department of Agriculture, entitled "Highway Bonds"
 In this bulletin the authors point out that in eXpending money raised by the sale of highway bonds the high way commissioners should distinguish carefully between the permanent and the perishable features of the road. Foundations, drainage structures, alignment and grades, are permanent features which should be looked upon in the light of an investment. If these features do not comply with a certain standard, it will be poor economy to spend money on transitory improve ments such as hard surfaces, which must be renewed at considerable ex- pense from year to year.
 Local conditions, of course, deter mine to a great extent the proper standards for the permanent features of any highway. Twenty years ex- perience in modern road building has shown, however, that there is a min imum which any road built on borrow ed money should comply with.
 So-called macadam roads have been built with bond money by simply spreading broken stone in the mud. The inevitable result of such short sightedness is that long before the bonds have been paid off, the improve ments for which they were issued have ceased to exist and the county has nothing tC show for it's increased debt. In the came way, it is manifest ly poor policy to build an expensive surface on defective grades with poor alignments and shortlived drainage features.
 Even when much of the money ex- pended upon a highway has gone in- to the permanent features, there is still danger that the cost of repairs and maintenance will be overlooked, or at least sighted, in the calcula- tions of the road-builders. When roads are built with borrowed money it is, of course, especially important to avoid this error. On the other hand, however, it is not necessary to regard the total cost of surfacing road as temporary improvement. Much of the surfacing may be class ed as a permanent investment, for it is becoming more and more common to have surfaces built in two courses, the lower of which is as much a per manent feature of construction as the grading itself. This is particularly true of those types of road that are built with concrete foundations for bituminous-macadam, brick, or asph- alt surfaces It is probably conserva- tive, indeed, to regard 40 per cent of the surfaclng cost of macadam or more enduring pavements as perma- nent investment. It is seldom now adays that hard roads are permitted to wear into the foundation course of the surfacing.
 Probably it is safe to say that an average of about 62 per cent of the total cost of q well-built macadam road should be put into the permanent features, and with bituminous-maca- dam applied, about 56 per cent. This method of estimating cannot be ap- piled to any gravel or natural soil road in which no part of the surfacing can advantageously be considered per manent, for under most systems of maintenance it steadily deterioates.
 Roads built with surfaces entirely of concrete, or with brick pavements resting on concrete foundation, are generally regarded as permanent, but it is not yet definitely known how long the best concrete surface will last. The best vitrifed brick surfaces may last a number of years, but even with them repairs will be required.
 To sum up, the authors of this bull letin point out that the initial cost of a road is never the final one; that no surface is permanent, and that re- pairs and maintenance charges will always be necessary. On the other hand, many features of a good road are to be regarded as permanent in vestments. When roads are built with borrowed money, the distinction between the permanent and the tenn porary improvement must be careful