Arizona republican., 1915-02-21
Good Roads Legislation

All the good roads pills before the legislature contain good features and some that are not good. They all lack thing, though, that human expo rience taught be essential to success in secur- ing the best results in good roads construction the direction of the work and the expenditure of the funds by partisan, non political highway com mission composed of competent and pubic-spirited who will regard their positions not as jobs but places of trust; who will serve without to be reimbursed only for their actual expenses. Such men are not apt regard the road fund pie to De cut and distributed among political workers or personal fayorites.
 Neither would such commission be likely to discriminate in favor of part of the against other part of it. II would consider it to be duty regard every road built a link the state system of good roads. connected be connected with another link. Such commission should be made up of from different parts of the
 A weak point appears in Senate Bill 64 and in another form in Senate Bill 57. The former contem> plates state road tax fund of $4OO 900 annually he expended direction of the boards of supervisors respective counties and the engineer the counties in proportion their assessed valuation provided, however that no county shall receive less than $l5O0O"
 If it is the purpose bill to encourage local road building, the constructiors of highways which nowhere end nowhere the proposed plan is as good as any other and no better. Senate Bill 57, winch would raise s25O00o proposes that each county shall be allowed per cent of the amount ot road tax collected from This too looks to local road building
 But, We gather from the of both bills that they contemplate system of state highways and isolated links, disconnected stretches good roads, located in those counties best able pay them without reference to a symmetrical system of good 
 In this connection, would quote from the re- marks of President Leonard F. Curtis of the Colo rado Good Roads Association and member O the Colorado state highway commission. before a meet ing in this city last Wednesday night descriptive of the successful experience of Colorado:
 The first work distribute our funds ac- cordng the percentages of roads in the districts Then each district distributed his fund to the counties. It out that the county paving the least taxes got the most money Of this fund but as the work strictly a state highway system this did matter"
 It all depends npon what to do. If it is system of county roads we want little egsla- ton seems necessary. Let the counties build then and so much of the money raised will not be spent Tn q necessarily complicated and expensive admin istraton But if it is q state system we want it should be constructed without reference to any county, but to the needs of the state at large
 Between the wealthy counties of Maricopa and Cochise there are other counties which dc not pay nearly so great tax these counties Yet no system Of highways can be completed until those counties have been spanned and the stretches of the system across them will be as long as those across the two heavy taxpaying counties
 We do not overlook the fact that county roads not belonging to the state highway must be built in every locality that is another matter sen arate and apart from a highway system
 It is not belief that the counties should he deprived of any voice in the expenditure of the money raised by them for purpose of road build ing We believe they should have a voice through their various boards of supervisors there must be some central authority between which and inc boards of supervisors there should be comnlete co operation. We believe that the county and state authorities would welcome such an arrangement as have suggested