The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-02-22
ASSOCIATION OF
 HIGHWAYS PLEADS [ FOR UN|FICATION
Hodge Podge Expenditure of Millions Is Appallingly
 Wasteful.


 have been wasted on road building be- cause there has been no continuity of purpose, no coordination of manage
 nent, no standardization of control in the work. The plan pursued, so far as there has been any plan, has been of the higgledy-piggledy. here-a-little there-a-littIe order and with generally disappointing results. The national government does not exercise any ad- Ininistrative controlYover5 public roads except those built on government res- ervations, and until recently the states took no direct part inrs the construc
 ton of improved roads, which for nearly half a century were Scontr oiled and financed by the county or by sub divisions of the county, so that the public road which should be operated for the benefit of all the people was in fact nothing more or better than ia purely local utility" <M
 Tn the circumstances. there could be no competent auth ority to administer the highways and no adequate re- sponsibi1ity, and this naturally and in evitab1y resulted in ''a1nost an utter stagnation of road construction, as few localities could or would employ competent engineering supervision or provide adequate funds to build inn. proved types of roads, It was not until 1891 that the state Of New Jer-
  ties in road building and three years later established a public roads de- partment of the state government un- der the direction of a commissioner and it's example was followed quickly i by other states until now only the states of South Carolina, GeoIgia, Mississippi, Texas, Kanaas and Indi- ana are without some sort of state supervision of and appropriation for the construction and maintenance oa
 the public highways. Even the most
 advanced states, however. have yet much farther to go before the ideal i condition will be reached and effec. tive state control will take the place
 of the local agencies which have faf1- ed since the days of the colonies to deal with this great problem in an efficient way.
 There are today almost as many methods of road making as there are states in the Union. and in most of the
 states there is the veriest patchwork
 of what are called ttsystems.'' Gener- , ally speaking, the states now super wise the roads towards the construc- ton of which the state contributes all or part of the cost, and experience has shown that the best results can only be obtained by the adoption of a plan, or system, of state highways and building to this plan. It is a process
 of evolution out of local control to- ward centralized state control, and the step from state control tosfederaI control or -feredal supervision will be
 easy as it iss inevitable if tl1efpublic highways parficular1E the main of trunk lines are to be of the greatest
 public service.
 There are 2,25o,0oO miles of public
 roads in the United States and the am
 nual expenditure for road construction and maintenance amounts now to l about $26O, ,Oo0.O00I annually Such
 8 work is of sufficient magnitude and
 economic value to justify the. most thorough and efficient organization
 and cooperation on the part of the larger units of government" Of the 2.250, ,000 miles of public highways in the United States only about ten per cent. can by the most liberal courtesy
 be classed as improved" roads, and of this readily reducab1e remained "a large part consists of roads surfaced with a mixture of sand and clay with
 gravel applied on ungraded and un- drained roadways, with broken stone so improperly applied or so in adequately maintained as to be little better than the original road bed." It cannot be claimed that there are in the United States today over 12O,- this is a sorry showing indeed, for this great country after three hun dred years, or so, of so-ca1led "civi1i-
 zation'' and nearly a hundred and for ty years of s'independence.'
 It is estimated that carefully plan ned system of main highways leading to the market, centers, shipping points and covering 8 distance of 450,0OO miles would be sufficient for the pres ent needs of the country. With the 12O,000 miles of good roads now ex-
 isting, and another 12O,O0O miles which require reconstruction and inn
 provement, the building of 21O,OOO ad-
 ditiona1 improved highways would | complete the work, and with the
 building of between 500 to 500 miles of good roads by each state annually the wurk could be >done in the course 1 of, twelve years, and with eXerybo ody richer for the task when finished. Down to the presen time about 36,- 900 miles of improved highway have been constructed under the immediate 1 direction of the several state highway departments. In 1914 the states ex- pended in round numbers, $50, 900, 900 for road purposes and in 1915 the ap- propriations available for this work | amounted to about $55,oO0.OOo In addition, the local expenditures az
 gregated about $2OO,OOO,OOO in 1914 In 1904 the total amount expended by the states, counties and townships for road purposes in the United States amounted to about $sO,OO0,OOo In the | course of ten years the expenditures
 on this account nearly trebled That there is not more to show for 1t is due to the lack of intelligent and res ponsibIe system in the planning and building of the roads In the states that have adoptedvthe policy of cen traIiZed state management the largest
 percentage of increased highways is to be foundI Massachusetts heads the list with 517 per cent of improved highways; Ohio follows with 33.8 per cent; New Jersey takes third place with 3O.3 per cent New York is fourth in order with 27.9 per cent and Connecticut is fifth with 26.2 per cent. improved roads.
 There<are many types of road and