Belding banner. (Belding, Mich.) 1889-1918, 1916-10-04

In speaking Of road maintenance
w: w. Cox, district engineer had the
following to say at the recent meet
ing of the state good roads assoc:a-
ton:
"Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentle
men: Regarding the subject of Roac
Maintenance, think perhaps most OF
you have heard considerable from oul
department about it, and / suppose
If we were to ride around over the
country and view the roads you would
still hear some more, so l am going
to try to cover the whole field of road
maintenance here this afternoon, but
/ only in a general way.
There are two kinds of road main.
tenance in use. The one is spasmodiS
and consists OF sort of gang sys-
tenn in which every once in while
the, roads are gone over, patched up
and various things done to them. The
other is the patrol system which is
taking the place of the gang system
almost entirely as fast as the roads
are constructed to any extent.
"The question always arises, when
shall maintenance begin? When shall
we first think of it? The time to
first think of it is when you begin to
build the road. If you do not pro-
vide proper drainage and the ma
terials which the road demands at
that time, you will be forced to do it
later-after the road is constructed.
How long shall we wait before our
maintenance begins? There is no
waiting. Material of the same quail
ity as that of which the road is con-
structed should be stocked along the
side of the road and maintenance
should start the next day. The
amount of maintenance necessary for
the following week or month depends
upon the character of the road, the
character of the traffic, together with
the climatic or weather conditions.
81 will speak first about the gen.
eral appearance of the roads. The
general appearance of the roads has
a whole lot to do with the attitude of
the taxpayer. The ordinary person
interested in roads thinks about this.
If your road has grown up to brush,
if grass is allowed to accumulate in
the water ways, if there are danger
Gus curves, and high fills which ought
to be guard-railed and if danger sig
nails are not put up at sharp curves
or any of those things lacking, such
road is not complete and does not
make a hit with the ordinary man
who uses it.
Therefore l say the first thing to
do is to keep appearance of the road
good. To do this it is necessary to
cut away the brush once year, clear
out the grass and weeds two or three
times a year and at all times keep
clear view for 200 or 300 feet.
"We have heard today a good deal
- oh H..
patching of surfaces, of the different
but there was one point which /
don't believe was mentioned very
strongly, if at all, which / feel is of
more Importance to the average road
than any other one thing. Within the
last month or two it has been my OPP
portunity and part of my work to
go over the old state reward roads in
southwestern Michigan, covering per-
haps four hundred miles in the state.
In looking over my notes and differ
ent reports invariably have found
out that the trouble is question of
drainage. The bitches might have
been deep enough in the first in
stance or they might have been suf-
ficient to carry away the water under
ordinary circumstances but today 1t
is drainage more than anything else
which our roads need by way of main
tenance. bitches should be kept free
and open, and the outlets provided so
as to take away the water. weir
ture to say that every man in this
audience at some time in the past
spring has seen the necessity on our
roads for more drainage outlets.
GAS you know, the Supreme Court
decision on the matter of driveways
is to the effect that the man along the
road shall provide his own means of
getting onto the road, and in about
90 per cent of the cases where this
means has been provided it has been
inadequate. In fact he has usually
damaged the ditch instead of making
an outlet. 1t is very good practice,
although it is not necessary under the
Supreme Court ruling for counties
and townships to put in driveways-
and suitable headwalls to stop leaves,
grass, etc., and keep them from
freezing, bursting or clogging up.