The Alaska citizen., 1916-06-26
THE RIGHT MOVE.

good roads which has for years. or since the beginning of this camp, been carried on by Fairbanks and her people It means that this time there is to be a concerted move ment, one in the interest of which every person who belongs to the club will get in and work. and an enor nous amount of good should be accomplished Not only should the roads in the immediate vicinity of Fairbanks and the city proper club. but the Valdez trail. the high way to the coast, should be made a summer automobile road And if any organization in the territory can aid materially in makig the long trail what it should be, it is the Fairbanks Automobile club Fol by affiliatins itself with Outside clubs of a like nature it can bring an enormous amount of pressure to Utdl oil ltpI io Ni4t iA'' tional legislature which will event ually end in the appropriation of sufficient funds to make the Fair banks-Naldez trail summer auto mobile boulevard.
 The work undertaken locally by the club is only an evidence of what such an organization can do. Fri day night 90 men fixed three miles of trail in three hours. and at that rate-of course it will take longer in some instances and in some pIaces-it would not take more than 70 hours work, all told, to fix up the trails from Fairbanks to the creeks For. taken as an aggregate, there are less than 70 miles of summer trail, made by the Alasfa Road commission. excluding. or course the Valdez trail, in the vi cinity of Fairbanks. And if the fixing of these trails is undertaken by the Automobile club, the money annually expended by the road com mission or by the territory in keep ing these roads in repair. can be used in constructing summer roads elsewhere The above statistics, of course, do not mean that there are only 70 miles of summer trail in the vicinity of Fairbanks, but they do mean that there are only 70 miles which are at the present time at all passable for automobiles.
 Numerous suggestions have been made to the members of the club as to how work can be accomplished amount of time from their other duties or pleasures. And along these lines it might be well to suggest a plan of like nature.
 There is a big gravel bar on the Cinema river just across from Fair banks on the Garden Island side, In fact, there is gravel enough there to completely macadamize all of the roads in the vicinity of Fairbanks if there was fund at hand for that purpose, but there is not.
 Therefore, would it not be a good plan for the club, with some of the money collected from it's members as initiation fees and dues, to pur- chase a few hundred ore sacks and hire one or two men to fill them and put them in a convenient place on the river bank where they could be picked up with but little trouble by outgoing autoists? By this means an autoist knowing where there is a bad place or one which needs a little gravel, could pick up a few of the sacks and carry them to the needy mudhole. The sacks need not weigh when filled, more than 100 pounds each. This scheme would work particularly well in places where ruts exist.
 The bridge and brushing work, of course, will require more time, But it seems to us that all of the work can be done with but little outlay of expense
 And the teamsters should help in the good roads campaign. For they use the trails as much or even more than do the automobiles. In fact, the poor condition of the trails in places, particularly where there are ruts. are due to the passage of heavily-laden freight wagons.
 The two places where new roads are needed most or where they would do the most good for the population of Fairbanks, are from Cinema Junction. or the government experiment farm, to Cinema, and from Fairbanks to the Big Cinema Hot Springs The latter undertaking would be a pretty big one for the newly-organized club just at this time, but the members of the club can put it down on the list of work they intend to accomplish. For at this time of year Fairbanksans, with @ beautiful summer resort at their very doors, would enjoy a round trip of 160 miles in an auto l l. f~x ,k1xr pf