Highland recorder. (Monterey, Highland County, Va.) 1877-1972, 1917-06-29
KEEP GOOD ROAD GOOD
This Is Advice Of Uncle Sans
Highway Experts.
Maintenance, Often Neglected, Most
Important Task When Construe-
tion Is Completed, 1t Is Urged.

Officials of Uncle Sans office OF
public roads and rural engineering are
calling the attention of public officials
throughout the United States to keep
ing good roads good.
This, they say, is the most import
ant task in connection with an i'm
proved highway system, once the con-
struction work is completed. In this
country in the past this task usually
has been neglected, the improved
roads in many instances being allowed
to deteriorate until they became al
most impossible, when they were, at
heavy cost, rebuilt. That states and
counties are now coming to recognize
the need of careful and thoroughgo-
ing maintenance, however, is indicated
by studies of county road systems in
different sections of the country re-
Gently made by experts of the office
of good roads.
While some of the counties in which
intensive studies were made were
found to have no provisions for main
tenance and others were found to pay
for upkeep of the roads out OF bond
issue funds, thus creating debt that
would outlive the temporary improve
ment by many years, two counties IN
widely separated states were found IN
which maintenance conditions were
practically all that could be desired,
according to the officials who made
this study. In Mississippi, it was
found. there is q state law requiring
that a special annual tax of at least
/ mill shall be levied for the upkeep
of all roads constructed by means or
bond issues, the fund to be kept sepa-
rate from all other funds and to be
used for maintenance only. Instead
of the deterioration taking place on
the roads of some of the counties in
other states on which examinations
were made, it was found that in GER
tain counties in Mississippi roads built
several years ago and maintained from
the special fund have actually i'm
proved since their completion.
The roads in certain county in
the state of New York, it was found,
are maintained with a contribution OF
so per cent by the state and under in
direct state supervision. AS result
of this system, say the experts, the
roads have been kept up to their con-
dition on completion. While provisions
for maintenance were on the whole
not satisfactory in the counties of the
other states in which studies were
made, this condition since has been
remedied in Virginia by the passage
of a state law providing that an an
nual tax of not less than 8 per cent
of the amount of bonds issued shall
be levied to provide maintenance
fund for bond-built roads.
The existence of a regulation tend
ing to lessen damage to roads and so
to reduce maintenance costs was re-
vealed by the studies in one of the
Virginia counties, where the county
supervisors had passed an ordinance
placing a relatively low limit on loads
that may be hauled in wagons fitted
with narrow tires and a considerably
higher limit on loads for wide-tired
wagons. AS a result, it is said by ex-
perts making the study, most of the
wagons using the roads Of the county
have been fitted with tires ranging
from 8 to 6 inches wide.