The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1919-10-08
STREETS AND ROADS

AT Ln0 meeting u Tie COuuCn AdSI
night, the very important matter of
improving the streets was taken up.
l. is needless to tell our people that
for years the city has been at the
great expense of working the streets
only to have most of the result of the
work washed away with every heavy
rain. Since the city organized a
regular street department about
twenty-five years ago, repairs on the
treets have run from six to fifteen
thousand dollars year. 1t is safe to
say that $25O,O00 has been spent on
the streets, and with the exception
of those on which brick has been laid
they are not much better off than they
were twenty years ago. Our streets
run ON such lines that every heavy
rain turns the cutters into creeks. and
every little break in the roadway
makes a rivulet that washes the sur
face into the cutters, so a street that
was in good order in the morning may
be as pitted as no mans land by
night. Almost the same may be said
of the county roads.
Several gentlemen, experts in road
building, met with the good roads
committee of the county commission
ers yesterday, and with the city
council in the evening. These gentle
men were M. M. Smith, chairman of
the state highway commission, Major
Brown, chief engineer, and Gale
Brown, assistant engineer.
It will be remembered that some
weeks ago, Alderman Thomas, chair
good deal of a roadbuilder, was fav-
orably impressed by the method of
steet paving and repairing which con-
sisted principally of laying a coating
of asphalt on the foundation of lime
already down on most of our streets
and county roads. One virtue of this
preparation is that it binds the lime
together and protects it instead of
leaving it to be washed or blown off
by the wind or rain. The roadways at
Camp Johnston are prepared in this
manner, and in the last two years
have stood up under the weight OFF
three-ton trucks. Another great ad-
vantage of this species of roadbuild-
ing, is that we have 80 per cent of
the material in our county. enough of
it near town to reduce hauling to a
minimum. An article in the Star
some months ago told of the superior
ity of Marion county lime, which had
just been tested by the Pittsburg
Testing Laboratory of Birmingham,
and pronounced the best, which is
further proven by the fact that our
lime plants, tho worked at the limit
of their capacity, can't supply the
demand on them.
There is a strong feeling among
the members of the council that the
city should abandon its unbusiness-
like manner of building streets to
have them blown or washed away as
fast as laid, and that it would tighten
taxes as well as immensely add to the
popular comfort to put down thoro-
fares that will stay. There are only
two ways to do this. One is to de-
vote the entire street fund to paving
the streets. To take a street and
build on it. leaving the others alone,
until it was finished, and then take
another. This would have worked
very well two hundred years ago, but
we doubt that it would please any,
body now.
The other is to vote a small bond
issue, put the streets down at once
and let the people have the use of
them while paying for them. This
method would cost just about as
much as to keep the streets in their
present ragged state of repair for
five years. At the end of the five
years we would have the streets, and
could either hold up and save taxes
or 60 on building more streets. And
you can't have much of a town with
out streets.
The Star favors the twentieth CEN
fury method.