Fulton County tribune. (Wauseon, Ohio) 1883-1925, 1920-01-02

Experience in Road Building in
Various States and in Some
Counties in Ohio-Fxtra Initial
Cost of Best Types Balanced by
Cost of Maintenance of Cheaper
Types
One of the problems Of our
American government that affects
all political divisions and sub-divi-
sions thereof from the Federal down
to the last Township and Village
subdivision, is the problem of roads,
good roads. It is an incontestib1e
fact that we can not and do not pre-
gress very far iii the business Of i'm
proving and producing advertising,
buying and selling, travelling in
| vestigating, visiting and developing
in this fair land of ours without es-
tablishing and maintaining public
highways and byways.
| Here in America we have not the
heritage of the solid road founda-
tions built by the Romans in the
| centuries agone as have the coun-
tries of the eastern hemisphere; nor
have we had the cheap labor of
! Europe to keep up and improve our
| hiohways once they have been es-
tablished; consequently the element
| of cost enters into our "road pro-
blem" here in this country making
it still more difficult of satisfactory
solution: We have the initial cost
of building the roads which is large
enough in all conscience from the
tax payers point of view and then
when we have at last succeeded in
paying the initial cost we have
learned by bitter experience that Oh
most types Of roads we must keep on
paying for reconstruction and main
tenance. It would seem from this
experience that it is poor economy
to build cheap type of road at
least where traffic is at all heavy
and that the best economy is to build
the most permanent type.
The Ohio State Legislature not
long ago employed an expert en-
gineer to investigate the state high
/. way department with a view Of
, gaining information in regard to
4 economy in the conduct of that de-
partment. In the report of this
/ expert he pointed out in detail the
} action of automobile and auto-truck
traffic upon the cheaper types of
, road construction and the inference
of this report was none other than
that the Seal economy would be
practiced by building the very best
and most durable type Of road. This
seems to us significant in view of
!, the fact that nearly a thousand miles
Of road liuilding gand Improvement
has already been planned in Ohio
for 1920. Early action is being
urged for it seems certain that
those communities who defer the
actual award of contracts until late
in 1920 are going to be disappoint-
ed both in the amount Of work thev
accomplish and in the prices bid
ON their proposed Improvements.
600 miles Of new roads and 400 niles
of 'oGnty built roads to be rasur-
faced and taken over bv tho State
is Ohio's program for 1900. Wi=con-
sin, New York. Pennsylvania, West
Virginia and Michigan are among
the ether states that have big road
building programs for 1897. In all
these states the preference saerr=
to be for concrete as the most en-
during material. The New York
Times of Sunday, August 10th 1918
contains an article bv Frederick
Stuart Greene State Highway com
missioner of New York in which he
tells what they have done and are
doing in that State toward solving
the problem of good roads. Mr.
Greene writes of the first two types
of roads to be tried out in New York
as follows.
"The first type of road that was
built was the one known as water.
bound road. This made up d
stones, stone dust, some chemica
\ mixture and wtaer. This served it's
| purpose until the automobile came
into existence. After that tn:
water-bound roads literally went t,
pieces. The mixture was crumpleG
up and the stone dust which was
set free was continually in the air
'The problem as it appeared al
that time was. to find type Of roat
mixture which would keep the dust
down.
The bituminous macadam roac
: seemed to answer the discrip do .
| with the result that all subsequen
roads were built on that plan. They
seemed to meet all the requirement.
until the heavy truck began rumb!
ing over them. What happened tt
the water-bound roads, happene.
and is happening to the macadan
road today. They are going t.
pieces and need constant repair.
The next step in the evolution O
roads is the building of highwa
that will stand the heaviest kind o
traffic. Engineers agree that vi
to the present time nothing has bee
found as satisfactory as concret
roads. The objection to them, i
their initial cost. AS a matter @
. fact, they are, in the long run, cheap
- er than the first two types. W
have laid out 10000 miles Of roat
| We won't stop there. By 1880 j
| we keep on building we shall hav
| laid approximately $4,000 miles.
II The records in the department
| show that it costs about $1,000 pc
| mile per year to maintain and re
construct water-bound and tn
lighter types of macadamiZed roads
It costs approximately $1Gg t
maintain a concrete road mile
year.
II Mr.. Greene gives the followin:
! costs of construction as based on tn
/ records in his department. Water
bound road $4,000 per mile, Btu
minous Macadam $4,000 pFx mile
Plain Concrete $4,000 and Rein
forced Concrete $26.200. He the
goes on to state ''The average lif
of water-bound and macadam road
is seven years. The average lif'