Morgan County Democrat. (McConnelsville, Ohio) 1886-1943, 1921-09-01
Number 9
QUESTIONS SINCERITY OF
STATE HIGHWAY DEPT.

Editor DemOcrat:-In your last
issue you told of the visit of Messrs.
Hastings, Lawrence and Pinkerton
to the State Highway Department to
ask for state aid in building gravel
road in Morgan county, and of the
refusal of the State Highway Depart
ment, which gave as the reason for
it's refusal that the cost of mainte-
nance of gravel roads is too expen-
sive.
When / spoke before your Cham
Der of Commerce in April | told you
phat the Highway Department
would not grant state aid on gravel
roads, although / could not give
reason for that attitude. It's at
tempt to force the building of ex-
pensive types of road construction,
which most counties cannot afford,
is unfair and is one of the main fac
tors in keeping our farmer folk in
the mud for more than half the
year.
To offer as an argument against
the gravel road that it's maintenance
is expensive is the veriest nonsense,
and I think cannot be sincere 1t
is the cheapest in maintenance of all
of the different types of roads If
the State Highway Department was
sincere in that statement it would
never build another mile of macad-
am road in Ohio. The macadam is
the most expensive type of road in
maintenance. 1 do not know of
macadam road in Ohio that has last
ed longer than two years without
i've, ova1 c11psfo ~ hn arf
being approximately $1,000 a mile.
Why does the State Highway De-
partment say we can build macadam
roads, if we want state aid, but that
we must not build gravel roads?
Out in Indiana, between Lafayette
and Rossville, there is a 16 mile
stretch of gravel road, built by
farmer after the officials had baked
on paying $4,000 a mile for it's i'm
provement. My newspaper infor-
mant says: .The entire cost of this
| work, including rebuilding and up
! keep, was about 1920 per mile
His second year of service will soon
be completed and he estimates the
cost of it at less than 5000 per mile"
There is a tremendous difference
between 100000 for 16 miles of
road, and $5,12O for the same 16
miles.
The fourth biennial report of the
Wisconsin Highway Commission,
published in December, 1918, on
page So, says: eve have given UP
the waterbound stone macadam
road as too expensive a proposition
to maintain. We have found that
the most satisfactory cheaply built
roads to maintain are the gravel
roads. We have scarified many
miles of old gravel roads and at a
cost of $500 or less per mile have
produced surface very satisfactory
and easy to maintain. The more
experience we have with gravel the
more convinced we are that it is the
lowest cost surfaced road, both to
build and to maintain, and much su-
perior to waterbound macadam."
The state of Wisconsin is this
year building no brick roads because
| of their high cost of construction,
no macadam roads because of their
excessive cost of maintenance, 800
miles of concrete roads and / 1000
miles of gravel roads. These are
not the secondary roads of the state
but the intercounty highways.
Isn't all this sufficient and con-
vincing answer to the State Highway
Departments excuse for refusing
state aid on the building of a gravel
road in Morgan county? Whatever
| the Departments real excuse may
be it certainly cannot be the exces-
sive cost of maintenance Even if
the cost of maintenance were high.
which it is not, the low cost of con-
struction ought to be a heavy weigh
ing factor. 1t certainly is with the
taxpayer even if it isn't with the
State Highway Department.
James r. Alexander.
GAINESVILLE, Ohio, August 26.