The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-08-23
PEOPLES FORUM
Wants to nerln AIl orer

seldom patronize either the | street cars or the jitneys and not now prejudiced for or against either. There are many questions arising from the city making a contract with the Birmingham Railway. Light and Power Company l in addition to the question of whether or not we shall have jit- neys. In the first place, properly h regulated, the 5itneys are val uable thing to number of people not having adequate street car ac- commodation and there was no ! honest effort to regulate, only an effort to annihilate them. A so- called "citizens' committee" has assumed to say that the jitney or dinance is full of "jokers." Those | who live in glass houses can i'll l afford to hurl stones. There are no doubt about as many "jokers" written into the contract that the | city has made with the company as there is possible to hide out in a document of its length.
 How long are we to have the so-called reduced fare?" Three years. That is long time; then what? We get a strip of land 70 | extend the Bessemer road below West End. That is nothing; that could be condemned.
 The street railway company claims and owns large part of | the width of First avenue from Spring street, in Avondale, to Forty eighth street. In their zeal for the peoples welfare, they for | got all about this and the issue 1t | involves, and now after the so- called peace agreement" has been signed this old dispute is still carrying on. The street railway company is given the right to park or curb it's tracks a large part of the way from a point in woodlawn to Eighty-fourth street. This is highly objectionable, but all effort to get the company 10 agree to a modification of this feature of the contract has been without result. The company calmly states that it will hold onto what it has by the terms of the contract, notwithstanding the wishes of the people which have already been expressed In thun- derous voice. We do know this much, that when the company comes out of its receivership that the original contract 1t had with the city of Birmingham would re- vive and the city's rights be the same as formerly, subject to any legislation that might have af- fected 1t, if any" We also know that with this contract all rights
 
 tract are eliminated. I feel like | that with all their honest effort our city fathers know not what | they have done in entering into this contract with which our street railway company Is so de- lighted. It would seem to me best to wipe the slate clean and begin all over again.
 J. M. NoRMENT.
 Birmingham, Ala, Aug. 22, 1923.
 BituIithic Versus Concrete
 To the Editor of The Age-Herald:
 I note an editorial in Tuesdays Age Herald criticising the state highway commission for the type | of roads they are building, and es pecialIy citing the road through | Shelby county, Alabama, as the wrong type of construction, and incidently advocating the construc- tion of Portland cement concrete highways. The writer has the highest esteem for The Age Herald and believes you have been misin- formed as to the wearing qualities of the various tpyes of highways The Shelby county road is consid- cred by some of the best experts in the United States the highest type of highway possible to con struct. It being an eight-inch' water bound stone macadam base with a two-inch bituminious con crete wearing surface. l do not know where you obtained your in formation that seven-inch Port land cement concrete pavement 1 would not require any repairs for twenty years, as this is entirely contrar yto the facts In fact, there are almost no concrete pave ments in existence today that were laid prior to 1910.
 The state of California, am in- formed, laid some forty million dollars worth of concrete high ways since 1912 that have prac- tically worn out or have been sur faced with bituminious concrete. The writer has inspected highways | and pavements in nearly every 1 state east of the Mississippi river | and the cost per mile for repairs l on a five-year- old concrete pave | ment, according to the records | gotten out by the various state | highway departments and street departments of cities, show that | bituminious concrete has much | better record than Portland ce- ment concrete.
 To get back home, the city of | Birmingham has nearly four hun | dred thousand yards of bitiminious concrete pavement more than twelve years old; some of them twenty, on a macadam base six inches thick. If you would take the trouble to inspect Third and | Fourth avenues. South Twenty | first street, Highland avenue and | many other streets in Birmingham | that were laid prior to 1906 on this type of foundation, then take q look at Avenues B, c. and Eighth | avenue, north, from Eighth to thirteenth streets, laid with Port land cement concrete since 1911, or inspect the concrete streets laid since 1911 in Knoxville, Tennessee, | Huntsville, Alabama, Montgomery, Alabama, Meridian, Mississippi, | Vicksburg, Mississippi, New Or leans. Louisiana, and many other | Southern cities, you will be con vinced that Portland cement con | crete is not the indestructible road | material that your editorial of | August 21 will lead the public Q believe. J. E. DONELSON.
 Birmingham, Ala, Aug. 21. 1923.
 The editorial did not say that | "a seven inch Portland cement | concrete pavement would not re- quire any repairs for twenty | years" but that "a concrete road | would last for twenty years or more" which is different thing. |