The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-03-02
ALABAMA's HIGHWAY CRISIS


 cordial approval of the highway amendment to the state constitution, empowering the state to enter into the construction and main tenance of a statewide system of roads. they did so with the distinct understanding that such construction would be in co-operation with the federal government. When the state highway commission sought authority to ex- pend seven million dollars, during the coming fiscal year, over and above the sum of state funds which could be matched with federal funds during the year, approval was voiced throughout the state with the stipulation, ex- press and implied, that the money would be spent on highways in the further construction of which the federal government would later participate. The commission, therefore is under the strongest sort of moral obligation to carry out such program The commission is under the further direct obligation to make the state highways serve the general public and not the local convenience of neighbor- hoods, which should look to their local gov ernments for local relief. If the state high way system as approved by the federal gov ernfnent is followed, the general and mai public interest will be served. to say nothing of the fact that the commission will have kept faith with the people.
 Yet what has been the record of the con- mission during the short period that has elapsed since the additional bonds were au- thorized? It has been an amazing record of forgetfulness of the public pledge. disregard of the general and permanent public interest, and of subservience to the local instead of to the public interest. In three counties, Greene, Hale and Perry, the commission has already, with the exception of one member, either already committed itself to local, in. stead of direct routes, or else has shown a strong tendency to approve such routes. The commissioners with one exception, have de- parted from principle and adopted expediency in discharging their public functions. This is the same dangerous situation against which the people of this state rebelled last summer. It is the same wavering, uncertain, shortsighted and irresponsible policy that has spent more than ten millions of the public funds with scarcely anywhere five-mile stretch of permanent and serviceable highway to show for that expenditure. The present situation calls for the same united public protest that brought a new commission into being last fall. Unless these recent decisions are recalled, and principle adhered to- the people may expect the rest of the funds to be squandered without visible and tangible return in lasting public benefit.
 Let the highway commission return to the policy of expending the state money upon the main and most direct highways through the counties, avoiding the costly detours, costly not only in first cost, but also in the permanent and everlasting cost to the travelling public of being obliged to go from one center to another by roundabout, neigh borhood roads, adopted for local or private and not for publicly valuable reasons. The seven and half mile detour in Greene county, for example, may be expected to cost the travelling public annually, in extra expense in gasoline, oil and wear and tear on ma chinery not less than the total cost of the highway, if not the first year, then in after years as travel inevitably increases. The same holds true in even greater degree in Hale, where there is still less defensible and zigzag detour. Will the people of this state submit tamely to the imposition of such a heavy and unjust tax?
 Let the highway commission redeem it's pledge, before it is too late. Let the money be spent where it will do the greatest good to the state as whole, and let the commis- sion stick to the federal-aid roads on which the people may expect later cooperation on the part of the federal government, as they were promised before the amendment election. It is a crisis in the Alabama highway sit nation