Evening star., 1925-01-25
LINCOLN HIGHWAY
NEARS COMPLETION
Authorized Work During
Present Year Will Make Road
80 Per Cent Constructed.

More than S7,OOO,O00 was expended
last year In permanent betterment
and maintenance of the Lincoln High
way along its 3,100 miles between the
Hudson River and San Francisco Bay;
F15,000.000 more will be spent within
the next two and one-half years, and
when finally completed it will repre-
sent an investment of at least S75.-
100000. More than $50 miles of new
construction We're completed last year.
The Lincoln Highway Association Is
now entering upon its twelfth year
of promotional activity.
Sweeping victories for good roads
were chalked up in the November
elections in many Lincoln Highway
States and counties where progress
has Jagged in the past. according to
a. F. Bement, vice president of the
association. The construction pro-
grams which now stand approved in
such States as Ohio. Iowa, Nebraska
and Nevada, indicate that 1925 will
see the elimination of many of the
remaining unimproved gaps in Amer
ica's transcontnental Main street,
and that a year from now the Lin
coin Highway viii be practically 80
per cent completed.
Situations not yet cleared up and
sections not yet in line for immediate
construction, west Of Pittsburgh In
Pennsylvania and west of Salt Lake
City in Utah. make it Impossible to
estimate the date of final completion.
The Spring of 1926. however, should
see nearly $500 miles of the route
finished.
The highway will never be com
pleted, in one sense Of the word, ac-
cording to officials. Reconstruction,
widening, Identification, shortening,
the elimination of grade crossings
and the effeCting of an ever safer,
more permanent and adequate route
will go on forever. The Lincoln
Highway, during the ages to come.
VIII yearly continue to approach more
nearly that dream OF its founders,
which saw in this primary trans
continental highway the most endur-
ing memorial to the martyred Presi-
dent it was possible to conceive.
But the completion of the Lincoln
way in the ordinary sense of the word
completed" I. e. the final elimIna-
tion of those sections which in the
past have caused difficulties to thou
sands and hundreds of thousands of
motorists when the weather was not
propitious, can be definitely foreseen,
with the exception of the two
stretches mentioned. which together
do not total 800 miles.
$50, ,OOO. 900 Invested.
A different picture is presented now
for the contemplat tion of those
"dreamerS" who with Carl G. Fisher
gathered together in 1913 and formed
an organization to back the develop
ment OF a great arterial road, which
would become the main line of an
ultimate nation wide motor trans
portation system association officials
state. Since that date S60,000,0 900 has
been invested by the States and coun-
ties and by the Federal Government
in shortening the Lincoln Highway.
in relocating it. cutting down the
grades, widening curves. in pave
ment, in the elimination of railroad
grade crossings, in grayeling the long
stretches across the western plains,
and in all those improvements, which
have brought the Lincoln Highway
today to the status of the longest and
most highly improved continuous
route on the face Of theaearth.
The Lincoln Highway is completed
across the following States, q distance
of $50 miles: New Jersey, Illinois,
Wyoming and California. In the fol-
lowing States it is so near compile
tion and the work is so rapidly pro-
crossing that the tourist of 1925 will
have no cause for complaint. no mat
ter what the weather: Pennsylvania
(where paved detour takes care of
the short west-of-Pittsburg linR,
Indiana and Nevada. The following
States will in varying degrees still
possess in 1925 mileage of the
Lincoln Highway Whereon difficulties
may be encountered, depending upon
the weather: Ohio, Iowa, Nebraska
and Utah.
Ohio will begin II the Spring