Evening star., 1929-12-15
ROAD POLICIES
BRING PROTESTS
Move to Extend Federal Aid
to Local Improvement
Held EncroaChment.
BY JAMES w. BROOKS,

| Bureau.
Protests have arisen during the last
week against the possibility of Federal
activity being drawn into the construc-
tion of purely local roads. The impress
sion seems to have gotten abroad that
the principle of Federal aid in highway
improvement is likely to be wheeled
around to the barn door, 50 to speak, to
the probable neglect of badly needed
main routes which have not yet been
| improved, and where increased Federal
aid IS needed.
| Even the emergency appropriation Of
$50, 100000 which has been introduced
to supplement the regular Federal aid
appropriation for the coming fiscal
year has been miSconStrued as another
| attempted raid on the treasury" foS-
tered, it is assumed, by western
States against the interests Of Eastern
| States, when the fact Is that this amount
has been asked for to aid in speeding
up highway work in all states, and Is
| in line with President Hoover'S counsel
| for more energetic yet prudent activity
/ in all public work.
Also, in opposition to what IS looked
upon as another tendency toward Fed
eral encroachment upon local affairs,
bureaucratS here are charged with
directing a guiding hand, when the
cold truth is that the suspected en-
croachmentS Of Federal authority over
local roads is due, not to bureaucrats.
but to the pestiferous activities of old
man Demagogue, who Is ever ready to
sponsor selfish movements which come
within the range OF his vote-hunting
proclivn4B and whose desire for popular
acclaim, however brief, seems never to
be satisfied.
Facts Are Outlined.
Once more, as q means Of keeping
the highway record straight, the follow
ing facts will not be amtsS. At the very
outset of Federal aid for highway i'm
provement, legislative procedure was
beset with selfish clamor. There must
be roads for everybody, else there would
be discrimination, and that was some
thing which no self-respecting repre-
sentative of the people would tolerate.
where, as all agreed. Already the road
building job had been neglected so long
that it took all hands to get 1t under
way upon a modern basis, which ac-
counted for Uncle Sans stepping into
the work.
All through the hearings before
House and Senate road committees in
Congress and lined and interlined III
the correspondence which ran between
wise and sincere leaders in the new
roads movement, there was that veXing
| problem of how to get roads for every
body. The result was that much lati-
tude was given in the first Federal
highway act, passed in 1916. Aid was
scattered to disconnected projects,
which was clearly not in the true in
terests of the public, since a modern
road terminating in mud at both ends
was not more 6han so per cent efficient
Under this scattered program, one
half the highway capital invested in
this manner was idle, while interest
| on the full amount continued to be
by the disconnected state Of roads thus
built.
This policy Of carrying on the work
was followed up to 1921. BY that time
experience had clearly proved that a
change must be made, that in the in
terests Of the public, main route prof.
ects must be more closely linked to-
gether and construction effort concen-
trated more definitely upon state and
interstate systems. Accordingly, the
policy of building widely separate and
loosely connected sections of road was
changed to the present plan of build
ing a closely joined system of mair
routes first, over which, as scientific
traffic research shows, from rs to 85
per cent of the country'S traffic finds It's
way. This change was made in the In
terest of the motorist and other tax
payers, in order that their highway in
vestment might yield full returns in
stead of only half, as in the case OF the
previous loose distribution of con.
struction capital The people are now
being asked, in some uninformed quar-
ters, to return to this wasteful and dis.
carded policy
\ Some Repairs Enormous.
Another reason which compelled the
change to more concentrated effort or
main routes lay in the dangers of ex'
ceSSive maintenance. The fact Is no.
SO widely known as 1t should be thai
there are some roads in this country
on which repair bills are enormous anC
unless proper checks are placed upor
maintenance, repair costs EVENTUAL,
would engulf new construction. Thi!
situation is already perilously near ir
some states.
It is to prevent this disastrous re.
suit in the nations road building pro
gram that the present policy Of mair
route construction first is being adhered
to as the only practical way to releast
the flow of highway capital to back
roads, after the main roads have beer
built beyond the reach of excessive re
pairs, and should there be any return
to the previous ineffective and waste.
, full policy, it will not be to the bes
interests of motorists and the public a
! large.