Worcester Democrat and the ledger-enterprise. (Pocomoke City, Md.) 1921-1953, 1939-04-28
new ROADS man
TO. TAKE OFFICE
NEXT MONDAY

nor Herbert r. O'Conor, Will become
chairman of the State Roads Commits
sion next Monday, will put the Mary
land roads system back where it used
to be, among the leaders of the ma
ton, is the universal opinion of hum
dreds of kilograms and letters receiv-
ed at the State House within the past
few days.
Furthermore, the appointment is
hailed as a definite indication that
politics is out, and engineering ex-
perience and business ability are in,
in the matter of roads building in the
State of Maryland from now on, just
as Governor O'Conor promised so Of
ten during his campaign.
While Mr.. Whitman's associates on
the Roads Commission have not been
announced as yet by Governor O'Con-
or, the new set-up providing for rep
resentation both from the Eastern
Shore and from Western Maryland,
assures that every section of the State
will receive impartial consideration in
the expenditure of the greatly increas
ed sums that will be available for the
maintenance, improvement and extern
sion of the States roads during the
coming four years. Particularly will
this assurance be welcomed on the
Eastern Shore, which has not had
representation on the Roads body in
recent years, and where road build
ing and maintenance is alleged to
have suffered greatly as a result,
Chairman Whitman's Commission
will have as a starter for it's con-
struction and expansion program ap-
proximately $3,8OO,OOO of gas tax
monies that for some years past, have
been diverted to meet the cost of
other State activities, practice Bit
terly condemned by Governor O'Conor
in his prediction speeches. With this
amount restored to the roads system
of the counties and the State, Mary
land will have more money to spend
on it's roads for 1910 and 1871 than
ever before in the history of the
State, to quote from the most recent
broadcast of Governor O'Conor.
The general feeling in informed
road circles here and in Baltimore is
that Governor O'Conor made a ten
strike in securing the consent of Mr..
Whitman to head the Roads body.
Certainly, as more than one observer
has expressed, there is no one in Mary
land more fitted by training and ex-
perience for the post-no one who
stands higher in the business and in
dustrial life of the State-no one
whose achievements and knowledge
are respected more highly by his fell
low engineers throughout the State
and throughout the entire East.
Road building, they point out, has
come to be infinitely more than laying
a concrete base and topping it off
with one or other approved surfac-
ing. Intelligent road building today
must plan intelligently for the future,
must provide for the needs of ten and
twenty years from now, and therefore
must be planned with an eye to future
traffic and population trends. The
unsatisfactory condition of the pres
ent Baltimore Washington Boulevard
is cited as a striking example of fail
are to anticipate future needs. Many
thousands of dollars were spent on it
within recent years, only to result in
an unsatisfactory situation that ap-
paretly cannot be remedied now. The
only way out, it is alleged, is for the
State to build another dual-lane high
way between these two most impor-
tant cities.
The Maryland Planning Commits
sion, in it's ten-year road plan for the
State, points out clearly the many
angles that must be considered if the
roads that must be built now are not
to be rendered obsolete in a compare
lively short time. In the matter of
roadside Identification, too, road plan
ming takes on an entirely different
complexion. Wider rights-of-ways
must be secured, at much greater cost
Of course. Landscaping of roads has
come to be most important. The mat
ter of drainage, and erosion, already
is giving roads authorities much con-
Germ along the new dual highways of
the state. All Of which makes it ire
mendously important that Maryland
finally has secured a man as head of
its roads construction and planning
system who is fully abreast of these
changed conditions, and is thoroughly