Historic Highways of America, Vol. 15

The Future of Road-making in America

The present volume on the Future of Road-making in America presents representative opinions, from laymen and specialists, on the subject of the road question as it stands today. After the author's sketch of the question as a whole in its sociological as well as financial aspects, there follows the Hon. Martin Dodge's paper on "Government Coperation in Object-lesson Road Work." The third chapter comprises a reprint of Hon. Maurice O. Eldridge's careful article, "Good Roads for Farmers," revised by the author for this volume. Professor Logan Waller Page's paper on "The Selection of Materials for Macadam Roads" composes chapter four, and E. G. Harrison's article on "Stone Roads in New Jersey" concludes the book, being specially valuable because of the advanced position New Jersey has taken in the matter of road-building. [Pg 12]For illustrations to this volume the author is indebted to the Office of Public Road Inquiries, Hon. Martin Dodge, Director. A. B. H. Marietta, Ohio, May 31, 1904. In introducing the subject of the future of road-making in America, it may first be observed that there is to be a future in road-building on this continent. We have today probably the poorest roads of any civilized nation; although, considering the extent of our roads, which cover perhaps a million and a half miles, we of course have the best roads of any nation of similar age. As we have elsewhere shown, the era of railway building eclipsed the great era of road and canal building in the third and fourth decades of the old century, and it is interesting to note that freight rates on American railways today are cheaper than on any railways in any other country of the world. To move a ton of freight in England one hundred miles today, you pay two dollars and thirty cents; in Germany, two dollars; in France, [Pg 16]one dollar and seventy-five cents; in "poor downtrodden" Russia, one dollar and thirty cents. But in America it costs on the average only seventy-two cents. This is good, but it does not by any means answer all the conditions; the average American farm is located todayeven with our vast network of railwaysat least ten miles from a railroad station. Now railway building has about reached its limit so far as mileage is concerned in this country; in the words of Stuyvesant Fish, president of the Illinois Central Railroad Company, we have "in the United States generally, a sufficiency of railroads." Thus the average farm is left a dozen miles from a railway, and in all probability will be that far away a century from now. And note: seventy-five per cent of the commerce of the world starts for its destination on wagon roads, and we pay annually in the United States six hundred million dollars freightage to get our produce over our highways from the farms to the railways. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 33706
Author: Hulbert, Archer Butler
Release Date: Sep 12, 2010
Format: eBook
Language: English