MICHIGAN ROADS AND FORESTS. 



Best Road Material 



OUR HOBBY. 



Crushed Granite and Gravel 



SCREENED TO SUIT. 



WRITE US. 



THE HENRY IYIERDIAN CO., 



43-44 Peninsular Bank Building, 

 Phone Main 6251 DETROIT. 



ROAD BUILDERS WANTED. 



Many different localities throughout Michi- 

 gan are writing the State Highway Depart- 

 ment, asking for names and addresses of con- 

 tractors and pr-actical road builders who can 

 and will enter into a contract, or will take 

 charge of and superintend the building of 

 state roads. All persons who desire to make 

 contracts, or wish to be employed as super- 

 intendents, should send their names and ad- 

 dresses to the State Highway Department, 

 Lansing, Mich. 



LEADING GOOD 



ROADS STATE 



Republished by Permission of Collier's 

 Weekly. 



New York is that one of the states that at 

 the present moment supplies the most striking 

 example of the progress of the good-roads 

 movement. Legislation which received some 

 finishing touches in the last session of the 

 legislature will put this state where her 

 rank in wealth and development have long de- 

 manded she should stand, in the van of the 

 road-building states. A road-map of the state 

 was submitted for approval to the legisla- 

 ture which provides a comprehensive plan for 

 building some seven thousand miles of first- 

 class macadam road, approximately during the 

 next ten years, by expenditure of the $50,000,- 

 000 made available by the constitutional am- 

 endment voted by the people in 1905 authoriz- 

 ing the state to bond itself in this amount for 

 that purpose. The map was submitted in pursu- 

 ance of the amended Higbie-Armstrong act, or, 

 as it is also known, Chapter 115 of the Laws 

 of 1898. Under this law 692 miles of such 

 road have already been constructed. The act 

 provides that the town pay not more than fif- 

 teen per cent, the county not more than thirty- 

 five per cent, and the state the balance of the 

 cost of any highway petitioned for by a local- 

 ity and approved by the State Engineer and 

 the Board of Supervisors of the county. Only 

 minor modifications in the plan have been 

 made at the hands of the legislature. An im- 

 portant feature of the bond issue is that the 

 state is to authorize the issue of bonds which 

 will provide funds to be advanced for payment 

 of the counties' share of the cost of the work, 

 which the counties are to repay to the state, 

 having a term of years in which to do so. A 

 slight constitutional defect has been discov- 

 ered in this provision, but it is presumed that 

 the present legislature will remedy the defect. 



The adoption of this plan of highway im- 

 provement means that at the end of some ten 

 years, as a cost to the people of about $5,000,- 

 000 a year, the state of New York will have 

 approximately 7,500 miles of country roads of 

 the highest grade., These highways will be 

 equitably apportioned among the counties. 

 They will form a unified system of great ar- 

 teries and veins of traffic traversing the state 

 north, south, east, and west, connecting all the 

 principal villages and cities and reaching into 

 its remotest corners. There are in the state a 

 total of about 75,000 miles of public highway, 

 outside of cities and incorporated villages. 

 Hence ten per cent of these will have been re- 

 built in the near future by this one act of state 

 aid. 



No More "Working Out Road Tax." 



The wise legislation which had its inception 

 in 1898, however, provides for much more than 

 this. The Higbie-Armstrong act is supple- 

 mented by the Fuller-Plank act of that year, 

 familiarly known as the Money-System act, of 

 a type generally adopted in states having state 

 aid laws. It provides that to every town which 

 abandons the primitive plan by which every 

 citizen "works out" his road tax with pick and 

 shovel or team, and instead raises its tax in 



cash, the state will pay a sum equal to one-half 

 of this amount. This improved system has 

 been rapidly adopted by the towns, so that 533 

 towns now care for their roads under this sys- 

 tem against 399 which do not. No less than (i.5 

 towns adopted the money system during the 

 past year. How large a proportion of the state 

 is now under this provision is graphically 

 shown on the Engineer's map. There are now 

 under it fully 45,000 miles of road out of the 

 total 75,000 in the state. The roads maintained 

 under this act are to be those not improved 

 under the Higbie-Armstrong act. They will 

 serve as the capillary net of feeders to the 

 great main trunks built and maintained under 

 that law, and thus complete this splendid sys- 

 tem of state-improved highways. Nor are the 

 roads for which the Higbie-Armstrong act 

 provides by any means the only "good" roads. 

 At present, exclusive of these, there are 1,501 

 miles of other roads surfaced with crushed 

 stone and 3,754 miles surfaced with gravel, or 

 5,255 miles of road falling but a few degrees 

 short of the Higbie-Armstrong roads in ex- 

 cellence. 



According to ex-State Engineer Van Al- 

 style, it is fair to assume that the roads im- 

 proved under state aid virtually represent the 

 first-class roads in the state, and these roads 

 have all come into being in their improved 

 shape since 1898. That in itself is a good 

 showing and will compare favorably with the 

 work done in other states. But the present 

 conditions in New York have their greatest 

 significance in the marked acceleration in the 

 progress in good road building which they il- 

 lustrate. Every good road anywhere in the 

 country has been an incentive to build others 

 like it, but in New York the forward stride 

 shown by the action now under way is start- 

 ling. 



And the people of this state are getting 

 roads for their money that they can be proud 

 of. The roads under the Higbie-Armstrong 

 law are constructed by contract, according to 

 the best of engineering knowledge, under su- 

 pervision of the State Engineer, at a cost av- 

 eraging $8,000 per mile. How expensive some 

 of these roads can be illustrated in the case of 

 the West Point-Cornwall road, in Orange 

 county, where 2.47 miles are estimated to cost 

 $225,000. This is the most expensive road 

 planned for. Its great cost is due to the ne- 

 cessity for much rock excavation. In general 

 these roads are about as expensive as those of 

 Massachusetts, or perhaps a little less so. They 

 are hard, firm, smooth, practically waterproof, 

 and capable of bearing the heaviest loaded 

 farm wagon. They average in total width of 

 roadway about twenty-two feet, of which from 

 twelve to sixteen are macadam, the crushed 

 stone having a depth after rolling of six 

 inches. Trap rock, limestone, granitic rock, 

 and field stone are the materials used, accord- 

 ing to locality. They are equipped with guide- 

 posts with metal signs, giving distances. At 

 half-mile intervals are signs bearing the legend, 

 embodying a roadmaker's wisdom: "Do not 

 drive in one track. Use wide tires." 



To the farmer these roads mean that he can 

 drive with triple the load that his horses drew 

 before, and that, at any season of the year, 

 under good maintenance; that he will save in 

 wear and tear and time two-thirds the cost 

 of his wagon transportation; that he will gain 



in social comforts, in facilities for the educa- 

 tion of his children, in case of contact with the 

 rest of the world through free mail delivery, 

 and in other ways that will enhance the at- 

 tractiveness and opportunities of his life. To 

 the driver of horses or automobiles for pleas- 

 ure thej- will mean a boon that should add 

 greatly to the popularity of road travel in the 

 Empire State. Amendments to the various 

 laws relating to highway* have given to the 

 state engineer such control over the mainten- 

 ance of the roads improved with state money 

 that much better results are assured in keep- 

 ing them in condition than was possible under 

 the old system of go-as-you-please, with all 

 authority in the hands of untrained highway 

 commissioners and road overseers. The Road 

 Red Hook recently isuecl from his office is 

 packed with information and mandatory direc- 

 tions for officials having these roads in charge, 

 and a force of state inspectors and supervis- 

 ors will in future look after the faithful execu- 

 tion of these instructions. The latest kinks in 

 the care of roads are being applied or experi- 

 mented with, as, for instance, the application 

 of oil or tar to road surfaces for their preser- 

 vation and to allay the dust that with the in- 

 crease of automobile travel has become an 

 ever-growing nuisance, even on roads other- 

 wise excellent. 



Good Roads Movement Spreading. 



The day when all the principal towns of the 

 United States shall be connected by macad- 

 amized highways, which authorities on this 

 subject tell us is surely coming, has been 

 brought much nearer by the work on which 

 the state of New York is now engaged. While 

 the vista of long-distance jaunts by automobiles 

 on perfect roads, such as is opened by plans 

 like that for improving a road from New York 

 to Chicago, now agitated by the New York 

 and Chicago Road Association, or that out- 

 lined by a bill in Congress for the reconstruc- 

 tion of the old Cumberland Road, from Cum- 

 berland to St. Louis, may exist still merely as 

 vision, the perfection of these roads of New 

 York is a reality close at hand. 



Here are some of the indications of the as- 

 sured position won for the good-roads cam- 

 paign: a Federal bureau of increasing efficiency 

 and scope; the office of public roads of the 

 Department of Agriculture, which collects and 

 disseminates information of service to com- 

 munities desiring to improve their roads, stim- 

 ulating interest by pamphlet, lecture, and ob- 

 ject-lesson roads or by direct personal instruc- 

 tion and supervision by its engineers, now, 

 moreover, enabled to give a post-graduate 

 course to qualified young men in the study 

 of road engineering; a powerful national organ- 

 ization, the National Good Roads Association, 

 represented by an increasing membership in 

 thirty-eight states, and actively engaged in 

 giving aid and instruction and in working for 

 better legislation; the enlistment in active par- 

 ticipation of great railroad corporations, of the 

 governors of most of the states, of bodies of 

 automobilists and of lovers of rural beauty; 

 and, finally, under the impulse of this agita- 

 tion, the actual construction of thousands of 

 miles of excellent country roads. 



This is a good showing, surely. Yet in this 

 enumeration is not included the greatest gain 



