8 



MICHIGAN ROADS AND FORESTS 



MICHIGAN 



ROADS AND FORESTS 



Official Paper of The Michigan Road Makers Association and 

 Michigan Forestry Association. 



70 Lamed Street West, Detroit, Michigan. 



Entered as Second-class Matter April 27, 1907. at the Post Office at De- 

 troit. Michigan, under the Act of Congress of March 3. 1879. 



Frank E. Carter Editor 



PUBLISHED EVERY MONTH 



BY 



THE STATE REVIEW PUBLISHING CO.. 



SUBSCRIPTION, ONE DOLLAR A YEAR, 

 PAYABLE IN ADVANCE:. 



UNIFORM SYSTEM OF ROAD BUILD- 

 ING NEEDED. 



The American delegates to the international 

 read conference, held at Brussels. Belgium, 

 in August, say that the great lesson of the 

 congress for America is the showing of the 

 absolute necessity for the introduction of a 

 uniform system of road building in the United 

 States. Joseph W. Jones, cf New York, one 

 of the representatives of the Automobile 

 Touring Club of America, says that chaos is 

 bound to prevail so long as the idea that 

 local engineers should have full control of 

 road building governs in America. "We 

 need," says Mr. Jones, a "a system like that 

 in France, of national, state and county roads, 

 decreasing in width according to the impor- 

 tance of the traffic and built at the expense 

 of the national government and the states." 



The American representatives believe that 

 the American roads, especially in the south, 

 are too wide and lack the requisite depth of 

 foundation. The idea is that it is cheaper to 

 keep them in repaimhan to rebuild them en- 

 tirely also prevails. They consider that the 

 English roads, although the narrowest, are the 

 best in Europe, especially when the surface 

 is thoroughly tarred and covered with a light 

 coating of sand. 



WEAK POINT IN OUR SYSTEM. 



There are stretches of good read in the 

 United States, quite a few of them, enough 

 at any rate to satisfy anyone that we know 

 a good road when we see it and that we 

 know very well how to build r ads; but when 

 we have built the road we have "shot our 

 bolt." We are like the fellow who, when we 

 had renewed a note, said to himself, "Thank 

 God, that's paid." So, when we have finished 

 the construction of a gcod road, we say: 

 "That's finished," and so we regard it not 

 only as finished, but as finished for all time. 



After a while holes, hummocks and other 

 irregularities appear on the surface of the 

 road, making travel over it uncomfortable. 

 Do we fix it? I guess not. That road was 

 well built, and, like the renewed note, it re- 

 quires no further attention. At last it gets 

 so bad as to become unsafe. Then we put 

 up signs "Street Closed," and devote several 

 months, not to repairing it, but to rebuild- 

 ing it. 



While motoring in Europe, in England and 

 on the Continent I was struck by the very 

 few times I was confronted by this sign, and 

 then for very short stretches. They seem to 

 have a faculty there, which is noticeably lack- 



ing here, of keeping their roads in repair, 

 so that there is no necessity for closing them 

 up for months at a time. It is the invariable 

 custom in th's country, I don't know why, 

 of never keeping a public highway in repair. 

 We say in our defence, and as an excuse 

 u < Americans are good excusers when our 

 conduct is criticized "Oh, but you must re- 

 member that we are a young country, while 

 Europe is an old country and has been at work 

 for years on its r'rads." What under the 

 sun that has to do with the question puzzles 

 me. We know how to build a road just as 

 well as the Europeans do. We have demon- 

 strated that fact innumerable times. I have 

 seen many stretches of road in this country 

 that compare m'cst favorably with any road 

 to be found in Europe, but when we come 

 to a good continuous road the comparison 

 ceases and we are not on the same earth. 



What is the remedy for this state of affairs? 

 This question is easily answered. Go to Eu- 

 rope and find out how to keep up a good road. 

 We went there to find out how to make good 

 roads; why not go there x and find out how to 

 keep them so? It must be cheaper, it is cer- 

 tainly more convenient, to keep a read in 

 repair than it is to leave it untouched for a 

 couple of years or longer and then to tear it 

 up and rebuild it. What is the objection to 

 having our roads continually patrolled by the 

 number of men necessary to keep them in 

 good order, providing the men, of course, with 

 sufficient material and suitable tools? 



This method is followed by all of the rail- 

 reads, not as a convenience but as a necessity. 

 Since the appearance of motor cars the speed 

 on our highways frequently equals that of 

 railway trains. What objection is there to 

 making the highways as safe and as comfort- 

 able to travel over as are the tracks of a 

 railway. Correspondent New Yterk Sun. 



EXPERIMENTAL CONCRETE ROAD. 



The New York State Commission of High- 

 ways at the request of the county engineer cf 

 Westchester county set aside $1,800 for the 

 construction of an experimental piece of con- 

 crete road on Road No. 52, Westchester c r un- 

 ty, near Elmsford. This work was dore dur- 

 ing the mcnth of July, 1909, under tre direc- 

 tion of Eberhard L. Wuff, County Engineer 

 and the following is a description of the meth- 

 ods and materials employed in such construc- 

 tion together with the fipures as to the cost: 



Crushed trap rock of a size usually em- 

 ployed in the top course of macadam contain- 

 ing, by experiment, about 40 per cent voids 

 was spread on the macadam surface and rolled 

 by a steam roller to a finished thickness of 

 about three inches, the percentage of void be- 

 ing reduced by this rolling to about 25. 



Screened sand and Atlas Portland cement 

 were mixed in the proporticns of one part ce- 

 ment to three parts sand, in the dry state on 

 a mixing platform, spread upon the road sur- 

 face and worked into the voids by sweeping 

 about with brooms and continuous rolling with 

 a steam roller until the voids were ccmpletely 

 filled with the dry sand and cement mixture. 

 Water was then spread freely on the road sur- 

 face forming a fluid grout of the sand, cement 

 and water, the sweeping, watering and rolling 

 continued to assist a perfect penetration and 



lilling of the voids between the adjoining par- 

 ticles of stone. More sand and cement mix- 

 ture was spread over wherever it was fcund 

 necessary to completely fill all voids and to 

 leave a very thin covering over the entire sur- 

 face, which when completed was smooth and 

 even but slightly gritty. The roadway was 

 then permitted to harden for about seven days 

 before thrown open to traffic, the rcadway 

 being wet down frequently during that period. 

 Expansion joints were placed about twenty- 

 five feet apart by pouring a thin line of heat- 

 ed asphalt across the roadway after the brok- 

 en stone was compacted but before any sand 

 and cement mixture was spread. A section cf 

 100 feet in length was placed without expan- 

 sion joints by reinforcing the concrete slab 

 with woven wire mesh. 



The completed roadway presents a smooth 

 surface, equal to new macadam, is quite free 

 from irregularities frequently formed in con- 

 crete roads and offers a gocd foothold to 

 horses. Automobiles have no detrimental ef- 

 fect on the road. 



The measured quantities of materials used 

 were 88 barrels of cement, about 40 cubic 

 yards of sand and 200 cubic yards of 1J4 trap 

 rock (commercial size), the resulting concrete 

 reoresenting a mass of 150 cubic yards in 

 place. Expressed in the prcportion of the 

 completed concrete the mixture would be 

 about 1 3 7}^; if expressed in the propor- 

 tions of the loose materials used in the mix- 

 ture would be about 1 3 l2 l / 2 . It would be 

 manifestly impossible to secure a dense mix- 

 ture if the materials were mixed in the latter 

 proportions in the leose state, and the result- 

 ing concrete would unquestionably be porous 

 and lull of cavities and lacking in resisting 

 power for road purposes. The result of the 

 dense concrete being obtained by the expe- 

 diency of reducing voids ccntained in the loose 

 stone by rolling. 



After five months of fairly heavy traffic over 

 the road no serious defects developed. 



The cost of the improvement was very near- 

 ly $1 per square yard and is in excess of the 

 preliminary estimate. This is largely due to 

 the cost of labcr and the cost of renting tools 

 and machines, and should prove materially 

 less if similar work is dene on a larger scale. 

 All sprinkling was done by hand sprinklers, 

 as it was found impossible to use a sprinkling 

 wagon. All sand and cement was mixed by 

 hand when a mechanical mixture would have 

 been more economical. 



The detailed cost of items are as fellows: 

 200 cubic yards of trap rock at $2.47..$ 493.20 

 88 barrels of Portland (Atlas) cement 143.20 



50 cubic yards of sand 75.00 



1,600 square feet of wire reinforcement 52.10 



2 barrels of asphalt 15.00 



Lumber 16.00 



Steam roller, 21 days 210.00 



Teaming 150.00 



Hire of tools and machinery 100.00 



Labor 517.00 



Total $1,772.00 



Summary of cost by the square yard: 



Stone $0.2774 



Cement 0.0805 



Sand 0.0422 



Wire reinforcement 0.0292 



Asphalt 0.0080 



Lumber 0.0090 



Steam roller 0.1182 



Teaming 0.0856 



Tools and machinery 0.056 



Labor 0.291 



Total $0.9961 



