MICHIGAN ROADS AND FORESTS 



Defects in Michigan Roads and 

 How to Improve Them. 



(Address by Frank F. Rogers, Deputy State 

 Highway Commissioner, at the State Round- 

 Up Farmers' Institute, held at the Michigan 

 Agricultural College, February 25, 1908.) 



Many years ago a migratory wag, journey- 

 ing through one of our border states, which 

 now enjoys the distinction of having the best 

 average roads of any state in the Union, 

 penned these lines on the register of a way- 

 side inn: 



"The roads are impassable, hardly jackass- 



. able; 



I think those that travel 'em should turn out 

 and gravel' 'em." 



This bit of doggeral would not be worth 

 more than a passing smile, and is not intended 

 as a reflection (in the present condition of 

 Michigan roads, were it not that it contains 

 a fundamental principle that can not be lost 

 sight of in any equitable plan of taxation for 

 highway improvement. Toll roads no doubt 

 came nearer to this equitable plan than any 

 other scheme, but the greed of toll road com- 

 panies soon allowed their roads to fall into 

 such desperate condition that they have been 

 gradually abolished, never to return. 



The plan of working out the road tax by 

 adjacent property owners was adopted by 

 nearly every state, having been introduced 

 into this country by the early colonists. When 

 the country was new and the only commodity 

 at 'the disposal of the people was labor, no 

 other system could have been tolerated. 

 There were then practically no crops to mar- 

 ket and no loads to draw back to the farm. 

 Indeed every farm and every household was 

 its own factory, consuming nearly all of the 

 products of the farm, and manufacturing 

 nearly everything used by the farmer and his 

 family. There were then no railways nor 

 market-towns, as we now know them. 



Marvelous Changes in 71 Years. 



However, the seventy-one years that Michi- 

 gan has been a state have wrought marvelous 

 changes. Nearly 10,000 miles of railways have 

 been built within her borders and 70,000 miles 

 of public wagon roads, not counting the streets 

 of incorporated cities and villages, have been 

 laid out, opened to travel and more or less 

 improved. It was somewhat tardy, but in 

 keeping with this advancement that the last 

 legislature abolished the labor tax and pro- 

 vided for money taxes, some portion of which 

 is levied on all of the taxable property in the 

 township, and this, supplemented by a county 

 road tax (available to such counties as choose 

 to adopt the county road system), and the 

 state reward tax reaches, in an equitable man- 

 ner, all of the taxable property in the state 

 and, consequently, all users of the country 

 roads. 



Michigan's Road Problem. 



These country roads have cost the state in 

 labor and money for the past seven years an 

 average annual tax of more than three millions 

 of dollars. In 1907 it was $3,312,758. This is 

 indeed a vast sum. In most years it amounts 

 to more than the entire state tax. That means 

 more than the combined cost of supporting all 

 of the state schools the University, the Agri- 

 cultural College, the College of Mines, four 

 State Normal schools also the asylums, the 

 prisons and all of the state departments. 



Michigan's road problem today is not how 

 much money to raise for road purposes, but 

 how to produce better results with the means 

 already at her disposal. I believe that we are 

 now raising plenty of money, except the 

 amount required for state aid, to build of first 

 class gravel or macadam, every trunk line road 

 in Michigan within the next twenty years, if 

 expended to the best advantage. It is no more 

 than would be accomplished by any first class 



railway organization if confronted with the 

 same problem and given the same resources. 

 In short it is not a quest of spending more, 

 but spending better. 



The trunk lines referred to mean all of the 

 main highways of the state which enter mar- 

 ket-towns, in fact all but the laterals, or side 

 roads, which lead out to the main lines and are 

 traveled by few teams each day. The mileage 

 of trunk line roads is not so great as one might 

 imagine. Less than 10,000 miles of railways, 

 including the interurban electric lines, reach 

 almost every market town in the state. Take 

 the city of Lansing, for example, situated in 

 the midst of a well developed farming district; 

 eight lines of railway enter it from various 

 directions, and there are just about as many, 

 not more, wagon roads entering the city. 



Manistee county, having about 700 miles of 

 public wagon roads, has reached nearly every 

 market place in the county with but fifty miles 

 of a well planned county ioad system. Massa- 

 chusetts expects to cover the main highways 

 of the state with but one-tenth of its total road 

 mileage. 



But suppose we needed more in Michigan. 

 and had to make one-fifth of our total road 

 mileage of first class gravel or macadam? 

 That would require but 14,000 miles, and would 

 be nearly enough to cross each township in 

 the state in two directions. In fact, it would 

 make an average of 11.2 miles for each of the 

 1,225 organized townships in the state. 



Part of the problem, however, is to maintain 

 all of the roads, bridges and culverts in as 

 good or better condition than they have been 

 kept in the past, while the work' of building 

 the main lines is in progress. How can it 

 be done. 



70,000 Miles of Road. 



Of the entire 70,000 miles of road, more than 

 one-third are sand, on which slight,' or tem- 

 porary repairs, are a total loss. At best very 

 little of value can be done to such roads until 

 a better material can be put on them to har- 

 den the surface. Other roads can be kept in 

 as good condition as it is possible to keep 

 earth roads by first turnpiking and draining 

 and then having them floated down at the end 

 of each muddy spell. Commence in the spring 

 when the frost has left the ground and the 

 mud begins to dry and float them down; float 

 them down after each long rain the remainder 

 of the season, try and have them floated down 

 just before the ground freezes in the fall and 

 thus make a smooth winter road. Many per- 

 sons have faithfully done such work, and not 

 only pronounce the results satisfactory, but 

 say that the cost is only between $5 and $10 

 a mile each year. Such treatment is of no use 

 to sand roads, but to be more than fair with 

 our argument, we will throw the sand roads in 

 and take the maximum price of -$10 a mile, and 

 then only $700,000 a year could be thus ex 

 pended. 



But there are bridges and culverts to repair 

 and build. Just how much should be set aside 

 for this cannot be determined so readily. A 

 bridge company that claims to sell more than 

 one-half of the bridges in Michigan sold on' 

 $300,000 worth last season. ,To be safe we will 

 set apart $1,000,000 for new bridges and $300,- 

 000 for culverts and their repairs. Deduct 

 these sums from the road tax of 1907 and we 

 have remaining more than one and one-half 

 millions of dollars that should go towards per- 

 manent road building. What will it do? 



Average Cost of Roads. 



During the two and one-half years that the 

 state reward road law has been operative there 

 have been built in Michigan more than two 

 hundred miles of road on which state reward 

 was paid. This has furnished reliable data as 

 to the cost of such roads. Speaking in round 

 numbers, it has shown that the average cost 

 of macadam roads as built in Michigan is a 

 little more than $4,000 a mile, and the average 

 cost of gravel roads something less than $1,500 

 a mile. During the road building season of 



1907, fifty-six miles of gravel and fifty-three 

 miles of macadam roads were built The per- 

 centage of gravel roads is rapidly increasing 

 and from the present outlook, it will not be 

 ong before at least two-thirds of all the roads 

 built for state reward will be gravel But to 

 be more than fair again with our argument we 

 will assume that the roads will continue to be 

 built in equal mileage. In that case the aver- 

 h? C 97 S -n Per e f the im P r v ed roads would 



DC p.i,fOU. 



ftrnn rew , ard on the macadam road is 



'0 a mile and on the gravel road it is $500 



$7M a mil. *??** ^^ reward is ther efore 

 $7oO a mile Deducting the average state re- 

 ward from $2,750. the total average cost and 



co'st ?o e t? 3>00 3 " lile f r the total " et Average 

 cost to the community which builds 



and macadam roads each year. At that r 

 if we simply maintain the present tax levv 

 except for the extra amount required for staTe 

 reward, we could build the 14,000 miles of m 

 h.ghways in eighteen and one-half 



well l 



the 





MICHIGAN ROAD NOTES 



.7SflSS4r.fi? 



to impose a one-mill tax for three years 

 for the purpose of building bridges over Mu" 

 kegon river at Maple island, ove ? Lake Harbor 

 to replace the "float bridge" and between 

 Montague and Whitehall over White rive? 

 and for a swing bridge over Muskegon river 

 on the North Muskegon road. 



TRINITY FOREST RESERVE 



* ? er ? t u y Proclamation has 

 . acres to the Trinity Forest Re- 

 serve ,n Humboldt and Trinity counties, Cali- 

 fornia, making that reservation consist of 

 nearly 1 (500,000 acres. The area added i cov- 

 ered with yellow and sugar pine, incense cedar 

 and some redwood, having a market value 

 of some $4,500,000. The reason for taking this 

 tract out of commerce is for the protection 

 of the numerous watersheds. 



