Foreword 



This report was written before the United States was at war. Now, 

 everything must be subordinate to the war effort. Everything must be 

 adjusted to a war economy. The income of the State Highway Depart- 

 ment will be much reduced. For that reason, and for lack of labor, new 

 projects must be postponed. A first consideration in all road planning 

 must be the possible use of roads for military purposes. 



However, it is believed that this report is still of value both for 

 present use and for future planning. Road work will necessarily play 

 a large part in the future readjustment to a peace economy. Clearly, it 

 should not be used merely as made work to take up the slack in employ- 

 ment, but should be planned ahead to give the greatest and best return 

 for the labor invested. To that end such considerations as are stressed 

 in this report, especially in its first and last sections, are of great 

 importance. 



Meanwhile, one of the ever-present problems, even more crucial in 

 war time than in peace, is that of taxation and tax adjustment. For the 

 rural areas by far the greatest tax burden— almost the only tax directly 

 felt— is the direct real estate tax, and by far the chief variable element 

 in this tax is the road costs. The parts of this report dealing with the 

 distribution of road costs, both for maintenance and for construction 

 costs, are therefore immediately and permanently applicable, although 

 action on some of the recommendations may not be immediately possible. 



A word about the history of the work leading up to this report is 

 in order. It grew out of the activities of the Rural Highway Committee, 

 a subcommittee of the New Hampshire Rural Policy Committee. 



In the beginning members of the Highway Committee of the Belknap 

 County Rural Policy Committee raised questions concerning the distri- 

 bution of the burden of rural highway costs. This subcommittee was 

 instructed to study the situation and report. After some preliminary 

 meetings, arrangements were made with the New Hampshire Agricultural 

 Experiment Station and the Bureau of Agricultural Economics to assist 

 in the work of the Committee, and Mr. John C. Holmes was assigned to 

 the Committee as working investigator. 



Meetings were held first in some towns of Belknap County b>^ the 

 local land-use committees and highway committees jointly. It was decided 

 to gather data concerning road costs and to make an inventory of the 

 roads in each town, divided into three classes: (1) roads most important 

 for general use, (2) roads chiefly for local use, and (3) roads of doubtful 

 necessity for future use. These were mapped and the mileage in each 

 class determined. 



The County Committee soon realized that the problem of costs and 

 of road classification was a state-wide problem and should be studied on 

 a state level. The New Hampshire Rural Policy Committee agreed with 

 this finding, and as a consequence appointed a subcommittee on highways, 

 continuing Mr. Holmes as investigator, and making up the Committee 

 as follows: Curtis H. Page, Chairman; George M. Putnam, President of 

 the New Hampshire Farm Bureau; Clifford D. Stearns, of Hinsdale; 



