480 History of Inland Transport 



It is, again, the now general use of the automobile that has 

 given to the improvement of the roads the greatest degree 

 of stimulus it has received since the days of McAdam and 

 Telford. 



Speaking generally, excellent results have followed from the 

 policy adopted by the State in transferring the charge of main 

 roads from turnpike trustees to the county councils, and, also, 

 in encouraging rural district councils to pay more attention 

 to local highways other than main roads. In 1908-9, for 

 example, the county councils spent on 27,749 miles of main 

 roads a total of 2,739,591, and the rural district councils 

 spent on the 95,144 miles of road under their own control 

 a total of 2, 160,492 on maintenance and repairs and 52,067 

 on improvements. Nor is there any reason for supposing that, 

 under the conditions operating to-day, this expenditure is 

 wasted or ill-spent, as was the case with so much of the outlay 

 on roads in the pre-McAdam days of non-scientific road-making. 



While the roads were being adapted to the requirements 

 of ordinary traffic, their shortcomings from the point of view 

 of the traffic of motor-cars and traction engines were made 

 apparent, and called for special attention. It was not only 

 that the suction of the india-rubber tyres raised clouds of dust 

 and, also, injured the macadamised roads by depriving the 

 top layer of stones of their proper binding, but the greater 

 speed at which the motor-cars were driven made it especially 

 necessary that the roads should be alike wide and straight, 

 with as few awkward, if not dangerous, turns, twists or 

 corners as possible. 



The increasing use of traction engines is indicated by a 

 report on the county roads issued by the Kent County Council. 

 The number of traction engines licensed by that body during 

 the year ending March 31, 1911, for use in the county, was 

 101, as cornpared with only 37 in the previous year. 



Action was called for all the more because cycling and 

 automobilism have increased the use of the roads of the 

 United Kingdom in general to an extent that probably sur- 

 passes their use even in the palmy days of the Coaching Era. 

 At that time it was almost exclusively along the main roads 

 between leading cities that the coaches went in such numbers ; 

 whereas cyclists and motorists in search of the picturesque 

 may discard main roads and proceed, instead, along highways 



