98 COMMISSION OF CONSERVATION 



length and construction of streets we have to keep up an extravagant 

 standard because we have no proper development plan. It is because 

 of this that the advantage of having wide roads where these are 

 needed for through traffic is often questioned, the plea being that to 

 provide for very wide roads casts too great a burden on the present 

 generation for the benefit of posterity. That plea rests on the erron- 

 eous assumption that all roads should be wide and that we do not 

 need to vary and regulate their width according to the use to which 

 they have to be put. Under a proper scheme roads should not, as 

 a whole, occupy a greater superficial area than they do now, but, com- 

 plementary to the narrow residential street fringed with deep front 

 gardens or the narrow farm lane, there would be the wide main ar- 

 tery. 



MAIN ARTERIAL THOROUGHFARES 



In laying out main arteries it is cheaper as well as better 

 to make the roads wide enough to meet future needs. This is par- 

 ticularly so where such roads are required for street railways. The 

 expansion of cities into surrounding rural territory is being followed 

 by the extension of street railways into such territory, and there is a 

 growing tendency to construct radial railways parallel with highways 

 through rural districts. Every road which is intended to ultimately 

 carry two streams of ordinary traffic and, in addition, two lines of 

 street railway, should not be less than 100 feet and should, where 

 practicable, be 120 feet wide. The arterial road has to be wide 

 to enable it to be cheaply made. One illustration of the economy to 

 be secured in this connection will suffice. In the suburbs of Liver- 

 pool Mr. John Brodie, M. Inst. C. E., the city engineer, has demon- 

 strated that he could widen an existing 40-feet road to 120 feet at 

 a slight extra cost compared to widening to 80 feet, where such a 

 road ran through open country, and was required in part for a street 

 railway. His alternative costs were worked out as follows, for these 

 widths : 



WIDENING TO 80 FEET (Tramways Paved.) 



Cost of land, 13 J yds. at $1.25 $16.66 



Street works, per lineal yard 35.62 



Tramways (including paving) 1 yard at ... 33.75 



$86.03 

 = $151,430 per mile. 



The above estimate includes the cost of reconstruction of the old 

 road to suit new levels. 



