THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



28! 



THE FARMER AND THE ROAD PROBLEM. 



In Eastern Pennsylvania certain portions of 

 that historic highway known as "Old York Road" 

 are still controlled by turnpike companies, and the 

 tollgate continues to be a respected institution. A 

 company controlling' about two miles of this old 

 road, over which Washington and the continental 

 army marched at various times, has had a profit- 

 able investment, paying from 7 to 8 per cent divi- 

 dends. In by-gone days another section of turn- 

 pike leading from Old York Road paid its owners 

 as high as 12 per cent. Good stone and gravel pits 

 made the maintenance of this road comparatively 

 easy, and the much-talked-about patrol system was 

 established many years ago. Always there were 

 men at work cracking stone by hand and putting it 

 into such depressions and washouts as occurred. 

 But in spite of its solid bed and constant super- 

 vision, the road is going to pieces, as does the aver- 



METIIOD OF CONSTRUCTING A TYPICAL SIXTEEN-FOOT CONCRETE ROAD. 



The templet used to strike the crown is shown against the concrete 

 in the foreground. Back of this are the installing devices for expan- 

 sion joints. They are holding steel protecting plates in position and 

 will be removed before the concrete hardens. Beyond, men are trowel- 

 ing the surface. This road is near Mason City, Iowa. 



age road when subjected to automobile traffic. The 

 rapidly revolving tires disperse the rock dust or 

 binding material in clouds, and the stones, upon ex- 

 posure, are ripped out and hurled aside. The situa- 

 tion is akin to that in every rural community, and 

 the turnpike company and farmers who dwell along 

 this old turnpike are up against a problem. They 

 must decide whether they will submit to bad roads, 

 pay excessive annual maintenance charges or pay 

 for a road so solid that it will never get out of repair. 

 In many localities farmers have dismissed the first 

 two propositions as impossible and they are building 

 durable Yoads. And some of them 'believe it is 

 better to do this by local taxation rather than to 

 have the state take over and control the roads, thus 

 depriving them of the right to say what type of 

 road shall be built. It was the farmers who de- 

 feated the recently proposed 50-million dollar bond 

 issue in Pennsylvania. They wanted the oppor- 



tunity to build roads that would not be utterly de- 

 stroyed long before state or county bonds should 

 mature. In Connecticut, Maryland, New Jersey, 

 New York, Delaware and Pennsylvania, both state 

 and local communities are turning to the concrete 

 road as the solution of their problem and with excel- 

 lent results. Taking a 16-foot concrete road as a 

 basis, highways of this character have cost on the 

 average about $12,000 per mile, while maintenance 

 costs have been practically nothing. For example, 

 in Bellefontaine, Ohio, a concrete road put down 

 twenty years ago has cost less than $25 per mile 

 per year for maintenance, while the average main- 

 tenance cost of macadam roads in five eastern states 

 in 1912 exceeded $800 per mile per year. The farm- 

 er, in adopting concrete, has figured the matter 

 in this way: A road is an investment. The most 

 conservative estimate of maintenance cost on maca- 

 dam per mile per year would be certain to reach 

 $300 if the road is subject to motor-driven traffic 

 and kept passable at all seasons. An equally con- 

 servative estimate for construction is $6,000 per 

 mile. The $300 maintenance cost represents interest 

 on $6,000 at 5 per cent, thus making the real in- 

 vestment $12,000 per mile, or the cost of a mile of 

 indestructible concrete road. As a matter of fact, 

 taking New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania 

 costs, the investment would be some $25,000 per 

 mile. From considering a single mile of roadway 

 it became interesting to figure costs on many miles 

 to see what would happen in the case of macadam 

 as compared with concrete. For example, let it be 

 assumed that 500 miles are to be built during a per- 

 iod of five years at the rate of 100 miles per year, 

 and that repairs will not be required on either type 

 of road for two years. Beginning, then, at the third 

 year, and estimating maintenance costs for concrete 

 at $25 per mile per year, the Bellefontaine figures, 

 the total maintenance costs on 500 miles of con- 

 crete road would, at the expiration of seven years, 

 be only $37,500. In the case of macadam, basing 

 costs on New York and New Jersey figures for 1912, 

 repair costs would reach the enormous total of $1,- 

 350,000. Where concrete roads are very narrow, 

 say 9 feet wide, and have a dirt road at the sides, 

 they could be built for $7,500 per mile. Maryland 

 has built excellent concrete roads of standard width 

 for a little less than $12,000 per mile. 



It is upon the above economic basis that farm- 

 ers are beginning to look at the road question. 



But aside from moderate first cost and practic- 

 ally negligible maintenance costs, the popularity of 

 the concrete road is rapidly growing in rural com- 

 munities due to the experience of those who have 

 used it. For the farmer it is the ideal highway. 

 Described briefly, the building of a concrete road 

 consists of putting a wet and mushy mass of Port- 

 land cement, sand and stone in the center of a high- 

 way, where it hardens into imperishable rock. The 

 accompanying illustrations give a very good idea 

 of the building of a road and its appearance when 

 finished. The above picture shows the construction 



