M 



^f CAN WE DO WITH OUR 



How MANY times have you gone 

 to town on Saturday and observed 

 mud-covered, battered automobiles 

 parked here and there? 



How many times have you cruised 

 down a highway and watched an auto- 

 mobile lurching and grinding away 

 over a rutted road trying to reach the 

 paved road on which you are driving? 



Farmers who travel the 75,000 miles 

 of township and road district roads 

 each year, have many common road 

 problems. There are still around 24,000 

 miles of unimproved dirt roads in lUi- 

 nois townships and many miles of so- 

 called improved roads which become 

 impassable during bad weather. 



Ability to support local roads varies 

 widely among townships with counties 

 all over the state. Usually, well-gov- 

 erned townships with high assessed val- 

 uations have a large percentage of all- 

 weather township roads. At the same 

 time, no district can have good roads 

 when the maximum legal road and 

 bridge tax rate yields as little as |1.50 

 per mile each year for maintenance. 



Over 300 townships and road dis- 

 tricts received less than |2,000 total road 

 and bridge income in 1942. Many 

 townships and road districts find that 

 after road administration costs, equip- 

 ment payments, labor, fuel, and repair 

 bills are paid, very little is left to go on 

 the roads although all possible income 

 has been collected. While many of the 

 1620 districts are poor, collectively they 

 account for more than half of township 

 cost payments. Wise expenditure of 

 road and bridge revenue often means 

 good or bad local road service. 



The Illinois state legis- 

 lature approved in July 

 1945 an act and appropri- 

 ation for the construction 

 and resurfacing of town- 

 ship and road district 

 roads. On November 20, 

 1945, the first allotment 

 of $10,000,000 was made 

 to the counties and on July 

 I, 1946, the remaining 

 $5,000,000 was allotted. 

 Of the total appropriation 

 $14,208,000 was allocated 



FEBRUARY, 1947 



By CHARLES B. MAYFIELD, Director, 

 lAA Read Improvament Daporlnwnt 



hi 



to townships; $591,999 was allocated 

 to county highway engineers for engi- 

 neering service ; $200,000 was allocated 

 to the state department of public works 

 and buildings for administration pur- 

 poses. 



The Illinois Agricultural Association 

 sponsored the legislation providing 

 these funds in the General Assembly 

 and has been greatly interested in ad- 

 ministration of this law. The Associa- 

 tion is interested in further assistance 

 for farm-to-highway roads and per- 

 missive legislation allowing townships 

 to combine, creating larger districts for 

 the purpose of improving and main- 

 taining roads and bridges. 



Under this law and appropriation, the 

 state, for the first time, has recognized 

 some obligation for the improvement 

 of local township and road district 

 roads. This law met with variations of 

 success and cooperation on the part of 

 local road districts, depending on local 

 difficulty. There is unanimous agree- 

 ment that assistance is needed for farm- 

 to-market roads. Many agree that the 

 present type of assistance is completely 

 satisfactory. However, different results 

 are observed. 



In one county, 227 of 1225 miles of 

 township roads were scheduled to be 

 resurfaced with oil or gravel. Good 

 progress has been made and to date, 

 all but 30 miles have been completed. 

 The more wealthy townships of this 

 county had money to prepare the right 

 of way for resurfacing. The poorer 

 ones did not do so well. Three town- 

 ships are still held up because of rough 

 terrain and lack of local revenue. 



Five townships voted $70,000 in 

 bonds in order to participate in this 

 program. Other townships had money 

 from previous bond issues and road and 

 bridge revenue. Sixty per cent of the 

 townships are now very close to the con- 

 stitutional limit in bonding power. 

 While a small percentage of township 

 roads were resurfaced under this pro- 

 gram, over 4000 bridges and culverts 

 need repairs or replacement, and the 

 remaining roads need resurfacing or 

 heavy maintenance. 



(Continued on page 21) 



