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PRESENT SITUATION 



County has 16 townships with duplicote equipment 

 worth about $480,000. One township has 1 8 

 miles of rood onother 75 miles. M%9 of the 

 equipment Is limited to each township where lock 

 of mileage assures Inefficient use. There Is no 

 continuous long-range planning for the county as 

 a whole. 



UNDER COUNTY UNIT PLAN 



Four oreos are set up in the county each having 

 about the some rood mileage. Four sets of equip- 

 ment are locoted as handily os possible. Cost 

 of four sets of equipment — $160,000. All equip- 

 ment con be moved wherever needed. A long- 

 range, continuous, over-all, planned county rood 

 program Is possible. 



Better Roads Demand Changes 



lAA REPORT RECOMMENDS CONSOLIDATION OF RURAL ROAD DISTRICTS FOR EFFICIENCY, ECONOMY 



THE ILLINOIS Agricultural Asso- 

 ciation Road Study Committee has 

 recommended two methods by 

 which farm people can get more 

 dollars on the roads to provide 

 all-weather year-around surfaces on 

 farm roads. 



The automobile has been with us for 

 more than 40 years and trucks and 

 buses for more than 30 years. Yet we, 

 in Illinois, are still trying to provide 

 road surfaces for year-around travel 

 for these vehicles with horse and wagon 

 methods. We are still in the mud. With 

 more than one-fourth of the total rural 

 road mileage (20,000 miles) unim- 

 proved earth and more than half of the 

 gravel surfaced roads (47,500 miles) 

 in need of resurfacing Illinois faces a 

 serious problem in providing year 



8 



By CULLEN B. SWEET, Director 



lAA Rural Road Improvement 



around travel surface for 60 per cent of 

 the total road mileage of the state. 



Providing all-we^her surfaces for 

 rural roads is a problem of the people 

 living on these roads and must be done 

 solely through local property taxes now 

 that aid from the state has ceased. 

 Farm roads received $30,000,000 in 

 aid from the state from July 1945 to 

 June 30, 1949. Many miles of roads 

 were resurfaced and surfaced with this 

 money. Maintenance of these roads 

 must be carried out by the local town- 

 ship or road district having such roads, 

 and in addition to this must continue 

 other improvements on roads and 

 bridges. 



For a solution to the problem the 

 lAA Road Committee recommends that 

 Illinois farmers help get themselves 

 out of the mud through reorganization 

 of the present township and road dis- 

 tricts into larger units of administra- 

 tion. They recommend the formation 

 of county unit road districts by ref- 

 erendum. 



Based upon facts and figures the com- 

 mittee states that through the elimina- 

 tion of duplication of equipment, elim- 

 ination of inefficient personnel and gen- 

 eral reduction in overhead expense 

 more miles of road can be built and 

 more effective maintenance can be ob- 

 tained with the same money than under 

 the present condition. 



For illustration, a county having 16 

 townships, that under present condi- 



I. A. A. RECORD 



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