24 BULLETIN 136, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
The details of advertising and selling highway bonds are frequently 
prescribed by law. Bids from bond houses are always made con- 
ditioned on an investigation of the validity of all proceedings leading 
to the issue. The attorneys for the bidders will require from the 
municipality certified copies of all papers concerning the transaction. 
There frequently is much variation in the form of the bids for a single 
issue. The items of denomination of the bonds, options on delivery, 
portion of the issue bid for, deposit of the money in stipulated baniss, 
and items of less importance are often written into the bids. 
TOTAL COST OF HIGHWAYS. 
Charges included in total cost.—The first cost of construction 
is not the total cost of a highway. It is becoming customary to con- 
sider the cost of highways for a-period of years.1_ This view of high- 
way costs is important in the construction of highways with bor- 
rowed money. Municipal or county bonds are invariably issued 
for a definite term or period, and it is desirable, therefore, to know 
the total cost to a community during the life of the bond. Undoubt- 
edly the best fimancial policy is to restrict the term of the highway 
bond to the probable useful life of the original type of road under 
actual conditions. 
There is considerable difference of opmion among engineers and 
highway officials as to what constitutes the total cost of a highway 
during a given period of years. Questions arise over the interest 
charge on the original cost, the annual payments to amortize or 
retire the loan, the depreciation charge, and the repair and main- 
tenance charge. Hvidently if a repair and maintenance charge is 
made sufficient to maintain the road absolutely for an indefinite 
period, a depreciation charge has no place in the estimate of total 
annual cost. It is also apparent that total and annual costs for the 
loan can be made to vary at will by changing the period of the loan, 
e., the term of the bond. To make the problem more definite, it 
is desirable to assume, first, that the highway loan is a terminable 
loan and for a period not greater than the period for which the road 
will continue to serve with the original type of surface, grade, and 
alignment; and, second, that there is charged as the total cost of the 
road for that period all money paid by the community for that road 
in the form of taxes. 
Although the cost of resurfacing a road or extraordinary repairs 
is a cost which occurs only at intervals, it is a safe and conservative 
plan to make an annual charge for all such work. As an example, 
if a water-bound macadam road is built at a cost of $8,000 per mile 
1Cf., for example, the report of the Cambridge (Mass.) Paving Commission, June, 1911, and the 1909 
Report of Public Work in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, p. 21. 
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