XIIPUBLIC HIGHWAYS
Road-making has been a function of government since the early ages. The old Roman roads still exist as evidence of the labor and care that were put into them.
Ease of communication, which permits people to journey from home and see what the rest of the world is doing, is a great factor in binding people together, and tends to promote progress.
Good roads are important to every citizen, not only because of the increased use of the automobile, but because they are a vital part of the business life of the country. The farmer needs them to move his crops to market. Without them he may be unable to sell his produce at the time it is most needed and when he could get the best prices for it. The merchant needs them to receive supplies and make deliveries; the manufacturer needs them for the moving of hisraw material; the city-dweller needs them so that food may come into city markets. Public highways are the connecting arteries between city and country.
New York State has recognized the need of good roads, and has spent an immense amount of money to secure them. Some years ago a bond issue of $50,000,000 was authorized in the belief that such a large sum of money would put the roads in a condition to meet all requirements for many years.
In 1907 the Legislature approved contracts for 8,300 miles of county highways, believing that the money available would be sufficient. The following year it approved contracts for 3,600 miles of State highways and another bond issue of $50,000,000 was found necessary. Not only had the cost of labor and material greatly increased, but in addition the use of motor-trucks and motor-buses was beginning to put a strain on roads and road-beds which had not been anticipated.
Old roads began to go to pieces rapidly and needed constant repair and often replacing. Even the new roads, where the road-beds were of stone only six inches deep, soon spread and disintegrated under trucks weighing from one to fifteen tons. This use ofmotor-trucks is increasing, and is necessary for the traffic requirements of the State, but highways are being subject to a strain hitherto unknown, and this strain will increase in both quantity and severity.
How to meet the requirements and maintain and repair roads built for light traffic which are giving way under the new demands, and how to build new roads strong enough to stand up under the strain, are problems the State finds it difficult to meet. New road-beds are now required of stone from nine to twelve inches deep.
Some roads are built by the State, some by the county, and some by the town. In many cases the cost of the work is divided between county and town, or between county and State. The State may help a town build a road, but it can only contribute the same amount or less than the town appropriates.
All material that is used in road-building must be tested in the laboratories maintained by the State Highway Department, and constant experiments are being made to test materials and specifications to find out what will stand the hardest wear.
All roads must be built and repaired under the direction of the State Highway Commissioner,but whether these instructions are carried out often depends on local officials. The public believes that there has been no part of government in New York State more honeycombed with fraud than the one of road-building and maintaining; that specifications have been skimped or ignored, different materials have been substituted from those prescribed, cheaper construction of every kind passed by inspectors, and that the result has been that many roads of the State have cost vast sums of money for which the State is in debt and have not lasted even a few years.
In 1916 the State had a total of 4,027 miles of macadam roads and 5,836 miles of gravel town roads, and more than half of all the improved roads in the State had been constructed within five years. There were 728 patrolmen employed looking after repairs.
The entire cost of bridges is met by the towns with occasional aid from the county. If a State road goes through a village, the same amount is allowed as for the rest of the construction, and if the village wants another kind of a paving or a wider road it must pay the difference in cost. The State Highway Department gives as averages of cost: for macadam roads $10,000 a mile;first-class concrete, $15,000 a mile; and brick paving, $25,000 a mile.
The State highway law provides that all construction must be done by contract. Prison labor is not employed on State and county roads as in some States, but it has been used on roads built by towns.
In spite of the huge appropriations, the State roads are far from complete as planned. Nearly $750,000 will be available in 1918 from the National government as part of New York State’s share in the Federal appropriation for roads.
“Working out” a road tax was never a method which contributed to good roads. The earth roads on which the taxpayer puts his unskilled labor are usually impassable many months of the year.
City Streets: The local government decides where a road or street is needed, and with the consent of a sufficient proportion of the property-owners may purchase or condemn the necessary property. If the owner is not satisfied with the payment offered, appraisers must be appointed to decide the amount that should be paid.
City streets must be maintained by the city government. If a person is injured by the failure of the government to keep sidewalksin repair he has a right to sue the government for damages. The municipal government, on the other hand, may require property-owners to keep their sidewalks in good condition.
Street-cleaning: Since many thousands of children have no playground but the street, the condition in which city streets are kept is of great importance to their health and general welfare. Disease germs are heavy and are most numerous near the ground. If playgrounds could be arranged on the roofs of high buildings the children would be the gainers from the pure air. Unfortunately, the streets in which they play are not usually the ones which are cleaned most frequently by the street-cleaning department. Old and young are disorderly—newspapers, cigarette-butts, and fruit-skins are thrown down anywhere. Streets littered with papers, with dust-laden pieces blowing back and forth, increase the dangers from disease.
Carelessness on the part of the public in throwing things into the streets adds many thousands of dollars to the cost of street-cleaning departments. Every time that a person throws a paper or any object into the street eventually some one else must be paid to pick it up.
Most municipalities have ordinances against littering the streets, but they are often dead letters.
The cleanliness and good order of city streets pay in dollars and cents, in public comfort and convenience, and in a lowered death-rate.
Parks: With the congestion of population that is not confined to New York City or any one part of the State, parks large and small have become a necessity not only for pleasure and beauty, but for the health of the community. In the country people can be out of doors as much as they please, but when families are obliged to live close together, “breathing-places” are of actual physical benefit, especially if they can be green with grass and trees. Communities often awaken to the need of parks too late, after all available places are occupied, when in order to provide the necessary oasis property has to be condemned and often enormous sums of money paid for it.
City Planning: Most of our cities have grown up haphazard without any definite plan of development. As new industries have come in they have brought in large numbers of employees, who have had to be provided with living-places, and a newsection of the city has been started. Or a real-estate boom, fostered by some private enterprise, will develop another quarter without consideration for the welfare of the incoming population. As land values advance, in order to squeeze all the profit possible out of this increase, high crowded buildings spring up, planned to house as many people as possible in a restricted area. New York City and many other places are continuing to create new tenement districts in outlying quarters of the city where land is still plentiful.
It is not easy to change congested areas built up in the past, but it is a wrong to coming generations to continue to allow considerations of health and decency to be ignored in the future growth of cities. Haphazard growth has cost the public dearly in actual money values. Unrestricted crowded living conditions have cost still more dearly in the moral and physical vitality of the people who have had to put up with them. These mistakes of the past cannot be remedied, but cities and villages are still growing, and the wise community is now developing a plan in advance for its future growth, which will safeguard public health and welfare, and the convenience as well as the beauty of the city.
The Value of Beauty: Streets and roads do not need to be bare and ugly. Some attention paid to appearance costs very little and is a distinct benefit to the public. Weeds are usually cut down along the roadside, but so, too often, are the trees. When one thinks of the many years it takes for a tree to attain a fine growth, one wonders at the carelessness with which they are sacrificed. A well-shaded road bordered by trees, or a shaded city street, testifies to the intelligence and thrift of the people responsible for them. Such care is apt to be repaid by increased property values.