Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 230, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 September 1915 — Motor Bus and Motor Truck Are Here to Stay. [ARTICLE]

Motor Bus and Motor Truck Are Here to Stay.

Motor buses and motor trucks are here to stay. Really they are just getting started and the next five years will witness a marvelous development in their improvement and use. All that is needed is good roads. Since motor buses and motor trucks as well as pleasure motors are to be accommodated by every road making enterprise they should bear a part of the cost of road making. How to make this equitable is the next question. Roads are free for public travel, but the laws that made them so did not contemplate that they would be used for the carrying of freight and passengers in competition with railroads that pay heavily toward the upkeep of the country besides bearing the full expense of their own maintenance. What is the answer?

New laws that provide for these things. Motor companies that engage in carrying passengers and freight should be charged for road building and maintenance by the tonnage they carry. There is an opening now for the formation of a great company to construct a paved motorway 'between Chicago and New York or Chicago and Indianapolis or between any two large cities. But the company that undertakes that great enterprise must be protected by laws that will restrict the travel. Even with bad roads of the present, motor trucks compete with railroads in the carrying of freight between important points. With smooth, hard highways they will be able to reduce the cost of freight hauling by half. Then will [motor vehicles carrying every variety of freight usurp the business now performed by the railroads. Then will motor trucks back up to your com cribs and haul your com to market. Then will the road question be solved by a system of tolls that will be cheaper than repairing roads and the expense will fall where it properly belongs, on the user according to the amount he uses the road. It's coming and it’s right.