Jasper County Democrat, Volume 4, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 September 1901 — GOOD ROADS [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

GOOD ROADS

Road Development. i The great development of railways led to almost universal neglect of ordinary roads. It might have been thought that the object lesson of cheap transit by rail would people the folly of spending more to take products a few miles over bad roads to the railroad station than it .Osts to send them by train to distant markets. But it did not. The idea that the wagon road was an anachronism, and that it was beneath a modern nation to pay the attention to the highways which the Romans bestowed, seemed rather to prevail, and even in the most prosperous and thickly settled regions of the country the ordinary driving roads have been left until the present day In a very disgraceful condition. Perhaps the greatest factor in bringing about reform was the bicycle. The Influence of the wheelmen In stirring up public sentiment and securing the passage of good roads laws has been tremendous. Following the blcyclj comes another vehicle which should exert an even more powerful influence. This is the automobile. Somehow or other people could get over almost any sort of road with a horse ai:d carriage. The road might be uncomfortable and slow, and even somewhat dangerous, but it was endurable. The wheelman. If he could not get a whole road Improved, was well content with a narrow path. If people wanted their horses to flounder through mud or stumble over stones it was no affair of his. The automobile driver, however, wants a good, smooth wagon road, and if auotmobiles are to have any wide popularity and usefulness outside of cities in the United States —as they have in Europe, where almost all country roads seem marvels of perfection in American eyes—the good roads movement must be carried forward. Men will not buy thousanddollar machines to have them shaken to pieces on rough roads or stalled in sand beds. Just as the railroad tunnel attention from highways, the new vehicle which ought in time to be of universal use must turn attention to highways. Wtih proper road improvement an enormous market for automobiles might l>e secured. City populations are tending countryward, and will go as far ns they can with comfort. Where roads are adapted to automobiles the suburban area may be extended much further from railroad stations and trolley lines than now, and largo tracts of land can be made available for residence. Neither in city nor country will traffic forever be concentrated on railroad lines. More smooth streets will be demanded in the former, by which people can make their way in comfort with their own vehicles to and from their business. The development of good highways is as much a matter of public interest as the building of bridges and tunnels, and when the latter have iteen provided to meet the immediate needs of the greatest number it may be expected that with the rapid improvement in automobiles, making them even more than now practical vehicles for general business and travel, the demand will be irresistible for extensive street and road improvements. —New York Tribune.