Jasper County Democrat, Volume 22, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 August 1919 — MAINTENANCE OF STATE ROADS [ARTICLE]

MAINTENANCE OF STATE ROADS

Several Hundred Men to Be Employed According to Plan. The state highway commission within the mext few weeks will complete in detail its plans for a comprehensive organization that will assume complete control of the maintenance and resurfacing of the state trunk system of approximately 3,500 miles of highway that will be designated before April 1, 1920. As it will be perhaps eight years before the commission will be able to complete the construction of hard-surface roads over the entire system (Hoosier good roads boosters will have to look to the maintenance department for more immediate results. L. H. Wright, director of the commission, estimates that at least $2,000,000 will be expended for maintenance in 1920. The program laid out for the maintenance department provides that the entire mileage of the state system will be brought up to firstclass condition during the spring and summer of next year. The creation of the maintenance department, which will entail the employment of several hundred men, has been drafted in a general way by Mr. Wright and J. M. Kimmel, superintendent of maintenance. >

These plans when fully formulated, will be presented to the commission. According to the rough drafts of the plans, the state will be divided into five districts. Each district will be headed by a district engineer who wfil oversee the construction and maintenance in the counties in hia jurisdiction. As now planned, there will be from 17 I to 20 counties in a district. Each of the districts, according to the tentative plans, will be subdivided into sections embracing three or four counties. A superintendent will be appointed to oversee the state highway activities in each section. The superintendent will have charge of the section office and equipment building, in which will be housed the motor trucks used in maintenance and the rollers, graders, scarifiers and other large highway Implements. j The superintendent will be in direct charge of the patrolmen who 'will be placed in charge of from *5 to 15 miles of highway each. 1 Following the practice that has proven successful in other states the entire state system will be divided in patrols with one man responsible for the condition of the stretch of highway within the 11m■its of his patrol. The length of the patrols will depend entirely on the 1 kind and condition of the highway., On gravel and poor roads the pa-' trols will be from five to eight imlles to length, while on hard-sur-J face roads the patrols will probably, be 15 miles long. | On the longer patrols the patrol-, men will be provided with a motor truck, while on the shorter patrols teams will be used. The patrol-, men will repair ruts and washouts, I keep culverts clear, cut the weeds from the sides of the highways, I trim the lower branches from trees t that obstruct views on the inside ( of sharp curves and perform' other work that will bring the roads up to a high staardard. The superintendent of the section * will have a “slating gang.’’ This gang will be provided with motor, trucks and will take charge of any ( bad stretch of road in the section that needs resurfacing. It is said that a great many roads that have been improved and have a good base can be converted into excellent 1 highways with a three-inch layer of 1 bituminous macadam or asphaltic ■ concrete. Other roads can be brought uip to a fair standard by the floating gang by scarfylng and grading. Whitewashed warning fences are to be placed along sharp curves in' the roads. Mile posts will be gen-1 erously distributed and direction signs painted in a phosphorescent paint that will be visible at night and will be placed throughout the system. Mr. Wright and Mr. Kimmel will make a survey of the state system so an exact condition of every mile of the system will be charted. This will be necessary in order to determine upon the amount of maintenance that will be required. As soon as the patrolmen are selected they will be required to dig across sections of the roads in which they are in charge and make a report on the underlying material that forms the base of the highway in cases where the road is not already Improved with hard-surface material.