Road construction

“ In this manner careful studies were made of a vast number of materials, including oils, asphalts, tars, concrete, brick, crushed stone and gravel. In connection with practical road men and research committees of such organizations as the American Society of Civil Engineers, and the American Society for Testing Materials many useful standards have been adopted for road materials and road construction. The effect of traffic on various types of roads has also been a profitable subject for study. ”

“ Value of Earth Roads.—The serviceability of the earth road depends to a large extent upon the care exercised in its maintenance. The only part of earth road construction that is permanent is the grade reduction. The cross section that is so carefully shaped at considerable cost may flatten out in one or two years, especially if the road goes through unusually wet periods. Traffic will continually seek a new track during the period when the road is muddy and is as likely to cross the ditch to the sod near the fence as to use any other part of the road. ”

“ When the people throughout the state have been so taught and trained in road construction that they can and do actually construct and maintain earth roads in good condition, the foundation [Pg 4] will then be laid for some, or in fact for any better road, and the time will have arrived in which the construction of roads with hard surfaces of some sort can be taken up appropriately and perhaps effectively. ”

“ Men with money and automobiles are vigorously urging that road-building materials everywhere be tested, that road graders, stone crushers, and other expensive road-building machinery be purchased, and that the preparation for commencing road construction be begun at once. ”

“ The general increase of heavy traffic soon after the middle of the eighteenth century did not escape the notice of those responsible for the condition of the roads. Incompetent road-surveyors, ignorant of the science of road construction and employing unsuitable materials and unskilled labour, saw the highways they had mended with mud, road-scrapings and gravel continually falling into ruts and sloughs, often from twelve to eighteen inches deep. ”

“ The greatest obstacles to good stone road construction in most places in the United States are the existing methods of building and systems of management, whereby millions of dollars are annually wasted in improper construction or in making trifling repairs on temporary structures. ”

“ The discussion on roads, road construction, and road maintenance of the past few years has pretty well demonstrated that people generally are of the opinion that the roads should be improved and that with the general improvement of the roads will come a corresponding improvement in the prosperity and general uplifting of the people in the country districts ”

“ The best road for the farmer, all things being considered, is a solid, well-built stone road, so narrow as to be only a single track, but having a firm earth road on one or both sides. Where the traffic is not very extensive the purposes of good roads are better served by narrow tracks than by wide ones, while many of the objectionable features of wide tracks are removed, the initial cost of construction is cut down one-half or more, and the charges for repair reduced in proportion. ”

“ Next fiscal year we intend to step up the pace of road construction through the concrete-paving of 386 kilometers and asphalting of 406 kilometers of developmental and feeder roads, and the erection of 7,500 lineal meters of permanent bridges. ”

“ A narrow, crooked access to a busy goods yard is a great impediment to the expeditious working of a heavy traffic; and road waggons conveying long pieces of timber or ironwork along such a route, would be very apt to block the roadway and delay the passage of other vehicles. ”

“ People generally are beginning to realize that road-building is a public matter, and that the best interests of American agriculture and the American people as a whole demand the construction of good roads, and that money wisely expended for this purpose is sure to return.
Road-making is perfected by practice, experience, and labor. Soils and clays, sand and ores, gravels and rocks, are transformed into beautiful roads, streets, and boulevards, by methods which conform with their great varieties of characters and with nature's laws. ”

“ Logan Waller Page, the present director of that office, who, with his assistants, has contributed largely to the application of science to the improvement of highway construction. These methods are of so much interest that they are worthy of description.
In determining the suitability of a rock for the construction of a water-bound broken-stone road, its physical characteristics and its behavior under certain conditions are important. ”

“ With 95 per cent or more of the $50,000 expended on a third of a mile, where the road will pass through solid rock, cuts or tunnel, and over one of the largest concrete viaducts on the highway, this construction work is as expensive as railroad work. ”

“ If to the cost of making and grading an ordinary roadway sixty feet wide, we add the capital sum whose interest would be necessary to keep this width in good repair, we shall have an amount that would go far toward the construction and maintenance of a road of the very best quality only thirty feet wide. ”

“ The character of the road surface to be used in construction may greatly affect the location. For example it does not pay to use steep grades with hard smooth pavements. But steeper grades may be used with earth and gravel roads without material loss in efficiency. ”

“ The cement concrete road is one of the later developments in highway construction, but the type has had sufficient use to show that it is one of the satisfactory types for heavy mixed traffic, and, where the proper materials are available, it is one of the economical types of construction. ”

“ Another great mistake is often made of spreading large and small stones over a well-graded and well-drained foundation and leaving them thus for traffic to consolidate. The surface of a road left in this manner is often kept in constant turmoil by the larger stones, which work [Pg 151] themselves to the surface and are knocked hither and thither by the wheels of vehicles and the feet of animals. These plans of construction cannot be too severely condemned. ”

“ First, it is desirable that the line should pass through important towns situated near the route; and then the cost of making the roadway straight and level, in spite of natural obstacles, would be often so great, that to avoid it detours and inclines must be submitted to—the inconvenience and the increased length of road being balanced by the saving in the cost of construction. It is the business of the engineer who lays out the line to take all these circumstances into consideration, after he has made a careful survey of the country through which the line is to pass. ”

“ Since the hard, dry, smooth earth road is an excellent road, and since it is possible with reasonable effort to induce the people to construct and maintain such a road from one end of this state to the other, with a good many side roads of the same sort on the way, why not strive for this possible end, instead of attempting to get a few miles of hard road constructed? ”

“ Any system is radically defective which scrapes the dust and worn-out soil of the gutters or the turf and loam of the roadside upon the road-bed. Perhaps this kind of repairing is better than none in many localities; but as civilization advances and the true principles of road-making become better known, after the foundation of a road-bed has been properly established, nothing but good road material will ever be put upon it, and this will be put there from time to time as needed to keep up a continual good condition of the road. ”

“ But in so extensive a concern as the system of roads, involving so great an expense, we may naturally look for small beginnings and very gradual advancement. Accordingly, we find in the first formation of highways, before their utility could be fully understood or experience had shown the benefits of science in the practice of the engineer, the early road-maker only increased the breadth of the horse-track, and strewed it over with gravel from the neighbouring brook. ”

“ In considering the comparative values of different rocks for road-building, it must be taken for granted in all cases that the road is properly laid out, constructed, and maintained. For if this is not the case, only inferior results can be expected, no matter how good the material may be. ”

“ If not, the required earth should be obtained by widening the side excavations, or from cuttings on the line of the new roadway, or from pits close by, elevating graders and modern dumping or spreading wagons being preferably used for this purpose. When the earth is brought up to the final height, it is again harrowed, then trimmed by means of road levelers or road machines and ultimately rolled to a solid and smooth surface with road rollers gradually increased in weight by the addition of ballast. ”

“ The roadbed of the then-modern highway, even though it was only two lanes in width, afforded sufficient room for turning and maneuvering. When compared with unit construction costs for the earlier years, earthwork became the best bargain in the entire roadbuilding operation. ”

“ Some earth roads may be greatly improved by covering the surface with a layer of three or four inches of gravel, and sometimes even a thinner layer may prove of very great benefit if kept in proper repair. ”

“ PITCHED PAVEMENTS. It has been asserted that where a roadway has a traffic exceeding 1000 vehicles per diem, that to maintain it as a macadamised roadway is not economical. [53] However that may be, it is unquestionable that for very heavy traffic blocks of hammer-dressed stone, laid upon a concrete or hard gravel bed, have been in use for a great number of years, and indeed the Romans, who were great road makers, introduced the system (the Archaic, as it is sometimes called) into this country more than 2000 years ago ”

“ Sod or turf should not be placed on the surface, neither should the surface be renewed by throwing upon it the worn-out material from the gutters alongside. The last injunction, if rightly observed and the proper remedy applied, would doubtless put an end to the deplorable condition of thousands of miles of earth roads in the United States.
A road-maker should not go to the other extreme and fill up ruts and holes with stone or large gravel. ”

“ The art of highway engineering, that is to say, of the construction of roads, was considered to have been developed to a high degree of perfection at the end of the last century, as evidenced by the magnificent system of broken-stone roads which were in existence at that time in France, more especially, and in England and other foreign countries, while in the United States successful systems of broken-stone roads had been begun in New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut and a few other eastern states. ”

“ The introduction in recent years of improved road-building machinery has enabled the authorities in some of the states to build improved stone and gravel roads quite cheaply. First-class single-track stone roads, nine feet wide, have been built near Canandaigua, New York, for $900 to $1,000 per mile. ”

“ Some road surveyors contend that for gravelled roads 6-ton rollers are heavy enough, for macadam roads 12-ton rollers.
[51] Traffic in making a roadway is apt to grind off the sharp edges and spoil the metal before it is set. ”

“ But while it is recommended to lift and relay roads which have been made with large stone, or with large stone mixed with clay, chalk or other mischievous materials, there are many cases in which it would be highly unprofitable to lift and relay a road, even if the materials should have been originally too large. ”

“ These stones do not wear uniformly with the rest of the material, but produce bumps and ridges, and in nearly every case result in making two holes instead of one. Every hole or rut in a roadway, if not tamped full of some good material like that of which the road is constructed, will become filled with water, and finally with mud and water, and will be dug deeper and wider by each passing vehicle. ”

“ The work of maintaining earth roads will be much increased by lack of care in properly finishing the work. The labor and money spent in rolling a newly-made road may save many times that amount of labor and money in making future repairs. After the material has been placed it should not be left for the traffic to consolidate, or for the rains to wash off into the ditches, but should be carefully formed and surfaced, and then, if possible, rolled. The rolling not only consolidates the material, but puts the roadbed in proper shape for travel immediately. ”

“ It is necessary that roads should be hard, smooth, comparatively level, and fit for use at all seasons of the year; that they should be properly located, or laid out on the ground, so that their grades may be such that animate or inanimate power may be applied upon them to the best advantage and without great loss of energy; that they should be properly constructed, the ground [Pg 86] well drained, the roadbed graded, shaped, and rolled, and that they should be surfaced with the best material procurable; that they should be properly maintained or kept constantly in good repair. ”

“ This practice, together with that of placing the material on unimproved foundations and leaving it thus for traffic to consolidate, has done a great deal to destroy the confidence of many people in stone roads. There is no reason in the world why a road should not last for ages if it is built of good material and kept in proper repair. ”