Roadmaking

“ 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. ”

“ The ever-recurring road-working days and their cheerful observance, with time's work in rotting and fire's work in removing dead tree and stump, at last let in long lines of sunshine to dry up the mud, to burn up the miasma, and to bless the wayfarer to other parts, as well as to disclose what these pioneer road-makers had done for themselves by opening up fields in the forests. . . To perfect easily and naturally these industries requires three generations. The forests must be felled, logs rolled and burned, families reared, and in most cases the land to be paid for. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When a new road is laid out it is important that it should be located in the best attainable place, considering the natural formation of the surrounding country; for when a highway is once established it is impossible to say how long the tide of humanity and commercial traffic will seek passage over it. While the ordinary processes of Nature—rain, thaw, and frost—are ever at work lowering the hills and mountains and filling up the valleys and lowlands, the public highways of a country remain in the same relative positions from age to age. ”

“ The right course is to call in an engineer and throw the road around the end or along the side of steep hills instead of continuing to go over them, or to pull the road up on dry solid ground instead of splashing through the mud and water of the creek or swamp. Far more time and money have been wasted in trying to keep up a single mile of one of these "pig-track" surveys than it would take to build and keep in repair two miles of good road. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If he followed them long enough, they would mount from knobs to foothills and from foothills to peaks. The metaled turnpikes would dwindle and end in clay roads. These roads would in time give way to rougher trails, rock-strewn and licked by the little, whispering waters that make rivers, and he would travel by creek-bed ways over which wagons, if they go at all, must strain their axles and where men ride mules with their luggage in saddle-bags. ”

“ A couple of inches of concrete laid over a garden-path or a sheep-track, with the cracks filled in with tar, represents the zenith of road construction in this country of ninety odd million inhabitants. I should like to see some of those concrete roads when they have had a few years' solid wear with heavy lorries and occasional traction engines.
Ninety-five per cent. or more, however, of America's highways are dirt roads, or what they are pleased to call "Natural Gravel." In many cases they comprise merely a much worn trail, and as often as not a pair of ruts worn in the prairie. ”

“ And be it further enacted, That all parts of the road which the President shall direct to be made, in case the trees are standing, shall be cleared the whole width of four rods; and the road shall be raised in the middle of the carriageway with stone, earth, or gravel and sand, or a combination of some or all of them, leaving or making, as the case may be, a ditch or water course on each side and contiguous to said carriageway, and in no instance shall there be an elevation in said road, when finished, greater than an angle of five degrees with the horizon. ”

“ Before the adoption of scientific road-making, the usual way of forming a new road was, first to lay along it a collection of large stones, and then to heap up thereon small stones and road dirt in such a way that the road assumed the shape of the upper half of an orange, the convexity often being so pronounced that vehicles kept along the summit of the eminence because it was dangerous for them, especially in rainy weather, to go along the slope on either side. ”

“ And if ever a driver needed to keep his head clear it was during this same descent; the road, a mere shelf in the rock, crawls along the precipitous mountainside while a vast abyss yawns below with a mad, boulder-vexed stream at the bottom. It was made far more trying to the nerves by the absence of trees or shrubbery to screen the precipice—a bare foot or two lay between our wheels and a sheer drop of say half a mile. ”

“ Now the principle of road-making I think the most valuable, is to put broken stone upon a road, which shall unite by its own angles, so as to 107form a solid hard surface, and therefore it follows, that when that material is laid upon the road, it must remain in the situation in which it is placed without ever being moved again; and what I find fault with putting quantities of gravel on the road is, that before it becomes useful it must move its situation and be in constant motion. ”

“ Country roads can be made far more useful and attractive than they usually are, and this may be secured by the expenditure of only a small amount of labor and money. Although such improvements are not necessary, they make the surroundings attractive and inviting and add to the value of property and the pleasure of the traveler.
[Pg 162] If trees are planted alongside the road they should be far enough back to admit the wind and sun. Most strong growing trees are apt to extend their roots under the gutters and even beneath the roadway if they are planted too close to the roadside. ”

“ First in the natural development of a system of highways comes the earth road, and since a good road of this character is the very best foundation for all kinds of better highways, it may be considered, not only as a road complete in and of itself, but also as an important part of every good road. ”

“ In selecting a road material it is well to consider the agencies of destruction to roads that have to be met. Among the most important are the wearing action of wheels and horses' feet, frost, rain, and wind. ”

“ There is always the necessity of hardening some bit of soft ground or of smoothing some bit of unevenness, and from the beginning of travel you have had the transportation of material to the established road for the improvement of its surface, for the bridging of its water obstacles or flooring of fords, for the making of its causeways over marshes. ”

“ Earth roads at best fulfil none of these requirements, unless they be covered with some artificial material. On a well-made gravel road one horse can draw twice as large a load as he can on a well-made earth road. On a hard smooth stone road one horse can pull as much as four horses will on a good earth road. If larger loads can be hauled and better time made on good hard roads than on good earth ones, the area and the number of people benefited are increased in direct proportion to the improvement of their surface. ”

“ The preparation of the road and making it suitable for the stone bed is one of the most important parts of road construction. This, once done properly, is permanent. Wherever it is possible the hills should be cut and low places filled, so that the maximum grade will not exceed five or six feet rise in one hundred feet; where hills cannot be reduced to this grade without incurring too much expense, the hill, if possible, should be avoided by relaying the road in another place. ”

“ Only a few of the properties of rock important to road builders have been considered, but if these are borne in mind when a material is to be selected better results are sure to be obtained. In selecting a road material the conditions to which it is to be subjected should first be considered. These are principally the annual rainfall, the average winter temperature, the character of prevailing winds, the grades, and the volume and character of the traffic that is to pass over the road. ”

“ Early roads and road-making—Edgeworth and M’Adam’s systems of roads—Stevenson’s system of roads—Cast-iron and stone tracks.
Writing at an early date, Mr. Stevenson has given the following sketch of Roads and Road-making:—
“In early periods, when every family formed a kind of community within itself for providing the necessaries of life, it is obvious that there could be little communication with distant parts of the country, and there was, therefore, no use for roads, which, long after the establishment of towns, must have continued in the state of footpaths and horse-tracks. ”

“ The cost of the road is said to have averaged over three thousand pounds sterling per mile. [432] The splendid engineering excites admiration from even the inexperienced in those matters. You go sometimes right up the very face of a steep mountain, that would seem to have originally been almost inaccessible, by means of a series of zigzags. Then again the road winds round a huge mountain wall, thousands of feet high on one side, with a yawning ravine thousands of feet deep on the other. Long tunnels pierce through the very heart of mountains. Bridges span dizzy heights and mad torrents. ”

“ It is well known to every skilful and observant road-maker, that if strata of stone of various sizes be placed as a road, the largest stones will constantly work up by the shaking and pressure of the traffic, and that the only mode of keeping the stones of a road from motion, is to use materials of a uniform size from the bottom. In 48roads made upon large stones as a foundation, the perpetual motion, or change of the position of the materials, keeps open many apertures through which the water passes. ”

“ In each case, however, the wearing surface consists of the natural soil, which may have been shaped and smoothed for traffic or may be in its natural state except for a trackway formed by the vehicles that have used it.
Variations in Soils.—The nature of the existing soil will obviously determine the serviceability and physical characteristics of the road surface it affords. That is to say that even under the most favorable conditions some earth roads will be much more serviceable than others, due to the better stability of the natural soil. ”

“ To form the road upon a good foundation, and to keep the surface clear of water after it is formed, are the two most essential points towards having the best roads possible, upon a given country, and with given materials. For obtaining the first of these objects, it is essential that the line for the road be taken so that the foundation can be kept dry either by avoiding low ground by raising the surface of the road above the level of the ground on each side of it, or by drawing off the water by means of side drains. ”

“ Roads are never as bad as report makes them, and this besides being far less narrow than many mountain passes we had been through, was beautifully graded on the turns, and in excellent condition. We passed several steep ravines at curves,—one where a car had overturned the week previous,—but none was as bad as we had been led to expect. Thanks to the sane regulation making it a one way road we had nothing to fear from traffic. Valleys, blue and red with a magnificent sweep of flowers, dropped down, down, and new mountains rose from unexpected coverts. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The soil and topography, the future development of the roadway for the probable amount of traffic it is to carry, are all factors that should be considered. Neither must the planting be so profuse that the roadway is hemmed in with no lookout. Vision of the interesting points of view as well as vision along the highway itself must not be obstructed. Long vistas of fields, of hills and valleys, of mountain peaks and ranges, of lakes and rivers, are more interesting usually than all the planting that could be made on the right of way. ”