Roadster

“ Some ten minutes’ driving, up a hill or two, while lamps grow less and less frequent, and we are out of the town, rolling along a road which is as good as an ordinary English turnpike-road—passing every now and then through spots of perfect darkness, where clumps of firs overhang the road on each side, and new again looking over a broad spread of water stretching away from our feet, with a row of distant wooded slopes appearing more and more clearly as the moon slowly rises. ”

“ People traverse it, not with the object of arriving at any particular destination, but for the delight of the road itself, of the joy it gives to the eye and to the imagination. Its only traffic is what the transport agent would call “holiday traffic”; for when the idle season ends the highway is deserted. In earlier days there would rumble along the road the carriage and four of the traveller of great means; then came the humbler vehicle hired from the town; then the sleek motor; and finally, as a sign of democratic progress, the char-à-banc, the omnibus, and the motor-brake. ”

“ Often these great stretches of Breton roadway show an aspect of human nature that is probably the same the world over; a peasant man or woman is leading a cow,—always on the wrong side of the road, of course,—or a sleepy farm-hand is drawing his cart to or from market,—still on the wrong side of the road,—when the whirr and snort of a motor-car does something more than awaken echoes. ”

“ Just at this moment, perhaps fortunately, for there is nothing so difficult to satisfy as the appetite of people for specific information, a motor-car whizzed past, the driver holding up his hand in greeting, and the road-worker and I responding in accordance with the etiquette of the Great Road.
“There he goes in the ruts again,” said the husky road-worker. “Why is it, I'd like to know, that every one wants to run in the same identical track when they've got the whole wide road before 'em?”
“That's what has long puzzled me, too,” I said. “Why WILL people continue to run in ruts?” ”

“ Even the ghastly loneliness of the long straight road ascending the pass of Smitham Bottom is no more, for little villas, with dank little dungeons of gardens, line the way, and tradesmen’s carts calling for orders compete with the motorists who shall kill and maim most travellers along the highway. ”

“ Although the freight and express traffic of those days lacked the picturesqueness of the passenger coaches, nothing illustrates so conclusively what the great road meant to an awakening West as the long lines of heavy Conestogas and rattling express wagons which raced at "unprecedented" speed across hill and vale. Searight, the local historian of the road, describes these large, broad-wheeled wagons covered with white canvas as
visible all the day long, at every point, making the highway look more like a leading avenue of a great city than a road through rural districts.... ”

“ Amand the highway is a straight line and, as we descend, it stretches away until lost in perspective, a magnificent route for high speed, and as Jean puts the auto to its best; we skim along scarcely seeming to touch the earth,—hills rise and fall, and the motion is joyous, while the spring winds sweep the dreams of dead kings off and away, leaving only the smell of the grasses and blossoming fruit trees. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And as the picturesque trail is converted into the eminently modern and respectable macadamized road, the equally picturesque pack-train disappears and in its place we see, and smell, that emblem of the twentieth century, the automobile. ”

“ The long-drawn rural road I refer to, stretching over hill and dale and to which I devoted the whole of the longest day of the year—I was in a small single-horse conveyance, of which I had already made appreciative use, and with a driver as disposed as myself ever to sacrifice speed to contemplation—is doubtless familiar now with the rush of the motor-car ”

“ 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. ”

“ Crossing at right angles the great thoroughfare on which they walked, was a second canyon-like way, threaded by throngs and vehicles and various lines of cars which clanged their bells and made such progress as they might amid swiftly moving streams of traffic. Yet the little group seemed unconscious of anything save a set purpose to make its way between the contending lines of traffic and pedestrians which flowed by them. ”

“ It may be a shock perhaps to some minds, but I must confess I do not see what is to prevent the process of elimination that is beginning now with the heavy vans spreading until it covers all horse traffic, and with the disappearance of horse hoofs and the necessary filth of horses, the road surface may be made a very different thing from what it is at present, better drained and admirably adapted for the soft-tyred hackney vehicles and the torrent of cyclists. ”

“ The highway now becomes extremely steep and narrow, with countless hairpin turns, though all danger of collision is eliminated by the regulations which permit no down-traffic in the morning and no up-traffic in the afternoon. During the final fifteen miles, in which is made an ascent of more than six thousand feet, one has the curious experience of passing, in a single hour, from the torrid to the temperate zone. ”

“ Harper sadly says, ‘the Brighton of to-day is no place for the travel-worn;’ but, with his book in hand, the pedestrian, the horseman, the coachman, or the cyclist, may find the road that leads to it from town one of the most interesting and entertaining stretches of highway to be found anywhere.”—Daily Chronicle. ”

“ Sometimes, when the roadway is thick with carts and cabs and carriages, there is a roar in the distance, a shout of many voices that makes your heart stand still. It comes again, louder and louder, nearer and nearer, and all the vehicles pull to one side and make a lane down the middle of the road. Right up this lane dashes a shining fire-engine, with the smoke and sparks flying out behind, the men in the glistening helmets clinging on to the sides, and the driver guiding it so skilfully as [Pg 93] it spins over the ground far quicker than it takes to tell. ”

“ The railways gradually drove the coaches and the post-chaises off the roads, but the introduction of cycles in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, and the motor-car at the beginning of the twentieth century have revived the use of the highways for traffic, and there is a great time for the old roads just ahead of us to-day. ”

“ The gradients have been well seen to, the road ascending by winding curves up the hillsides mostly by such easy stages as enable them to be traversed either on foot, in a carriage, motor-car, or even on a bicycle without much difficulty or fatigue. ”

“ It has occurred to me, as I stated to the chairman of this honourable Committee some weeks since, that considerable improvement would be found from paving the sides of a road, upon which the heavy traffic is great, in both directions, and leaving the middle for light carriages, the carmen walking upon the footpaths or sides of the road, would then be close to their horses, without interrupting, or being in danger of accidents from light carriages, which is the case when they are driving upon the middle of the road ”

“ The unfortunate motorist is perhaps ploughing his way steadily along through the gravel, dust, and sand. He encounters a barrier across the road bearing a notice that repairs are going on and that he must follow the detour indicated. The road selected, I believe, is generally the one with the most pot-holes, ruts, mountains, canyons, etc., in its formation in the surrounding district. ”

“ The road is broad and smooth and level, and lies between low hedges, and has the straightness that the motorist loves; beyond the waving tamarisks a flat land of green and purple stretches away to the horizon; for the first time in many days the car speeds over the plain at the pace she loves best ”

“ A road should be easy going for motors, horses, and foot-passengers. Easy and safe.”
“How would you do it?”
“A raised causeway for walkers; a road for carriages, and a track for motors. It only means so many yards more and there is plenty of land. Look at that turf—four yards of it. Might as well be road.”
“What are you going to make your roads of?”
Christopher took a deep breath; the pace of the car increased a little. ”

“ The modern highway is seldom in a direct line. A hill, a ford, or a wood sufficed to render it circuitous. All roads indeed through hilly countries were originally struck out by drivers of pack-horses, who, to avoid bogs, chose the upper ground. Roads were first made the subject of legislation in England in the sixteenth century: until then, they had been made at will and repaired at pleasure. ”

“ Leaving the old world there is sketched all too briefly the development in the United States of transportation facilities from the coastal and natural waterways, from the pack and trail, used by the aborigine and early settlers, through the treks of the pioneers, the periods of canal digging, the toll road competition, and the railway frenzy, to the advent of the modern road with the coming of the bicycle and automobile and their wonderful accelerative impulse. ”

“ That part of the roadway directly next to the curb has a smooth surface, and there is also a smooth surface about a foot wide for the outer wheel of heavy wagons—this only on London Bridge and in a few other very busy thoroughfares. It is a capital plan, and gives satisfaction to all concerned.
ADVICE FROM CHARLES DICKENS.
But in such a vast city, with such enormous traffic, nothing can prevent great loss of life and accidents innumerable from crossing the streets. ”

“ Where waterways do not exist, and traffic must necessarily be carried overland, the highways are either narrow paths paved with large blocks of stone and suitable only for wheelbarrows and pack-animals, or tracks picked out at random over a width of perhaps a hundred yards, along which lumbering, ill-constructed and springless carts plough their ways, and strings of pack-animals wend slowly to and fro. ”

“ The road is built above and overlooks the plain. No pains in the original construction of twenty-odd centuries ago, nor since in its remodification or repair, has been spared towards making it an eternal highway down which as a vast speedway a half-dozen cars might race abreast. ”

“ Barefooted peons—men, women, and children—came racing across the fields at the shriek of our claxon, to obtain a closer view. It was now three years since the first automobile had crossed this trail—an achievement hailed at the time by marveling editorials in the local Central-American press—and motor traffic was becoming a fairly regular thing, but not so regular that the novelty had diminished. ”

“ Dashing through the net-work of wheels, in the thickest traffic of crowded thoroughfares, jumping on and off moving cars and carriages, pushing his way with untiring zeal, he shows a reckless daring and a dauntless energy which are unmatched among any other people. ”

“ And then there are other roads so smooth, and level, and broad, and well kept, that they are full of all kinds of traffic; in the centre carts and carriages crowd them, on the one side horses and their riders delight to display themselves, and on the other side pedestrians and perambulators enjoy the sun. ”

“ 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 themselves to the surface and are knocked hither and thither by the wheels of vehicles and the feet of animals. ”

“ The road continues as an artificial highway, but is not continuously ridable, owing to the rocky nature of the material used in its construction and the absence of vehicular traffic to wear it smooth; but it is highly acceptable in the main. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Children liberally embellished with local colour swarmed on sidewalks where ash and garbage-cans flourished in subtropical luxuriance, and disputed the roadway with the ramshackle wagons and push-carts of peddlers, horse-drawn drays, and grinding, gargantuan motor-trucks that snarled ferociously at the aliens, the frail, pretty pleasure cars from Fifth avenue. ”