Читать книгу American Rural Highways - T. R. Agg - Страница 8

It is well to recognize the intimate relation public highways bear to the economic progress of a nation. Normal development of all of the diverse activities of a people depends very largely upon the highway policy that is adopted and whether the actual construction of serviceable roads keeps pace with transportation needs.

Rural Education.—It has become increasingly apparent during the World War that the demand upon North America for food stuffs is to become more and more insistent as the years pass. Already the consumption in the United States has approached quite closely to the average production and yet the population is constantly increasing. The time is not far distant when greater production will be required of the agricultural area in North America in order to meet the home demand for foodstuffs, and many thousands of tons will be needed for export. This need can only be met by agricultural methods that will increase greatly the present yield of the soil. The adoption of better agricultural methods must of necessity be preceded by the technical training of the school children who will be the farmers of the next generation, which can best be accomplished in graded schools with well equipped laboratories and with suitably trained teachers. The problem of providing such schools in rural communities has, in some instances, been solved by consolidating a number of rural school districts and constructing a well equipped building to accommodate the students from an area several miles square. An educational system of this sort can reach its highest usefulness only when adequate public highways facilitate attendance of pupils. The whole trend of rural educational progress is toward a system which is predicated upon a comprehensive highway policy in the district.

Rural Social Life.—Closely allied to the rural educational problem is the rural social problem. Motor cars and good roads do a great deal to eliminate the isolation and lack of social opportunity that has characterized rural life in the United States. A high order of citizenship in rural communities is essential to the solution of many problems of rural economics, and such citizens will not live away from the social opportunities of modern life. The rural school house and the rural church may become social centers and local plays, moving picture shows and lectures and entertainments of other kinds made available to those who live in the country. Their enjoyment of these social opportunities will be much more general if the public highways are at all times in a condition to be traveled in comfort. Good homes and good schools on good roads are prerequisites to the solution of many rural problems.

If there is opportunity for those who live in the cities to get some adequate idea of rural life and the conditions under which farming operations are carried on it will correct many misunderstandings of the broad problems of food production and distribution. Reference has frequently been made to the seeming desire on the part of city people to get into the country, and, by facilitating the realization of this desire, a great social service is rendered.

Good Roads and Commerce.—That good highways are almost as necessary as are railroads to the commercial development of a nation is recognized but, unlike the railroads, the highways are not operated for direct profit and the responsibility of securing consideration of the demand for improvements is not centralized. Therefore, sentiment for road improvement has been of slow growth, and important projects are often delayed until long after the need for them was manifest. Movements to secure financial support for highway improvement must go through the slow process of legislative enactment, encountering all of the uncertainties of political action, and the resulting financial plan is likely to be inadequate and often inequitable.

The whole commercial structure of a nation rests upon transportation, and the highways are a part of the transportation system. The highway problem can never receive adequate consideration until public highways are recognized as an indispensable element in the business equipment of a nation.

During the World War all transportation facilities were taxed to the limit, and motor trucks were utilized for long distance freight haulage to an extent not previously considered practicable. As a result, the interest in the motor truck as an addition to the transportation equipment of the nation, has been greatly stimulated. Many haulage companies have entered the freight transportation field, delivering commodities by truck to distances of a hundred miles or more.

The part the motor truck will play in the future can only be estimated, but it seems clear that the most promising field is for shipments destined to or originating in a city of some size and a warehouse or store not on a railroad spur, and especially when the shipments are less than car load lots. The delays and expense incident to handling small shipments of freight through the terminals of a large city and carting from the unloading station to the warehouse or other destination constitute a considerable item in the cost of transportation.

Mr. Charles Whiting Baker, Consulting Editor of Engineering News-Record, states:[1]

"It costs today as much to haul a ton of farm produce ten miles to a railway station as it does to haul it a thousand miles over a heavy-traffic trunk-line railway. It often costs more today to transport a ton of merchandise from its arrival in a long train in the freight yard on the outskirts of a great city to its deposit in the warehouse of a merchant four or five miles away than it has cost to haul it over a thousand miles of railway line."

[1] Engineering News Record, July 10, 1919.

Nevertheless it seems probable that new methods of operating the motor truck transport, and possibly new types of trucks or trucks and trailers will be developed so that freight traffic over many roads will be of considerable tonnage and an established part of the transportation system of the nation. In the article above referred to are given the following data relative to the cost of hauling on improved roads by motor truck and these cost estimates are based on the best information available at this time. They should be considered as approximate only, but serve to indicate the limitations of the truck as a competitor of the steam railway.