How Small Communities May have Good Roads

Abstract

The Val�e of WholeHearted Cooperation no doubt, furnishes adequate compensation for the sore muscles and the few blisters, but how 'about the effi ciency of this labor? If anything has ever been clearly demonstrated, it is the inefficiency of unskilled labor in road work. The time of the business milD who cheer fully gives up his energy in more or less misdirected efforts to improve our roads can, on the average, prob ably be placed as worth at least the equivalent of five days of a common laborer, trained and efficient in doing this class 0:1' work. As unskilled labor .is rarely more than 50 per cent efficient, it follows at once that this much advertised bit of altruistic endeavor, however, commendable from an idealistic point of view, is from the standpoint of economy only 10 per cent efficient. Economic Efficiency the Test. Co-operative' as well as other public undertakings must ultimately stand or fall before the searching test of economic efficiency. Any cooperative undertaking, no matter how commendable its object, ought never to be tolerated, unless it is more efficient than the system it displaces. Our endeavor should constantly be directed toward a system which will ultimately yield us 100 per cent efficiency. 'l'his does not means that cooperative undertakings have nO' place in our public road system. From the very beginI:ling of road building in this country the roads were considered a local burden, in the construc• tion. and maintenance of which all should cooperate , each according to his ability. Where a road lay on the boundary of two towns, or other administrative sub divisions, legal channels were fixed, whereby both would cooperate in the construction and maintenance. Later, as the more general importance of our public roads began to be understood, legal channels were By •.Logan. Waller Page Direct'or of the Office of Public Roads formed for such varied co•operation as the abuttin � property owners, the town, the county and the State. 'Ie energy required to jill tbe Illudboles vltb boulders been expended In provilling proper \age and llUlintenunce with a road drag, this Iuight have heen a good road. A trained and properly organlze(1 lahor forre under efficient management can alwaYR be d('I"'Jl(�('(1 011 to sc('ure n donar's worth of returns for every \I,ol.In, eXl'eqded,