Modern business geography

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 1830562916

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-217337

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Huntington, Ellsworth http://d-nb.info/gnd/117070092; Cushing, Sumner W.

Title:: Modern business geography

Place of publication:: New York [usw.]

Publisher:: World Book Company

Year of publication:: 1930

Scope:: VIII, 352 S.; Ill., graph. Darst.

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

Usage license:: Get license information via the feedback formular.

Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Part two. The field of transportation

Collection:: Economics Books

170 Modern Business Geography The qualities of a good road. In the backward or very mountainous regions, most, of the roads are merely trails worn by the feet of people and animals. In slightly more favored districts, the roads are rough tracks worn by the wheels of carts. Where the traffic is light and the soil firm, such a track may be sufficient in dry weather, but is likely to be difficult when wet. For heavy teams and automobiles, roads of gravel, broken stone, brick, cement, or the like are needed. It is also necessary to crown the road; that is, to make the surface slope grad- ually from the center so that rain water will drain away immediately rather than flow along the roadway and wear gullies. The ideal road must be as straight and level as possible, and therefore cuttings and em- bankments are needed, even in regions of low hills, while on steep slopes the roads must zigzag back and forth. Why it pays to build good roads. Good roads cost from ten thousand to fifty thousand dollars a mile, even in regions of gentle relief, but it pays to build them. They are an advantage to both the country dis- tricts and the cities. A farmer who lives on a bad road only a mile or two from the railroad may find it as difficult to get his produce to market as one who lives on a good road twenty miles from a station. (rood roads lower the price of food for city people. They also make it easy for those who dwell in the noisy, crowded city to have some share of the restfulness and beauty of the country. Europe long ago appreciated the value of good roads, and England, France, Germany, Austria, and Italy have improved hundreds of thousands of miles of their roadways. In Russia and southeastern Europe, however, the roads are poor for the most part. This hampers those regions greatly. The thickly settled northeastern United States was the first part of this country to follow the example of western Eu- rope. Now other sections are so rapidly improving their roads that soon automobiles will be able to go freely all over the United States. Difficulties of making good roads. Everywhere in civilized coun- tries people are beginning to realize that bad roads are a disgrace. Merely to keep the roads in repair, however, is difficult where no good road-making rocks are found within hundreds of miles, as in our prairie plains. It is even more difficult in thinly settled places where there are only a few persons for each mile of road, or where most of the peo- ple are poor and cannot afford to pay high taxes. It is most difficult of all in rugged regions where the farmers are poor and scattered, and the cost of construction is great.

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