Editorials

ARIZONA HIGHWAYS ARIZONA HIGHWAYS

Published in the Interest of Good Roads by the ARIZONA HIGHWAY DEPARTMENT

CIVILIZATION FOLLOWS THE IMPROVED HIGHWAY

VOL IX No. 11 ARIZONA STATE HIGHWAY COMMISSION

SHELTON G. DOWELL, Chairman, Douglas RAY N. VYNE, Vice-Chairman, Prescott JACOB BARTH, Commissioner, St. Johns MONTE MANSFIELD, Commissioner, Tucson C. E. ADDAMS, Commissioner, Phoenix C. C. JARRETT, Secretary, Mesa in the United States which are served only by dirt roads and are operating, therefore, against a handicap with relation to the more fortunately situated. Feeder lanes must be put on a plane with the primary system to place the farmer within the bounds of efficient economic business methods.

The highways are the people's own immediate means of transportation. They are being constructed at no cost to government, paid for in excise taxes by those who use them. There is no such thing as “over building.”

GENERAL OFFICE

SID SMYTH, T. S. O'CONNELL, State Highway Engineer Deputy State Engineer E. M. WHITWORTH, J. S. MILLS, Vehicle Superintendent Engineer of Estimates R. A. HOFFMAN, H. C. HATCHER, Bridge Engineer Statistical Engineer E. V. MILLER, W. H. MURRAY, Engineer of Plans Superintendent of Stores J. W. POWERS, M. L. WHEELER, Engineer of Materials Chief Accountant C. R. McDOWELL, Patrol Superintendent SWAN A. ERICKSON, Engineer Certification Board

OUR COVER PICTURE

This month's Arizona Highways cover picture is a reproduction of a bronze plaque erected at Lookout Point on Yarnell Hill to Charles Churchill Small, for thirteen years chief locating engineer and deputy state engineer of the Arizona Highway Department. The tablet was designed and the head in the center was sketched from memory by Jack Haines, formerly an engineering draftsman in the department and now superintendent of the Conservation Camp in Grand Canyon National Park. The drawing is said by those who knew him to be a very close likeness to Mr. Small, who died in Phoenix in 1932. The plaque was unveiled November 19 by the American Society of Civil Engineers.

FIELD ENGINEERS

GEORGE B. SHAFFER, R. C. PERKINS, District Engineer District Engineer District No. 1 District No. 3 F. N. GRANT, W. R. HUTCHINS, District Engineer District Engineer District No. 2 District No. 4

PERCY JONES Chief Locating Engineer

HAL MITCHELL, Editor Subscription Rates: $1.00 per Year Single Copy: 10 Cents Advertising Rates on Request Address All Communications to Editor ARIZONA HIGHWAYS Arizona Highway Department Phoenix, Arizona

ROAD BUILDING MUST GO ON

There are 3,040,000 miles of highways in the United States, and of that total only 868,000 miles have been improved with macadam, concrete, asphalt, oil or brick. The remaining 2,172,000 miles are still in unsurfaced dirt.

It has been the practice during the past few years under the government's federal aid policy to add approximately 15,000 miles of hard surfaced roads each year.

At that rate, with no replacements considered, it would require nearly 150 years to get the country out of the mud.

But the average life of the 868,000 miles now improved is only about 20 years, which means that 5 per cent, or 44,400 miles, must be replaced every year. We would be therefore, at a 15,000 mile annual rate of construction, losing 29,400 miles of improved highways every 12 months, considering the loss over a 20 year period. To be more exact, at the end of 20 years we should have lost 568,000 miles.

To make headway, then, against the huge unimproved total of 2,172,000 miles, we must build in addition to the basic program next year 44,400 miles and each year thereafter 5 per cent of the mileage which is then improved.

The replacement program must go on steadily. Permanent improved highways have come to be more essention even than the railways, and their importance grows with each succeeding year. There are still 3,000,000 farms