ALONG THE HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS

sealing. The high cost of equipment rentals on gravel roads is due to heavy grading and blading. Item 3, shoulders, has been exceptionally heavy for the past few years. Shoulders have been widened by maintenance from a narrow, hazardous shoulder to a wide, uniform safe shoulder and the borrow pit made uniform in width, side banks sloped and the slope of the shoulders flattened. This operation not only made the existing road safer but retarded the fast run-off in the borrow pit during flood season, thereby filling the deep borrow pit gradually with silt.

Item 2, surface upkeep, will in the future cost considerable for patching and sealing. Since the life of an oiled road varies with the subgrade, the mixture in the oil cake, the age of the cake, it is apparent that the cost of old oil road will cost more each year for maintenance. Heavier traffic increasing each year causes faster wear and demands extra features for safety and economy, such as added and new road guard, more catch basins for drainage, replacing center stripes oftener, etc. The highway system owns within its right-of-way about 40,000 acres of land, some acquired by deed and some by easement. The width of the right-of-way varies from 56 feet to 400 feet.

The highway department has built 105 maintenance houses, the average value of a house is $2,000. The improvements to a maintenance camp include water well, tank, windmill or pump and engine, shed, small shop, gas and oil storage house and miscellaneous improvements. These improvements will average $3,000, including the ground the camp is located on. In maintenance camps the highway investment is about $525,000. All houses are insured against fire. The revenue from maintenance houses is only 15 per cent of the cost of the annual cost for repairs and upkeep. The monthly rent is $10:00 per month for a $2,000 house and less for a smaller house.

The employee who lives in a highway house is responsible to the foreman for state equipment, gas and oil and equipment stored at the camp. Regulations governing the personal conduct of highway employees, the use and care of highway equipment and material are strictly enforced.

The equipment used today by the Arizona highway department ranges from old equipment used by the army during the World war to the last and latest thing in highway equipment. Some of the old equipment will use one gallon of gas to one and one-half miles of operation, and repairs cost real money. During the past few years the equipment department has junked considerable obsolete equipment, but some are still used in a day's work.

The highway department owns and operates 25 road oil storage tanks situated on railroad spurs convenient to oil sections using road oil. Capacity of tanks vary from 6,000 to 10,000 gallons. These tanks cost in place from $500 to $1200 each. The cost of the tank is now figured in the cost of the oil as applied on the roads. The initial cost of the maintenance camps and improvements, road oil storage tanks are not charged directly to maintenance operations. They are included as part of the capital investment which include all buildings, shops, warehouses and equipment.

Maintenance crews on the Arizona highways are ready for any and every emergency. A system of roads that must necessarily cut through every form of terrain, from the desert to the mountain, is subject to unusual conditions that requires the most constant alertness on the part of the maintenance workers. Heavy and unusual rains, heavy snows in the mountain regions, washouts, slides -all present sudden and at times unexpected emergencies that require immediate attention on the part of the maintenance crews in order to insure a minimum of obstacles to traffic.

Yet it is interesting to note that with the great variety of conditions, both of climate and terrain, maintenance costs are exceptionally low in Arizona, and travel usually proceeds with a few obstructions due to emergency conditions.