As the Road Nears Nogales

NOVEMBER, 1926 ARIZONA HIGHWAYS 9

the Lincoln Highway west of Philadelphia; the Boston Post Road between New York and New Haven; as well as roads leading out of Cleveland, Akron and Cincinnati.

One of the developments of the future may be separate roads for freight and passenger service; a low grade, heavily constructed road for trucks and a less expensive type for passenger vehicles. A road planned primarily for trucking between Boston and New York is now under construction.

To relieve traffic congestion and to promote safety at the intersection of important roads, highway grade separations are now being planned. The first structure of this kind is now being erected just north of Chicago at a very congested highway intersection. The design provides for two levels. Through traffic proceeds on an overhead bridge on one of the roads while turning traffic swings wide of the bridge and uses the ground level.

SLOW MORE MENACE

Traffic congestion, as well as a large proportion of accident cases, may be charged to the slow-moving vehicle. As the speed of the vehicle materially affects road capacity, it is possible that one of the developments of the future in the interest of safety and highway efficiency may be a penalty for not maintaining a minimum, as well as for exceeding a maximum speed.

Statistics show that more than half the motor vehicles in the United States are owned and largely operated in urban communities of 5,000 population and over. When in addition to the local traffic, all through non-stop traffic is also made to pass down “Main Street”, congestion must result. This condition has forced the attention of large communities to the desirability of routing through traffic around the edge of the town rather than into the business district. In Philadelphia, a belt line has been provided for routing through traffic around the edge of the city; while in Delaware the DuPont highway, which extends the entire length of the state avoids passing through build-up sections.

One of the most recent experimental developments in the interest of public safety is lighting the rural highway at night. The greatest menace of night driving is the abundance of glaring lights which makes driving at such times dangerous. It is found that a large percentage of highway accidents occur at night due to this cause. Lighting the highway not only reduces this danger, but also increases the ca-pacity of the road by making it avail-able for maximum use throughout the 24 hours of the day, and serves as an inducement for trucks to operate at night when passenger traffic is at a minimum. Highway illumination is now in use between Albany and Schenec-tady, on the Lincoln Highway in In-diana, on the motor causeway out of Miami, and on some roads out of De-troit.

this danger, but also increases the capacity of the road by making it available for maximum use throughout the 24 hours of the day, and serves as an inducement for trucks to operate at night when passenger traffic is at a minimum. Highway illumination is now in use between Albany and Schenectady, on the Lincoln Highway in Indiana, on the motor causeway out of Miami, and on some roads out of Detroit.

An important step to promote highway safety was recently taken by the United States Bureau of Public Roads in cooperation with the State highway departments, in adopting uniform standards for warning signs to be used throughout the country. The motor-ist will no longer be confused by a multiplicity of signs of various designs and degrees of legibility. Hazards will be indicated by signs which will be uniform in all states and which will plainly indicate the kind and degree of danger. The new signs make use of a system of different shapes, thereby increasing their value at night. The shape indicates the degree of hazard and if the motorist cannot read the length, the shape will tell him the degree of caution required.

In this system a round sign indicates a railroad crossing a diamond-shaped sign calls for a reduction of speed, as at a curve or narrow bridge; an octagon indicates a complete stop, or necessity for proceeding slowly with car under control; a square sign indicates a lesser degree of caution than any of the others, such as a school zone or a side road. Twenty states are now actually engaged in erecting these standard warning signs, and the other states have signified their intention of erecting them in the immediate fu-ture.

SCIENCE BROUGHT TO BEAR

The highway engineer is bringing science to bear upon the solution of the problems of highway safety. Today but a very small percentage of accidents on our main roads can be attributed directly to engineering defects. No public work is of greater importance than that of widening and extending our present roads, as well as paving new ones to meet our constantly increasing need for adequate highway facilties. Every effort is being put forth by the highway engineer and the road builder, with the limited funds at their disposal, to make the public highway a safer and a better place upon which to ride.

Arizona Highway Exhibit

California Corrugated Culvert company of West Berkley, California. The highway guards on the bridge approaches and curves, were miniatures built specially for the exhibit by the Western Metals Manufacturing company of El Paso. In addition to the relief map the highway department also had an exhibit of field equipment.

The Highway Department's exhibit brought forth more favorable comment probably than any other exhibit at the state fair, both because of its unique character, and because it gave the out-of-the-state visitor an idea of Arizona's splendid dirt and paved roads and an idea of the development of the country.

One of the visitors at the exhibit who was greatly impressed was a motion picture director from Los Angeles who sought to secure photographs of the model for use in motion picture settings.

Another visitor, this one from Florida, announced that he had been in Arizona but three days and had learned more of the possibilities of the state through the exhibit than from any other source of information.

“I have just finished work on a twenty million dollar resort in Florida,” he said, “and have come out here. I predict a big season of prosperity for Arizona within the next three years. The country is full of undeveloped possibilities and the people here have not the finances to take advantage of these. This must be accomplished through outside capital. The men with one or two millions at their command can help in this development, but it is the big interests with ten, twenty, fifty millions, who can develop Arizona.

“Eastern capital developed Florida and Southern California. Now these interests are looking in other directions. They have their eyes on Arizona.” A third, an Arizonan, declared that he had toured through the United States and that the Arizona Highway system was the best of those he had encountered.

Considerable interest in the exhibit was shown by students of the Phoenix Union High School, as well as those of nearby towns.

Requests have been made by other Arizona cities for a showing of the exhibit.

ARIZONA HIGHWAYS

Published in the Interest of Good Roads by The

ARIZONA HIGHWAY DEPARTMENT

Volume 2 November, 1926 Number 11

Vincent J. Keating. Editor

ARIZONA HIGHWAY DEPARTMENT

W. C. Lefebvre. State Engineer

W. W. Lane. Chief Engineer

B. M. Atwood. District Engineer

T. S. O'Connell District Engineer

George B. Shaffer. District Engineer

E. M. Whitworth. District Engineer

W. R. Hutchins. District Engineer

C. C. Small Location Engineer

R. A. Hoffman Bridge Engineer

J. W. Powers Testing Engineer

V. A. Wood. Chief Clerk

A. E. Stelzer Purchasing Agent

C. R. Jones. Superintendent of Equipment Subscription rates $1.00 per year. Single copy 10 cents. Advertising rates furnished on request.

Address All Communications to Editor,

ARIZONA HIGHWAYS

Arizona Highway Department,

Phoenix, Arizona

THE FAIR AND GOOD ROADS

Thousands of Arizona citizens and tourihts from other states took advantage of Arizona's good roads to visit the 1926 State Fair, and one of the attractions that awaited them was the exhibit of the Arizona Highway Department, consisting of a composite relief map showing various sections of the State Highway System.

The 31,005 persons who passed through the turnstile at the exhibit were universal in their praise of the exhibit. To tourists from other states it was a source of exceptional interest, furnishing them with valuable information. Citizens of Arizona-those who have "Seen Arizona First" readily picked out the sections of road represented, calling them by name, so true to conditions did the map represent them.The exhibit was characterized by The Arizona Republican in its issue of Wednesday, November 10, as "the outstanding exhibit at the State Fair this year . . ."

The rise or decline of a state or nation follow the progress or decay of its highways, its arteries of travel, and the people of Arizona have reason to beproud of their excellent highway system. Arizona's highway system is the peer of that of any state in the Union. Maryland, the first of the states to adopt a comprehensive highway system, has been the model followed by the majority of the other states, but Maryland now will do well to look to the splendid Highway system of Arizona for a model.

THE APACHE TRAIL

The Apache Trail, closed while improvements were being made that perfected it as an automobile highway, is open again. This means that the west-bound traveler may once more deflect from the railroad to marvel at Roosevelt Dam and the man-made inland sea which the earth has now taken to herself as though it were her own and not her foster child. It means that the New Yorker, escaping for a time from inactive radiators and over-active gas meters, may roll up to the Tonto cliff dwellings and meditate upon those other apartment-house inmates who got along without such annoyances only a few thousand years ago.

The Apache Trail has become, in the dozen years of its operation for the tenderfoot, something of a National institution. It is more than an agreeable link between Atlantic and Pacific; it is a pulse-quickening link between America's yesterday and today. Streaching through the heart of Arizona-from Bowie past Roosevelt Dam, through the appropriately named Superstition Mountains and down across a mesa changed by irrigation from dull desert into a blossoming field, to Phoenix it is a pathway on which men have set curiously enduring footprints through the ages. If Roosevelt Dam is a monument to the highest engineering skill of modern times, what shall one say as he regards those flourishing and impenetrable cactus thickets transplanted by crack military engineers in some day well back toward the stone age that enabled a few cliff-dwellers, with no weapons but boulders ready to roll down, to hold an invading host at bay? Endless chapters are written along this trail of how white men and red men can misunderstand each other. Mormon Flat holds record of how followers of Brigham Young suffered massacre in their flight for conscience and conquest.

One wonders, toward the end of the single day that he is out of the train and rolling along the Apache Trail, whether ancient man and ancient things were really so romantic and soul-moving, or whether they only seem so because the threads of their history are looped among some of the most colorful and inspiring peaks and gorges to be found on the continent. The Outlook.

NOVEMBER, 1926 ARIZONA HIGHWAYS 11 Condition of Roads On Arizona State Highway System

[Editor's Note-These road conditions present the most accurate data obtainable up to the time of going to press. Rains may cause some changes.]

PHOENIX-TUCSON-NOGALES U. S. Routes 80 and 89

Phoenix to Desert Wells paved. Desert Wells to Florence-Superior Junction gravel surfaced highway with a section of five miles asphaltic concrete pavement-excellent condition.

From Florence-Superior Junction to Florence very good. Additional work practically completed by extra maintenance crew. Heavy washouts occurred on this section during the rainy season. Florence streets fair to good.

Dips on Tucson-Florence Highway, which were heavily sanded by the recent rains are now being cleared. Florence to Oracle Junction excellent. Oracle Junction to Tucson excellent.

CAUTION:Care should be exercised in driving dips and fords.

Tucson towards Continental 11.85 miles paved; excellent. From end of pavement to pavement north of Nogales very good. Nogales city streets good Distance Phoenix to Nogales 205.8 miles. Driving time seven hours.

CHANDLER-CASA GRANDE State Route 87

Chandler-Casa Grande highway from Chandler south 6 miles paved. From San Tan Junction to Gila River use detour through pass. Fair condition. The 6 miles south of Chandler to the Junction of the San Tan Road surfacing is completed and in excellent shape. New Bridge across the San Tan Canal is now open. Gila River to Casa Grande good.

Note: Crossing of Gila River during high water impossible. Sacaton Dam bridge is now open to all traffic.

ASH FORK-NEW MEXICO LINE

(Via Lupton and Springerville)

U. S. Routes 66 and 70

Ash Fork-Flagstaff, distance 56 miles. From Ash Fork to Williams condition good with some rough spots; from Williams to Flagstaff good to excellent, first 17 miles only 16 feet wide. From Flagstaff to 10 miles east of Canon Diablo, a total distance of 45 miles, is under construction, but with the exception of a few short detours excellent time can be made on this stretch.

From 10 miles east of Canon Diablo to Holbrook, a total distance of 46 miles, is good, a short detour at Cottonwood Wash Bridge is necessary on account of repairing washout.

Via Adamana and Lupton-Holbrook to New Mexico State Line, is very good.

Via St. Johns and Springerville to New Mexico state line, excellent.

DOUGLAS-PEARCE State Route 81

Improved section, condition very good. Length 30 miles. Driving time one hour. Construction now going on on Section 3, remainder fair.

SOLOMONVILLE-CLIFTON State Route 71

Solomonville 12 miles toward Clifton, condition good, 7.87 miles being reconstructed. Remaining distance to Clifton Mountain Road excellent. Clifton to Duncan and State Line excellent. This section now on new maintenance Project. Driving time one and one-half hours.

YUMA-PHOENIX HIGHWAY U. S. Route 80

Phoenix to Hassayampa, road paved, excellent. Damage to shoulders from recent rains repaired.

Hassayampa River to Gillespie Dam - High water gravel surfaced in excellent condition. Crossing on apron Gillespie Dam except during high water actual danger stage the Arizona Highway Department has available at all times a large truck for towing and transporting cars across the dam.

Gillespie Dam to Gila Bend. During recent heavy rains numerous washouts occurred doing considerable damage to this highway. Extra forces are at work making repairs. Detours at all sections where washouts occurred. Care should be used in driving over this section. Wellton to Gila Bend, except for short distance out of Gila Bend, road in excellent condition. Wellton to Yuma fair. Road rapidly being repaired where damage was done by washouts, Length of route Phoenix to Yuma 204.56 miles. Original driving time, Phoenix to Yuma seven hours. Driving time for the present, approximately nine hours.

PRESCOTT-JEROME State Route 79

First six miles under construction, detour necessary. From Ash Fork Junc-tion to foot of Mingus mountain excel-

ASH FORK TO TOPOCK U. S. Route 66

Flent valley road for 15 miles. From foot of mountain to Jerome 12 miles of excellent mountain road, some sharp curves.

KingMan-Topock (California-Arizona State Line), distance 54 miles; condi-tion from Kingman to 17 mile hill good to excellent, some rough spots where not surfaced. From 17 mile hill to Oatman excellent mountain road but steep grades and sharp curves, use second gear in going down grade. From Oatman to Topock 25 miles from fair to good, some loose gravel and rough spots exposing oversize. Driving time Ash Fork to Arizona-California State Line 4½ hours.

PHOENIX-PRESCOTT-ASH FORK U. S. Route 89

(New Route) From Phoenix to four miles beyond Marinette a paved highway extends 20.15 miles, end of pavement through Nada and Beardsley to Hot Springs Junction to Wickenburg excellent. Wickenburg to Congress excellent.(Continued on page 13)