EDITORIAL PAGE

ARIZONA HIGHWAYS Arizona Highways

Published in the Interest of Good Roads by the ARIZONA HIGHWAY DEPARTMENT Vol. VII.

DECEMBER, 1931

No. 12

ARIZONA STATE HIGHWAY COMMISSION

C. E. ADDAMS, Chairman, Phoenix

JOHN B. HART, Vice-Chairman, Douglas

JACOB BARTH, Commissioner, St. Johns

MONTE MANSFIELD, Commissioner, Tucson

SAMUEL R. TRENGOVE, Commissioner, Prescott

GEO. W. COMPARET, Secretary, Phoenix

GENERAL OFFICE

T. S. O'CONNELL, State Highway Engineer

C. C. SMALL Deputy State Engineer

E. M. WHITWORTH Vehicle Superintendent

R. A. HOFFMAN Bridge Engineer

E. V. MILLER Engineer of Plans

J. W. POWERS Engineer of Materials

A. H. LIND Equipment Superintendent

J. S. MILLS Engineer of Estimates

H. C. HATCHER Statistical Engineer

W. H. MURRAY Superintendent of Stores

W. C. JOYNER Purchasing Agent

M. C. HANKINS Chief Accountant

JAMES M. HALL Patrol Superintendent

FIELD ENGINEERS

GEORGE B. SHAFFER District Engineer District No. 1

F. N. GRANT District Engineer District No. 2

R. C. PERKINS District Engineer District No. 3

W. R. HUTCHINS District Engineer District No. 4

PERCY JONES Chief Locating Engineer Subscription Rates: $1.00 Per Year. Advertising Rates on Request

Single Copy: 10 Cents

Address All Communications to Editor ARIZONA HIGHWAYS Arizona Highway Department Phoenix, Arizona

CONGRESS IS ON THE SPOT

The eyes of the six, seven or eight million unemployed, whatever number you care to guess, are looking to congress and the administration at this moment for some solution for their unfortunate plight. These men do not want a dole. They do not want the government to give them anything. All they are asking is for the creation of work through which they can support themselves and their families. It does not require the naming of any commissions. They do not have to subsidize the bankers or industry.

The use of road building for unemployment relief was tested during the past year and it has been found most effective in putting men to work promptly. More than a million men were employed directly on road and street work, and two million other men were kept busy furnishing supplies, materials and equipment to workers. Road building for unemployment relief has a tremendous advantage in that it brings the job to the worker-it is the most widely distributed activity in the country.

Roads and streets can be bought at a bargain now and the low cost tends to offset the interest charges. The increment in national wealth due to good roads will remain long after the depression is forgotten.

"The need for highways is apparent to every man who drives a motor vehicle," states the head of a Washington news service in close touch with national opinion, "and it will be difficult to convince a man who gets in a traffic jam every Sunday that there are anything like enough roads. More than onefifth of the country's population owns motor vehicles, and the other four-fifths drive with them."

We had an experimental sample last spring of how road building can relieve the unemployment. Congress is on the spot. It must give the nation some real relief.

CO-OPERATING IN SAFETY WORK

The National Safety Council has launched a nationwide contest between the cities for the promotion of safety measures in their incorporated districts. This contest is open to all cities of 10,000 and over and is absolutely free, the National Safety Council being willing to furnish everything for the conduct of the competition, to do all the compiling of the statistics and furnish all the necessary forms.

Of the staggering losses sustained in the United States each year through automobile and traffic accidents, the cities of the nation contribute the largest percentage. This is natural that they should, as the greatest travel and congestion exists in the city. However, offsetting this great increase in congestion, the cities are supposed to have the best traffic regulation and the greatest enforcement of traffic laws. Yet the death toll mounts.

Some of the best authorities now argue that we do not need more laws for the regulation of traffic, but a greater understanding and enforcement of the ones we have. What the meat of the cocoanut is, the National Safety Council wants to find out and one of the best means of arriving at a conclusion is to amass all the data, figures and statistics they can get on the accidents that are occurring and see what causes them. This is the object of the contest between the cities of the land.

If every city will co-operate with the Safety Council enough statistics may be gotten together to conclusively point out what is the outstanding reason for our increasing traffic crashes. It is like the scientists searching for the germ of a disease. Once the germ is isolated, its carrier discovered, then it is a comparatively easy problem to stamp out or control the disease.

Our automobiles are killing and injuring more persons in the United States each year than any disease. It is time we found a cure.

IT'S AN OLD STORY

Parking problems are not new. London had one as far back as 1660, according to an order issued in that year by Charles II, which reads as follows: 'Whereas the excessive number of hackney coaches in the city of London are found to be a common nuisance, the streets and highways being thereby made impassable and dangerous; "'We command that no person or persons permit or suffer said coaches to stand or remain in any of the streets.

"Given at our court at Whitehall the eighteenth day of October, 1660."

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day A line of cars wind slowly o'er the lea, A pedestrian plods his absent-minded way And leaves the world unexpectedly.