Highways and Highway TransportationChatburn, George R.
History
Highways and Highway Transportation
Chatburn, George R.
Roads; Transportation
Any observations made or conclusions drawn are purely personal. I
entered into and have carried on the work entirely unbiased. I am
not financially or otherwise, except academically, interested in
any firm or company whose business has to do with transportation
either directly as a carrier, or indirectly as a manufacturer of the
instruments or accessories to transportation, nor does any of my living
come from societies or foundations organized as propagandists for any
particular forms of transportation, or transportation materials or
equipment. I have no admiration for the man who hopes to see the steam
and electric railways put out of business or even caused to run at a
loss by the automobile, motor express or motor bus. Neither have I
any plaudits for the man who would arrest the growth of the new forms
of transportation by drastic legal enactments and excessive taxation
in order to preserve the old. I believe there is room and need in the
United States for all forms of transportation, and that each can thrive
in its respective field just as do wheat and corn but none will thrive
if they attempt to occupy the same field at the same time.
The text is naturally divided into two parts--the development of
highways and their use. The first part treats of the relation of
transportation to civilization generally, explaining briefly how the
two have grown together like children at school, how each has helped
the other, and how the meter of one is the measure of the other.
Leaving the old world there is sketched all too briefly the development
in the United States of transportation facilities from the coastal and
natural waterways, from the pack and trail, used by the aborigine and
early settlers, through the treks of the pioneers, the periods of canal
digging, the toll road competition, and the railway frenzy, to the
advent of the modern road with the coming of the bicycle and automobile
and their wonderful accelerative impulse.
The effects of State and Federal aid upon the road conditions of the
country are fully treated as is also the planning of highway systems.
Automotive transportation for business and pleasure including rural
motor express and bus lines, and their effect on production and
marketing are described and discussed.
In the chapters on highway accidents and highway aids to traffic,
attention is called to many types of accidents, including railway
crossing accidents, with suggestions for their mitigation. Here also
are given the most recent practical rules for the regulation of traffic
in both city and country.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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