Remarks on the Present System of Road Making: With Observations, Deduced from Practice and Experience, With a View to a Revision of the Existing Laws, and the Introduction of Improvement in the Method of Making, Repairing, and Preserving Roads, and Defending the Road Funds from Misapplication. Seventh Edition, Carefully Revised, With an Appendix, and Report from the Select Committee of the House of Commons, June 1823, with Extracts from the EvidenceMcAdam, John Loudon
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Remarks on the Present System of Road Making: With Observations, Deduced from Practice and Experience, With a View to a Revision of the Existing Laws, and the Introduction of Improvement in the Method of Making, Repairing, and Preserving Roads, and Defending the Road Funds from Misapplication. Seventh Edition, Carefully Revised, With an Appendix, and Report from the Select Committee of the House of Commons, June 1823, with Extracts from the Evidence
McAdam, John Loudon
Macadam roads; Roads -- Great Britain
Supposing parliament to adopt your suggestion as to the passing of such
an act, and supposing that afterwards the trusts of none of the counties
should adopt it as a general trust, would there be any objection to the
act being so framed as to admit of adoption by such of the trusts as
might prefer it to incurring the expense of a renewal of their then
local acts?—I do not think there would be any well founded objection to
an act made capable of being so applied; and I am of opinion, that the
making it optional on trustees to adopt it or not, would render the
measure extremely popular, and in the end be highly beneficial to the
country.
Have you not lately prepared a bill for the trustees of an extensive
trust in Somersetshire, including in it nearly all the improvements
which you would recommend to be introduced into a general turnpike
act?—I have prepared such a bill; and it was intended that the same
should have been brought before parliament in the present session, but
the clerk to the trustees having omitted to put the notice required by
the standing orders of parliament upon the sessions-house door, at the
Michaelmas sessions, the trustees resolved to defer presenting their
petition until the next session.
In what respect does the bill which you have prepared differ from the
generality of local turnpike acts?—Many of the clauses of the bill are
not so remarkable for originality, as their combination is calculated to
produce extensive benefit to the country, by conferring larger powers
than have heretofore been given to any one body of trustees; among
others, it empowers the trustees to appoint committees, and make
bye-laws; it binds them to provide a fund for buying up outstanding
securities; and to pay off the further sums proposed to be raised under
the new act, within the term of the act; the tolls on wheel carriages
are made referrible to the breadth of the fellies, and description of
wheel, and to the weight drawn, rather than to the number of horses,
drawing, and are founded on a statement which I had the honour of
delivering to a Committee of the House of Commons in 1809. The standing
orders of parliament require that on or before the 30th of September
next, preceding any application to parliament for any Turnpike Act, a
plan &c. of the roads proposed to be made or altered, shall be deposited
with the clerk of the peace. It often happens, that in the Committee
alterations are made in the proposed line, when the plan deposited
becomes mere waste paper; the seventy sixth clause of this bill provides
for the depositing of a plan, &c. last determined upon, with the clerk
of the peace, signed by the Speaker, and being an authentic document can
be referred to with safety. The bill also provides for the making of
commodious footpaths by the sides of the roads. And as the paving,
cleansing, lighting, watching, &c. of the liberty or borough of * * * *
is placed in the trustees of the roads, the trustees are empowered to
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