Highways and Highway Transportation

by George R. Chatburn

Hotels.

—For those persons who do not care to camp there are always hotels. During the busy season, however, those in the larger towns which have gained a reputation with the traveling public are usually full to overflowing. Many tourists telegraph ahead, from one to two days, for accommodations. Rooms can be obtained in all the towns but not always bath in connection, or even running water. Throughout the well-settled communities meals and luncheons may be obtained at most any hour. In the sparsely settled regions lunches are put up by the hotels which can be carried in the car for the noonday refreshment, care being taken to reach the next settlement for dinner in the evening.

The evening scene in a popular tourist hotel reminds one of the old wayside inns. There the tourists, usually spruced up for the evening, with the travelers’ camaraderie, are talking, smoking, and enjoying each others’ company.

Parks.

—The great National parks are being used more each year by automobile tourists. Good hotel and camping facilities are available. These parks are set aside by the Government for the preservation of marvelous natural beauty and grandeur, and the government desires that they be used to the utmost by the citizenry. Perhaps 100,000 people will visit the Yellowstone National Park this (1922) season, of which 75 per cent will come by private automobile. Naturally the larger number come from the nearby states, but last year practically all states were represented. Montana sending 2892 and Maine 1. The patronage is likely to continue and grow. Other National parks and the United States Forest Reserves will also receive their share.

Several states are beginning to recognize the need for play and recreational grounds. New York has built a magnificent automobile road up the Bronx River Parkway Drive and through the Adirondacks, and the State Conservation Commission has built along these highways many stone fireplaces for the special use of motorists. Colorado is building an automobile road up Mount Evans, thus heading off private parties who wished Government permission to build a toll road. Michigan will develop tourist roads to attract the summer traveler. The field secretary of the State Good Roads Association maintains that such roads will bring an annual revenue to Michigan of $75,000,000 to $100,000,000 annually through the resort trade. Scarcely a state but has some attraction to the tourist; it would be well to make its advantages known to the public that they might be enjoyed to their fullest extent.

Information.

—The last sentence brings us to an important topic. The tourist at the present time inquires at the nearest garage or hotel for information relative to routes and condition of roads, detours, accommodations, etc. This is well, but all these people do not have at hand a knowledge of the information sought, so the traveler must pass on and trust to luck that he may get through. Chambers of Commerce and automobile clubs have endeavored to fill the want, and in the Middle West these places are sought by hundreds of people daily. Some of the large newspapers have drawn on their advantageous news-gathering facilities and publish each morning a statement of road conditions and detours.

The Minneapolis Journal says that when it established its bureau of travel and resort information, “the new agency was overwhelmed from the start with eager inquirers for facts and advice.” Information is the one thing that a tourist fairly yearns for, even more than for food, gas, and oil; he knows where to go to satisfy these wants. The manager of the Journal, Perry S. Williams, who is also vice-president of the Associated Advertising Clubs of the World, has in mind a plan for “dotting the whole countryside with little information bureaus, where the traveler can learn what’s what and feel easy in relying on what he learns. Every community under this plan is to have its own bureau and to make it easily accessible to the wanderer.”

But the state of Wisconsin which has long been among the foremost in the development of new road ideas, has beaten them to it, for already the Commission conducts a department of “Highway Information Service.” A blueprint map of the state trunk highway system is furnished weekly to all subscribers. The map shows the type of road on every mile of the system, the location of all construction jobs and of all detours and the condition of the detours. The map is revised weekly. Information up to Tuesday is mapped and in the hands of subscribers by Thursday, in time to supply information for week-end motor trips. This information is sold by the state to hotels, commercial associations, automobile clubs, garages, and other places where touring information is sought. The map is 54 by 60 inches in size and mounted on a frame or bulletin board to be placed in a conspicuous place. A charge of ten dollars is made for this service for the season from June 1 to September 15. The charge barely covers the cost of blueprinting.