Highways and Highway Transportation

by George R. Chatburn

The Influence of the Bicycle on Roads.

—Road construction remained in a lackadaisical state with here and there a spurt, with now and then an intelligent supervisor who appreciated the need of better wagon roads, until the coming of the bicycle. That machine may be considered a descendant of the old celeripede, which consisted of two wheels connected by a horizontal bar on which the rider sat and propelled himself by pushing with his feet alternately on the ground, through the velocipede, which had the front wheel pivoted to the framework for easy steering. The attachment of pedals is credited to a Scotchman, Kirkpatrick Macmillan, about 1840, who applied them to the rear wheel. In 1886 Lallement in the United States and Michaux in France, placed the pedals on the front wheels. The front wheel was gradually increased in diameter until in the ’eighties it sometimes measured as much as 60 inches. The rear wheel decreased as the front increased. The stability of the wheel was not very great; headers were common, and mounting was difficult. To overcome these defects of the “ordinary” there was developed, 1885, the “safety,” approximately the present bicycle, in which the pedals are carried on a separate shaft and the power transmitted by chain and sprocket to the rear wheel. With the invention of the Dunlop[124] pneumatic tire, and consequent overcoming of much of the jolting so objectionable in more solid tires, the adoption of the bicycle as a means of pleasure and business locomotion was extremely rapid. The cycling boom reached its height about 1896 or 1897, by which time a great many large manufactories of bicycles had been established over the country. A frenzy seized upon the people and men and women of all stations were riding wheels; ardent cyclists were found in every city, village, and hamlet.

As a result of the cycling craze there were organized numerous “wheel clubs” and finally a national one known as the League of American Wheelmen, organized about 1887. Its object partly social and partly to popularize the new sport of cycling, became a few years later almost wholly a form of propaganda for “better roads.” Newspaper space was freely utilized; many papers making special and regular features of “good roads”; pamphlets were published and distributed broadly, and a magazine was established.[125]

At first the wheelmen were met by the cry of selfishness, with the argument that the city folk wanted the farmers to build good roads for their pleasure; but men of foresight, men of affairs, saw the benefits accruing to all kinds of business and added their influence. Mr. Potter, a lawyer of New York City, who had graduated in civil engineering at Cornell University before turning to the law, became interested in the good roads movement, studied and made himself one of the best posted men on roads in the United States. When the League of American Wheelmen decided to start a magazine he was selected for its editor and manager. Under his direction the subscription list of Good Roads soon reached more than 30,000.[126] “The articles strive to show the value of roads in a commercial sense and by a comparison with other countries demonstrate how far behind America is in this respect.” Pictures of good and bad roads were used freely, thus holding the attention where reading matter alone would have failed. European roads, the French especially, were described and played up through newspapers generally. Scarcely a journal that did not run leaders and other articles on the benefits of good roads and methods of building and maintaining the same. Our ordinary roads were decried on every hand. A lady voices her opinion thus:[127]

I came to this country with the best prejudices, having enjoyed the privilege of meeting with some of its noblest representatives in my fatherland. I admired much the individual independence, the high standing of women, the gentle sway of the church, the liberal education of the children, and the unsurpassed charity that extends even to distant countries. I must confess that I was struck with the bad roads everywhere, in cities as well as in the country, and at the same time, amused at the compensation one gets when one meets with an accident. Why not spend the money in the improvements of the roads—make these roads perfect, and then let everybody look out for himself.

In summer the worst road is good; but in winter schools have to be closed, the children are stopped in their regular pursuits, learning becomes desultory, and the strong feeling of duty that has to be developed from the very beginning of life by strict good habits gets slackened and slighted; and so also the attendance of the churches—for many people the only comfort in the struggle for existence—becomes an impossibility. And especially the painstaking farmer must find it hard to drive his team through the muddy, clayey road, in bringing the fruits of his labor to the market. I hear him, with many a suppressed oath on everything under the sun, dragging his cartload through the mud and standing pools, and in snowstorms he is sometimes totally lost. All communication stops.

And so on for a column or more. She inserts by way of anecdote which shows that two of the greatest Germans who ever lived did not think the lowly road too insignificant to discuss:

When Heinrich Heine for the first time met with the royal poet, Goethe, he was so impressed with the majesty of his personality that he could speak of nothing less than the plum trees on the chaussée, between Jena and Weimar.

Also Bill Nye, the humorist, takes a rap at the roads in this manner.[128]

Our wagon roads throughout the country are generally a disgrace to civilization and before we undertake to supply Jaeger underwear and sealskin covered bibles with flexible backs to the African it might be well to put a few dollars into the relief of galled and broken down horses that have lost their breath on our miserable highways.