Highways and Highway Transportation

by George R. Chatburn

© Underwood and Underwood

A FARMER’S WIFE MEETING THE POSTAL TRUCK

The law for federal aid is based upon the clause in the Constitution giving Congress power “to establish post offices and post roads.”[148] and the money made available may only be expended on post roads outside of towns “having a population of two thousand five hundred or more, except that portion of any such street or road along which the houses average more than two hundred feet apart.”[149] Thus may be seen the very great importance to better public highways of the “rural free delivery.”

State Aid.

—While the bicyclist and voluntary road organizations were creating sentiment favorable to improved highways, the states were not idle. It will not be possible to follow the progress in each of the states, but since some form of state aid has been adopted by all of them the development of that idea will be sketched. By state aid is meant a plan whereby a part of the expense of constructing roads is borne by the state and a part by the locality in which the road lies.

New Jersey,[150] like many of the other Eastern states, had a few turnpike roads constructed and maintained by private corporations. These roads were much better than the public roads on which there were no toll gates. The public roads were administered under ordinary laws of overseers of highway districts. Charges of partiality had led to amendments, then other amendments until the laws were a maze of intricacies. To eliminate these, the state board of agriculture in 1887 called a mass meeting of farmers and others interested in good roads. The result of the conference, which was well attended, was the appointment of a committee, consisting of one member for each of the Congressional districts in the State, to examine the laws of New Jersey, of other states and of foreign countries and report methods for bettering the New Jersey system. After careful consideration they drafted a law abolishing the overseers and conferring the powers and duties of caring for the public highways on the township committee. This was presented to the State Board of Agriculture and received unanimous approval. But when it came before the State Legislature, of 1888, for adoption the opposition of the road overseers succeeded in defeating it. In 1889 it was again presented and defeated; and met a similar fate in 1890. But in 1891 with the coöperation of the governor its passage was secured.

Mr. Clayton Conrow of New Jersey[151] claims the honor of proposing the first state aid road law in the United States. He asserts that he learned from actual observation of the travelers on a section of highway that it was used not only by “teams of the local township but also from the adjoining township and the township beyond, and so on and on they came until a score of townships were represented on this section of the road.” He therefore concluded that the county and the state by rights should assist in building the main traveled roads, and that “every citizen of the state is entitled to the free use thereof.” This, he says, was in 1890, just the time the state board of agriculture was pushing its law to discontinue the overseers. Conrow says he consulted with Hon. Edward Burrough, president of the state board of agriculture, and outlined his plan for a State Aid Road Law. Burrough was highly pleased, but there was an obstacle in the way, namely the turnpike corporations. They were creatures of the law and had rights that should be respected. Mr. Burrough advocated the adoption of the law having faith that the people would buy the turnpike roads so that no citizen would be the loser. Judge William M. Lanning put the draft of the bill in legal form. It was then submitted to Governor Abbett for his approval as they did not care to encounter a veto if a slight change of form would reconcile him to its provisions. Mr. Conrow claims his original draft was changed only slightly by the board and again by the governor, then submitted to the legislature by a Mr. Davidson of Gloucester county. This is the act that was passed in 1891.

Salient Features of the State Aid Law.

—The essential points of the law are set forth in the following extract being the preamble and parts of the seventh and fourth sections: