A Text-Book on Roads and Pavements (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. LOCATION OF COUNTRY ROADS. Art. 16. Considerations Governing Location. The determination of a line for a proposed road involves the examination of the country through which the road is to pass with reference to its topographical features, the nature and extent of the traffic that it may develop, and the local interests that may be affected by the position of the road. The simplest form that this problem can take is that in which two points, as two towns, are to be connected by a road for the purpose of providing for a traffic between them, the nature and amount of which is approximately known. In this case it is only necessary to examine the topography of the intervening country and select the line over which, taking into account the costs of construction and maintenance, the given traffic may be most economically carried. In most cases in practice, however, the problem does not have this simple character, and in fact location can seldom be determined by considerations of economy alone. The position of the line will be modified by local needs, such as the necessity of providing for the traffic of villages or farms intermediate between the ends of the road, which may often cause deviations from what would be the best line if the interests of the terminal points alone were considered. Questions of the desirability of various lines for the comfort and convenience of travel, and the pleasure to be derived from the use of the road, dependent upon aesthetic considerations, may also frequently operate to change the line from what would seem proper from a strictly economic point of view. In thickly settled communities, as in most parts of the United States, the roads are in the main already located, the necessity for the location of new ones does no...