Cost for Consequential Damages. The determination of conse quential damages arising from the use of defective or unsuitable pave ments, involves the consideration of a wide array of diverse circum stances. Rough-surfaced pavements, when in their best condition, afford a lodgment for organic matter composed largely- of the urine and excrement of the animals employed upon the roadway. In warm and damp weather, these 'natters undergo putrefactive fer mentation, and become the most efficient agency for generating and disseminating noxious vapors and disease germs, now recognized as the cause of a large part of the ills afflicting mankind. Pavements formed of porous materials are objectionable on the same, if not even stronger, grounds.
Pavements productive of dust and mud are objectionable, and especially so on streets devoted to retail trade. If this particular disadvantage be appraised at so small a sum per lineal foot of frontage as $1.50 per month, or six cents per (lay, it exceeds the cost of the best quality of pavement free from these disadvantages.
Rough-surfaced pavements are noisy under traffic and insufferable to nervous invalids, and much nervous sickness is attributable to them. T. all persons interested in nervous invalids, this damage from noisy pavements is rated as being far greater than would be the cost of sub stituting the best quality of noiseless pavement; but there are, under many circumstances, specific financial losses, measurable in dollars and cents, dependent upon the use of rough, noisy pavements. They reduce the rental value of buildings and offices situated upon streets so paved--offices devoted•to pursuits wherein exhausting brain work is required. In such locations, quietness is almost indispensable,
and no question about the cost of a noiseless pavement weighs against its possession. When an investigator has done the best he can to determine such a summary of costs of a pavement, he may divide the amount of annual tonnage of the street traffic by the amount of annual costs, and know what number of tons of traffic are borne for each cent of the average annual cost, which is the crucial test for any comparison, as follows: (I) Annual interest upon first cost...... • ...... ..... S (2) Average annual expense for maintenance and renewal (3) Annual cost for custody (sprinkling and cleaning) (4) Annual cost for service and use (5) Annual cost for consequential damages Amount of average annual Annual tonnage of traffic Tons of traffic for each cent of cost Gross Cost of Pavements. Since the cost of a pavement depends upon the material of which it is formed, the width of the roadway, the extent and nature of the traffic, and the condition of repair and clean liness in which it is maintained, it follows that in no two streets is the endurance or the cost the same, and the difference between the highest and lowest periods of endurance and amount of cost is very con siderable.
The comparative cost of the various street pavements, including interest on first cost, sinking fund, maintenance, and cleaning, when reduced to a uniform standard traffic of 100,000 tons per annum for each yard in width of the carriageway, is about as follows: