CONSTRUCTION AND CARE OF BRICK PAVEMENTS.
It is not the purpose of this article to give a detailed description of the various operations connected with the construction of a brick pavement, since those having the direction of such operations are al ready familiar with the work or can easily find the information desired, but it is proposed to consider some fundamental relations whose import ance seems to have been overlooked by writers on the subject as well as by those having the construction of brick pavements in charge. In short, this article is intended more for the property holder, the manu facturer, and the layman than for the professional engineer. The sub jects to be considered will be taken up approximately in the order in which they occur in the work of construction.
Historical—A brick pavement consists of brick set on edge on a suit able foundation—either concrete, gravel, a course of brick flatwise, or a layer of plank. Such pavements have been used in Holland for per haps a century, and to a much less extent and for a shorter period in northern England. Brick pavements were first used in the United States in 1870 at Charlestown, West Virginia, a place having a popula tion of 12,000. The experiment was tried with a short section—less than a block—and in 1873 a block on the principal business street was laid with a good quality of building brick, and is still in service after 29 years. A block of brick pavement, laid in 1875 on a leading business street of Bloomington, Illinois, a place of 20,484 population in 1890, though constructed of an inferior building brick made of superior clay, continued in service for 20 years.
At present brick is the only paving material employed in most of the smaller cities of the Mississippi Valley, and it is used extensively in many of the larger cities in that territory. In all parts of this coun try, the use of brick for residence streets and light traffic business streets is rapidly increasing. A recent canvass shows about as much brick pavement in progress as granite block, asphalt, and wood com biped. There are in this country nearly two hundred plants, devoted to the manufacture of paving brick, some having annual outputs of 60,000,000 to 100,000,000 bricks.
Width of pavement—In many cases a considerable part of the money spent for a pavement is wasted by making the pavement wider than is really necessary. A narrow pavement not only costs less to construct, but also costs less- to clean and to sprinkle. Of course, except for the cost, the wider the pavement the better; but length is more desirable than width. An excessive width is a nebdless expense, and delays or wholly prevents the getting of any pavement at all; and hence one help towards securing pavements is to make them only wide enough to accommodate the travel.
It is not unusual to find residence streets in small cities, without street car tracks, with pavements 36 to 40 feet wide. The only travel over such streets consists of private carriages and the delivery wagons that supply goods of various kinds to, the residents. All the pavement
that such streets really require is a width such that two vehicles may pass at a reasonable speed and with ordinary care without interference. A width of 18 feet affords sufficient room for a vehicle to pass when another is standing on each side of the pavement—a rare and therefore it appears that a pavement 18 feet wide, or at most 20 feet, is sufficient for the less frequented residence streets. Therefore any money spent to construct a wider pavement is really not necessary; and the cost of sprinkling and sweeping is also needlessly increased. Further, narrowing the pavement increases the lawn space, which not only improves the appearance of the street, but also gives additional space in which to place gas pipes, water pipes, etc., and thereby pre vents the tearing up of the pavement which is always a damage. The only objection to a very narrow pavement is the difficulty of turning a team on it. The seriousness of this objection depends upon the construction of the vehicle. Many delivery wagons, express wagons, etc., may be turned easily on an 18 foot pavement. If occasionally a vehicle is compelled to go to the corner to turn, or even to drive around the block, the inconvenience is not very serious, and it is so infrequent as not to justify any considerable expense to prevent it. If the block is long, or if the objection to some vehicles being compelled to drive around the block is considered important, then it is much cheaper to construct a turning place near the center of the block than to build an additional ;trip of pavement the entire length of the street.
The cost of a pavement, per square yard, is practically independent of its width, and therefore the reduction of the width of the pavement on residence streets from 36 or 40 feet to 18 or 20 feet will save nearly 550 per cent of the cost, and if the cost can be reduced one-half, fFie number of paved streets will be increased much more than propor tionally.
It is not wise to take time to discuss the width of pavements on resi dence streets containing car tracks, nor on business streets; but a little investigation will show that in many cases the pavement is considerably wider than has been found entirely satisfactory under similar condi tions. The views here express not mere theory, but are supported by experience in a number of cities. In recent years there has been a marked' tendency, in the middle West at least, to reduce the width of pavements on residence streets and on business streets in the smaller cities. Attention is here called to the matter because far too often the width of the pavement is made a fixed proportion of the total width of the street regardless of the real needs of travel. This is only one of the many ways in which some municipalities suffer from the lack of more competent engineering service—the loss 'frequently being many times the supposed saving.