During recent years the total mileage of all roads has remained practically stationary, but the total mileage of surfaced roads has in creased at the rate of about 15,000 miles per annum. The pioneering work of opening new roads has thus been accomplished; the problems of the present and immediate future are those of maintenance, improvement, relocation and administrative control.
The year 1917 naturally showed a decrease of 5,000 miles from the average rate, due pri marily to war conditions, such as scarcity and high price of labor and materials. The in crease in the cost of road work is conservatively estimated at 50 per cent, so that the continuance of the movement even at the present reduced rate is indicative of its strength and perse verance.
For the years from 1904 to 1916 the expendi tures averaged an annual increase of 12 per cent. And practically every legislative session sees some new and important highway measure enacted, creating new departments and extend ing the powers of those already existent.
From the beginning of the present movement to good roads the total State expenditures, under State laws and State administration, have amounted to about one-third billion of dollars ($307,937,833). The rapid increase of this phase is seen in the growing importance of the State funds both in absolute amount from year to year, and relatively to the amount of local expenditure. The State aid of 1904 was $2, 549,912; of 1913, $37,438,172; and of 1916, $40,969,001. Thus at present approximately 13 per cent of the expenditures on the highways of the country come from the State treasuries.
While at present there is still some $15, 000,000 annually expended in the form of °con vict labor° and °statute labor,° this element seems liable to grow less and the measure of road improvement to be the amount of cash expenditure for skilled labor and direction, It must not be thought, however, that State activity constitutes the Good Roads Movement. Its total volume is as yet relatively small, though concentrated and consequently more spectacu lar and noteworthy. Its truer measure of im portance is the degree to which it constitutes a pace-maker for new ideas and policies in road work. The State and State-aided roads
are practically model-roads, and not the least of the influence of the State highway depart ments has been their advisory and informational activities. The multitudinous local improve ments, too, of the districts, townships and counties on their own initiative and responsi bility constitute in total a vast volume of road betterment.
Nor can private enterprise and efforts be neglected in appraising the total movement. The great new automobile trunk lines, stretch ing between all the great cities, and even con necting coast with coast, are of first-rate im portance, and constitute indeed the most note worthy examples of road-improvement in the country. These, with the many minor through roads which have resulted from the mapping of routes, associated with State and nation wide touring, are most important, yet do not come within the scope of the data given.
Transportation has been from the beginning one of the principal problems of our national life and it has been dealt with energetically and with largeness of vision at every stage. The existing network of highways, canals and rail roads flung across the continent in a century, however imperfect in detail and co-ordination, is a marvelous achievement. Similar large ideas and strenuous efforts are now being put into the Good Roads Movement. The countries of Europe, with whose highways we are accus tomed to compare ours, have had no such con ditions or needs to face. The history of the Good Roads Movement, more especially of recent years, is ample evidence that American road-builders can crown the work of the last century, with a couple of decades of rapid progress toward perfect highways.
For although what is technically known as State aid, and the Good Roads Movement, is not really new, it had its latter day origin in 1891 in New Jersey. Kentucky had early in the last century appropriated as a State money for the support of certain toll roads, and New Hampshire had also extended State aid for certain specified roads, but no co-operative plan between States and their subdivisions (counties, towns, townships) had been thought of, nor did any such appear until the date mentioned.