taking of a traffic census on various roads to determine the amount of through traffic; furnishing speakers to public meetings to explain the work and purpose of the commission; the building, under the direction of the state highway engineer, of experimental roads of various kinds, such as macadam, oiltreated earth, concrete, and brick; the distribution of free crushed stone prepared at the state penitentiaries; and giving advice and furnishing plans and specifications for bridges, especially of reënforced concrete or of steel, the number of which grew markedly under their influence. Public opinion in favor of better roads as evidenced in the utterances of representative organizations showed a steady growth. The farmers, who were the most conservative element, fell in line gradually. In 1907 there was organized the "Farmers' Good Roads League of Illinois," which favored the construction of permanent hard roads on the main routes of traffic by federal and state aid.35 County control of road work was being urged by the state highway commission, and in 1910 the Illinois Farmers' Institute indorsed the establishment of larger units for road administration, bond issues for road improvement, and larger appropriations for the commission. The State Grange, the most conservative of all the organizations, advocated a complete system of improved roads for the state, to be built by federal, state, and county aid, and the levying of an automobile tax to provide a fund for road improvement.36 By 1912 it was clear that the bankers, business men, and progressive farmers throughout the state were in favor of state aid for road improvement and of a revision of the road laws of the state as the first step in the movement for better roads. In this movement the more general and growing use of the automobile was an important factor. Road legislation was keeping pace with the growth of public opinion. In 1907 bond issues for hard roads were authorized by law, more restrictions were placed upon the powers of local 85 Report of the Illinois Highway Commission, 1907, p. 15. highway commissioners in the repair and maintenance of roads, and a road drag law was passed permitting systematic dragging of earth roads. In 1911 a wide tire law was passed and a law appropriating all automobile license fees as a "road fund" for the construction of improved highways. In the same year the appropriations for the state highway commission were increased from twenty-five to one hundred thousand dollars per annum. A bill to create the office of county superintendent of highways failed to become law.37 Before taking further steps the legislature thought it wise to investigate the road situation even more thoroughly than had been done, and in 1910 a legislative committee of seven was appointed for this purpose. Their report showed the bad conditions existing in the state 38 and was followed by the appointment of another committee in 1911 with instructions to revise the road laws of the state and present their recommendations in the form of a bill. This committee reported that only about ten per cent of the ninety-five thousand miles of road in the state were improved in a permanent manner, while in the neighboring state of Indiana the proportion was thirty-eight per cent and in Massachusetts it was fifty per cent.39 The roads of Illinois were moreover poorly constructed and maintained, and there was no uniformity in the road work as between adjacent townships and counties, that is there were no through roads. The committee made a most exhaustive report and embodied their conclusions in the form of a bill which was passed in 1913 under the name of the Tice road law.40 The Tice road law provided for a state highway department of three salaried commissioners, and a state highway engineer with assistant, subordinate officials, clerks, and other 37 Laws of 1911, p. 106, 498-500; Senate Journal, 1912, special session, 4. 38 House Journal, 1911, 690-693. 39 This was an improvement since 1906, when ninety-five per cent of the roads were earth roads. See Report of the Illinois Highway Commission, 1906, p. v; House Journal, 1913, 207. 40 Printed as part of House Journal, 1913, 1494-1575, and also issued as a separate publication. The accompanying bill is found, in ibid., 1576-1617; Laws of 1913, p. 520-581. assistants; it also provided for county superintendents of highways, state aid for the improvement of the more important roads in the counties, the use of convict labor, the reduction in the width of all public roads from sixty-six to forty feet, and the election of three highway commissioners in each township or road district. A provision was also inserted to permit the optional election of a single highway commissioner for local road administration, but political forces were too strong for this to be made mandatory for all counties. Generous support was given by the general assembly to the new movement for improved roads. For the expenses of the new state highway commission $100,000 per annum was appropriated, while for the construction of state aid roads $400,000 was allotted for the fiscal year 1914 and $700,000 for 1915. The automobile license fees were to be used as a nucleus for this state aid fund. The next general assembly raised the annual appropriations for expenses to $200,000, and for road construction to $1,000,000 for the years beginning July 1, 1915 and 1916. The appropriations for the next biennium were $346,060 and $1,200,000 respectively.41 Some delay occurred in carrying out the provisions of the new law, owing to a suit brought to test its constitutionality, but it was upheld by the state supreme court. Actual work on the proposed system of state aid roads was inaugurated on April 15, 1914, when Governor Dunne turned the first shovelful of earth on the improvement of the Aurora-Elgin highway, reported to have been the first state aid road in the state. During the year the state highway commission awarded contracts for seventy-four sections of state aid road, aggregating 91.27 miles, of which 73.56 were of concrete and 17.71 of brick.42 The average price of the concrete was $10,320 per mile, and of the brick $11,880 for a ten-foot pavement. Four-foot macadam shoulders on each side raised the cost $1,760 a mile. The highway commission estimated the cost of building the pro 41 Laws of 1913, p. 42; Laws of 1915, p. 76. 42 Engineering News, 71:993; 72:1190. posed 15,000 miles of improved roads at $140,000,000 or slightly over $9,000 a mile. It was evident therefore that with the limited appropriations for state aid, generous as they were, only very slow progress could be made in carrying out the proposed program for improved roads. Under the plan as provided for, the state bears one-half the expense of construction of road surfaces, all the cost of maintenance of concrete or brick roads, half the cost of maintenance of macadam roads, and none of that of earth roads.43 Two counties, Cook and Vermilion, realizing the slow progress of road improvement under the state aid plan, voted, at the general election in November, 1914, for bond issues of their own for this purpose. Vermilion county voted a bond issue of $1,500,000 for a system of improved highways all over the county, the construction of which has since been in progress. It now has completed or under construction about 170 miles of brick and concrete roads. Cook county voted a bond issue of $2,000,000 and up to January 1, 1917, had completed about 70 miles of improved roads, by the sale of bonds and state aid, and planned to build over 80 miles additional during the year 1917.45 By the enactment of the civil administrative code by the general assembly in 1917, which went into effect July 1 of that year, the department of public works and buildings was created. This now exercises the powers and duties of the state highway commission, the canal commissioners, the rivers and lakes commission, the waterway commission, and other similar bodies. Under the director of public works and buildings there are a superintendent of highways, a chief highway engineer, an assistant highway engineer, the necessary subordinate and clerical forces, and an unpaid board of highway advisors. The centralization of powers and functions thus secured will undoubtedly 43 Laws of 1915, p. 602. To build the proposed fifteen thousand miles of state aid road would cost one hundred and fifty million dollars at an average of ten thousand dollars a mile. If the state bore half of this it would take seventyfive years to carry through the program with annual appropriations of one million dollars a year. **Engineering News, 74: 1079. 45 Chicago Tribune, January 28, 1917. promote the work of road improvement and secure greater efficiency and economy in the public works of the state. In 1917 steps were also taken to obtain larger means to carry forward the work of "pulling Illinois out of the mud." An act of congress passed in July, 1916, had apportioned the sum of $85,000,000 among the states to be spent for public roads during the five years beginning with 1917; and of this sum Illinois would receive about $3,000,000. During this year the general assembly of Illinois voted to submit to popular vote the question of issuing $60,000,000 of state bonds for road improvement, the proposition to be voted upon at the November election of 1918.46 The participation by the United States in the European war, however, will prevent the immediate carrying out of this program, even in the event of a favorable vote. The development of public sentiment in favor of improved roads in the state of Illinois, as elsewhere, has been slow but steady. It was hampered by ignorance of the principles of road construction, especially on the types of soil to be found in the state, by the distance of many localities from supplies of stone or other material for hard road building, by lack of familiarity with the physical conditions of road maintenance and of the effect of climatic changes, and by lack of appreciation of the economic value of improved highways to a community. As in other great economic movements, prejudice and conflicting interests for a time retarded development, but at the end of twenty-five years distinct progress may be noted, not merely in the growth of a favorable public opinion, but in better road legislation and in actual road construction. To this end the advent of the automobile and its increasing use among the farmers of the state both for pleasure and business purposes has contributed largely. The importance of the work of the state highway commission as an educational and experimental agency can scarcely be overestimated. But the time for such a movement in Illinois was ripe. The growing population with its 46 Laws of 1917, p. 714-716. |