Items of Interest October 25, 1913 Issue

Items of Interest

In the state legislation and road management session of the third annual American road congress at Detroit, Mich., allotted to the American Bar Association, the convention of five thousand delegates pressing for good highways in the United States heard an address on "The Recent International Road Congress in London, and Observations of French and English Road Systems," made by Col. William D. Sohier, chairman of the Massachusetts highway commission. He said in part: "I would not discourage any good road movement in this country, but we must go at it in a proper and equipped manner, and know what our problem is before we tackle it, then proceed in a business-like manner to build our roads. The money cannot be provided nor the roads built at once. If we are to secure good roads, we must all join hands, the town, the city, the county, the state, and possibly the nation also, but it must be upon a carefully prepared plan made by competent engineers, after a full study of the whole problem. Only by cooperation can our country secure any comprehensive highway development within the next twenty-five years."

Progress is being made on the construction of a toll highway that is to run from Fort Worth to Del Rio, Texas, a distance of approximately five hundred miles. The first twenty miles of the new road has been finished. The motorway is being built by a private corporation called the Texas Motorway Company. As an aid to the enterprise the property holders along the route are required to donate two thousand dollars in cash per mile and right of way. Because of the fact that the route of the highway is through a region of the state that is now lacking railroad transportation facilities and that every mile of constructed motorway will greatly add to the value of the abutting land, no difficulty has been experienced in obtaining this support. It is estimated that the motorway will cost an average of about five thousand dollars per mile.

The blowing up of the Gamboa dike in the Culebra cut of the Panama canal, at two o'clock, Oct. 10, released the last artificial barrier that prevented the waters which join ocean and ocean from mingling. The electric circuit which fired the dynamite charges was closed by President Wilson in Washington. The first lockage at the Pacific end of the canal occurred four days later, when the tug Miraflores, three barges, and two other craft were raised together through the west flight of the Miraflores locks from the Pacific entrance of the canal to the surface of the Miraflores lakes, 36.82 feet above sea-level.

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