Highways and Highway Transportation

The cover image has been created for this text, and is in the public domain. HIGHWAYS AND HIGHWAY TRANSPORTATION Major Hamilton Maxwell Underwood and Underwood STORM KING HIGHWAY A Great Engineering Project Along the Hudson between Cornwall and West Point, N. Y. HIGHWAYS AND HIGHWAY TRANSPORTATION BY GEORGE R. CHATBURN, A.M., C.E. Professor of Applied Mechanics and Machine Design Lecturer on Highway Engineering The University of Nebraska NEW YORK THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY PUBLISHERS Copyright 1923, by THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY Printed in the United States of America PREFACE The following pages on Highways and Highway Transportation do not pretend to be an exhaustive treatise on the subject, but rather a glimpse of the vast development of the humble road and its office as an agency for transportation. Possibly the grandeur of the mountains is best appreciated by one who lives among them, who climbs their acclivitous heights, who daily experiences their power and majesty, and measures their magnitude by grim muscular exertion. But, even so, it would be foolish to contend that he who gets his information from the seat of a Pullman car receives no benefit from the hasty glimpse, or, that his imagination is not quickened and cultured by the experience. In writing this book, then, I have had constantly in mind the myriads of people who have not the time, and possibly not the facilities, to search the pages of the literature of the past for the origin and development, or to work out their present importance, of our amplification of roads and of road uses. It is felt that many of these people laudably desire a conversational knowledge of the origin, evolution and present status of highway transportation, even though it be glimpsed by a very rapid passage through a very large subject. The primary objects have therefore been, to sketch briefly and simply the development of the transportation systems of the United States, to indicate their importance and mutual relations, to present some practical methods used in the operation of highway transport and to make occasional suggestions for the betterment of the road as a usable machine for the benefit and pleasure of mankind. Any observations made or conclusions drawn are purely personal. I entered into and have carried on the work entirely unbiased. I am not financially or otherwise, except academically, interested in any firm or company whose business has to…