Students should be encouraged to enter State road work as their life occupation, and it should be made an honor and a credit to belong to such an organization, and assurance given that promotions will be made for honesty and efficiency.

Without a proper cost-keeping and accounting system, to be applied uniformly on all State and county road work, it is impossible and useless to suggest improvements in our present system.

Maintenance and Repair of Improved Highways-Organization, System and Method

By Fred W. Sarr, Deputy State Highway Commissioner of New York

In accepting the proposal to prepare and read to you a paper on the aforesaid subject, I did so on the assumption that it was the desire of the promoters or directors of this conference to have presented a paper on the general subject of maintenance of improved highways as an exemplification of the practice of the New York State Highway Department.

I accordingly believed that preliminary to the general subject, it would be in order to briefly outline what New York State has done and is now doing in highway improvement and maintenance.

Chapter 115, Laws of 1898, authorized the improvement of highways at the joint expense of the state, county and town, the state to pay fifty per cent, the county thirty-five per cent and the town fifteen per cent of the total cost of the work including engineering.

The initiative of a project lay with the town which would petition the county, and the county should it concur, would through the board of supervisors petition the State to improve a section of highway of varying length.

Complete and full authority for handling the work for the State was given to the State Engineer and Surveyor, a constitutional officer of the State.

As the petitions were received the State Engineer proceeded to make surveys, prepare plans and estimates of cost of the individual section of highways, and submit the same back to the board of supervisors, who would again act on the proposition and if the same was approved, would appropriate and make available fifty per cent of the estimated cost of the work; the county collecting the fifteen per cent from the town at any time within its discretion.

As fast as the plans for the various projects were approved and the money voted for the county and town's share of the expense, the project was placed on a waiting list and given the

next consecutive number, and the work finally progressed when the legislature appropriated funds for the State's share of the expense.

The projects accumulated faster than the appropriations were made by the legislature until the list was about three or four years ahead of the appropriation.

It was then proposed to bond the State for highway improvement, in order to obtain the improvement of the highways quicker than seemed to be possible by direct appropriation.

Accordingly the people voted at the general election in 1905 to bond the state for $50,000,000.00 for highway improvement and provided that the same should be equitably distributed among the counties.

Up to this time there was very little effort being made toward an ultimate connected and completed system, simply a case of individual effort on the part of a town supervisor.

As a step in the direction of some restriction of the location of future improvements, the legislature of 1906 provided for the preparation of a map of each county upon which all the highways of the county should be outlined, and the main market roads indicated, to which future improvement work should be restricted.

These maps were approved by the legislature of 1907, and have provided the layout or system of roads for future improvement in each county, insofar as county highways are concerned.

After the authorization of the bond issue highway improvement work increased rapidly.

In 1907 the legislature appointed a committee to investigate the workings of all classes of highway improvement and maintenance acts, and report back to the next session, recommending new legislation.

The legislature of 1908 repealed all former highway legislation covering a period of over 100 years, and enacted a new complete law covering all highway matters, this act being designated the Highway Law, which provided for the organization of a state highway department under the direction

of a commission of three members, one of which should be of the same political faith as the party casting the next highest number of votes at the last general election (a nonpartisan commission).

This law also designated and described certain through routes as State highways which would be improved at the entire expense of the State, and which, with other highways which had been indicated on the approved county map, would be improved at the joint expense of the State, county and town.

This law also provided that the improved State and county highways would be maintained by the State department at the expense of the State, except that each town should pay a maintenance tax of $50.00 per mile per year. Previous to 1909 the improved highways were neglected by the town authorities who were then charged with their maintenance. Also providing many important changes in the laws governing town highway management and proper supervision by the State Department.

In January, 1909, the Governor appointed the new State Highway Commission, which took over the highway improvement work from the State Engineer, organized a maintenance bureau under a deputy to the Commissioner, also organized a bureau for supervision of the town work under a second deputy.

In 1911 the legislature abolished the nonpartisan commission of three, and provided for a partisan commission of one active commissioner with two other State officers acting in an advisory or consulting capacity.

In 1913 the law was again amended to provide for one commissioner with full power to act as a commission with three deputies, one for each of the three bureaus-construction or improvement, maintenance of improved highways, and supervision of town highway work. This law with slight amendments is now in force.

Notwithstanding the provisions of the referendum, that the $50,000,000.00 bond issue should be equitably apportioned among the counties, the legislatures of 1911 and 1912 expe

dited the improvement of certain described through-State routes in their entirety, by appropriating large slices of the bond issue for the purpose, and the balance of bond issue was soon obligated, and in 1912 a second bond issue of $50,000,000.00 was submitted to the people and voted, the referendum setting forth the amount that each county should receive, based on a supposedly equitable apportionment, and about threefifths of this last bond issue has been obligated by contracts.

The State Highway Department as now constituted is made up of fifteen statutory officers and about 1,500 clerical and engineering employees.

The statutory officers are Commissioner, three Deputy Commissioners, Secretary, Auditor and nine Division Engineers.

For the past three years the Department has been expending per year about eight millions for construction from the bond issue, four millions for maintenance of improved State and county highways and two millions in State aid to the towns, the latter two funds being provided by direct appropriation.

When the State took over the maintenance of the improved highways in 1909, there were about 1,900 miles of improved macadam and gravel highways, a large percentage of which showed serious deterioration by want of proper maintenance by the town authorities, which necessitated resurfacing with a new layer of macadam or the reconstruction of a different and more stable and permanent type of pavement, all of which has been a charge against maintenance, and of necessity has swelled the charge out of all proportion with the amount which would ordinarily be required to maintain the highways, providing they are efficiently maintained from the date of improvement.

During the past season there has been approximately 6,000 miles of improved highways maintained at a cost of about $4,200,000.00, of which about thirty-five per cent has been expended on resurfacing or reconstructing about four per cent of the entire mileage, and sixty-five per cent on general maintenance of ninety-six per cent of the mileage.