The Augusta Courier

GEORGIA HIGHWAY DEPARTMENT HITTING STRIDE

MORE MONEY MORE COMPETENT PERSONNEL IS NEEDED

Increasing Truck Passenger Needs Demand First Class Roads In State

The Georgia State Highway Department is beginning to go to town.

They advise that as of November 6, 1951, they have let to contract five thousand, six hundred and seventy miles of roads since November 1, 1948. These contracts were either for the construction or reconstruction of State highways and farm-to-market roads.

Thus in a period of three years the State Highway Department has begun to make progress. During this three-year period the Highway Department has either spent or contracted to spend $76,195,393.51 on this construction program.

In addition the Highway Department has let contracts during this period for the construction of 360 bridges making a total of 11 miles of bridges at a total cost of $16,555,301.64.

So during this three-year period the State Highway Department has spent $92,750,695.15 for building roads and bridges.

In addition the Highway Department has furnished during this time $2,214,393.86 to complete roads under construction at the time Governor Talmadge took office in November, 1948.

While carrying on this construction program the Highway Department during this three-year period has spent $18,442,017.54 in maintaining the roads already constructed.

So in three years this State Highway Department has either built or let to contract roads costing a total of $94,965,089.01.

When this is added to the amount spent for maintenance the Highway Department has spent or contracted to spend a total of $113,407,106.55 during the period of three years ending on November 6, 1951.

The State Highway Department's budget has averaged $37,802,368.85 for each of these three years.

$10,400,000.00 of this amount has been furnished by the Federal Government and the balance by the State Government.

As compared with this expenditure the State of North Carolina is now spending more than $135,000,000 a year for construction and maintenance.

Even the State of South Carolina has been spending much more money than Georgia.

So with a very small budget the State has either constructed or now has under contract 5,670 miles of roads in the State of Georgia.

This is more than one-half of the ten thousand miles which Governor Talmadge promised to build during his term of office. Talmadge still has three years and two months more to go before his term of office expires and during that term the Highway Department should do a much better job than they have done in the past.

Increasing Truck Passenger Needs Demand First Class Roads In State

The Department will have a better opportunity in the future because while in the past their total budget has been approximately thirty-seven million dollars a year, their budget in the future will be in excess of fifty million dollars.

If the budget can be maintained at not less than fifty million dollars for the next three years the Highway Department ought to be able to do a much better job than they have done the past three years.

Talmadge is serving a six-year term and is now half-way along towards the conclusion of that term. The Highway Department has made an excellent record with its very limited funds during this first three-year period.

This record has been made under difficult circumstances. They have had very limited finances in comparison with the big job which they have had to do, and on account of the past politics in the Department they have lacked for a sufficient number of competent and efficient engineers.

Instead of graduate engineers the Highway Department in many instances is limping along with its construction program with practical engineers who got their experience with surveying crews and acting as inspectors on construction jobs.

The engineering force is now under the merit system and the Department ought to be able to attract into its service more competent men than at the present.

Top engineers complain that they only have just a few engineers in each division and they are handicapped in their work on account of the lack of trained, competent personnel.

While the State Highway Department is assured of at least a fifty million dollar budget for the next few years this budget will not be large enough.

The State ought to be building roads twice as fast as we have built them during the past three years. It took a thirty-seven million dollar budget to do what we have done during the past three years and if the program is completed it will take not less than seventy million dollars a year to carry on the work. So at last the Highway Department is beginning to move. It is beginning to make a show of the work that it has done and it is beginning to deserve credit for the splendid job which it has done.

But we have just scratched the surface in Georgia on road building.

Our principal highways are out of date and need widening and rebuilding.

We still have thousands of miles of secondary and farm-to-market roads to build.

As a matter of fact we have been building roads too slow. We have been creeping at a snail's pace and it is time to get into at least a slow dog trot.

But to do so it is going to take more money and a more competent personnel in the way of engineers and trained road builders.

Georgia's business is now done principally over the highways and we are dependent more and more on the highways.

If we expect to develop Georgia's resources as we should we are going to need many more thousands of miles of modern day highways.

Better highways are an absolute necessity. We are killing people by the thousands in Georgia on our highway system. This is due to the fact that our highways are out of date and not safe for modern day travel.

A modern road system will not only aid our economic development but will save enough lives to pay for its construction.