e West the roads
were laid out on section lines at the time of the original surveys and
their location has never been changed. One who has grown up in that
section feels a sort of pride in the straight roads and looks askance at
the crooked roads of the East, but as a matter of fact the latter are in
many cases much better located as regards their utility, for they were
laid out to reach certain centers by the most direct route. On the other
hand, the location of the village centers of the Middle West was largely
determined by the railroad stations, and the roads were located without
regard to them. As a result it is almost always necessary to traverse
two sides of a square in order to reach the community center. This
means that such a route is forty percent longer from the corners of the
community than it would be by a straight line. This was bad enough with
dirt roads, and if all the roads could be hard-surfaced, the automobile
would, of course, lessen the time required for travel. It is, however,
economically impossible to improve all minor roads and with the high
cost of macadam, concrete, brick, or other hard-surface, not only for
original cost but for upkeep, it seems absurd to continue to build the
main roads on rectangular lines rather than by the shortest route
between the most-traveled points. The saving in cost of construction and
maintenance would much more than pay for the cost of all land which it
would be necessary to condemn for their right-of-way, and the saving in
time and cost of transportation for the whole community would amount to
a large sum every year. Far too little attention has been given by road
engineers to community planning, and with the vast sums which are now
being expended by the federal, state and county governments on permanent
roads, it is of the utmost importance that this matter of road location
with regard to directness of access to the community centers should
receive much more careful study and better supervision by all the
authorities concerned, not only with regard to topography, but with
regard to the social and economic welfare of the areas concerned. The
newer sections of the country, and particularly western Canada, have
become aware of this lack of economy in road location and are giving it
consideration. In a report on Rural Planning and Development prepared
for the Canadian Commission on Conservation, Mr. Thomas Adams, the town
planning adviser of the commission, has outl