Roads and Canals Coexisted
Generally, toll roads and toll canals were not in direct competition with each other over the same or nearby routes, and could coexist as elements of an expanding transportation system. Because of their more restrictive grade lines, canals followed more indirect routes and were longer than turnpikes. Passing the boats through the locks was a slow and tedious business. Consequently, average canal speeds seldom exceeded 2 or 3 miles per hour, as compared to 4 to 6 miles per hour on stagecoaches. The coach lines, therefore, got most of the passengers and U.S. mail contracts, and the turnpike freighters retained the short-haul and the fast-freight business. On the other hand, one horse pulling a canal boat could move as much freight as eight 4-horse wagon teams on a road.[N 1] This made for a very low toll rate, so the canals got the heavy freight if the shipper had a choice of carriers.
Only where a very large proportion of the total movement was through freight and the turnpikes and canals had common terminals did they come into direct and damaging competition. This happened when the Erie Canal was opened between Albany and Buffalo in 1825 and the Pennsylvania river-canal navigation system was opened between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh in 1834. In both cases, the heavy freight to and from the Great Lakes and the Ohio Valley switched to the canals and most of the wagon freighters went out of business, but the stagecoach lines continued to prosper. The toll roads consequently suffered a drastic decrease in their total income.
Improved Engineering and Administrative Methods
The toll roads were built by contractors, or by hired laborers supervised by trained roadbuilders. Their construction was thus a notable departure from the long-established feudal custom of building roads with inefficient statute labor directed by amateur supervisors. To meet the standards in their charters, the turnpike companies had to hire people with some understanding of civil engineering to lay the roads out; and, on the whole, the turnpike roads were well located, and well built.
The earlier turnpikes were paved according to the recommendations of J. P. M. Trésaguet, Director General of the French roads from 1775 to 1785, with whose work educated Americans, such as Benjamin Franklin, were well acquainted. Trésaguet insisted on an adequate right-of-way for his roads and provided generous side ditches to carry away surface water that might otherwise stand on the road and soften it. On a crowned and rolled subgrade, his roadbuilders placed a layer of heavy foundation stones, laid on edge, with the interstices packed solidly with smaller stones rammed in place by hammering. Above this course, by hand, they placed successive layers of broken stone, course by course, compacted and filled so that the stones interlocked with each other. The top 3 inches were of hard, specially selected stone, broken with hammers to walnut-size at the quarry and hauled to the road to form the wearing course.[2]
The carriageways of Trésaguet’s roads were 18 feet wide and about 10 inches thick. Most of the early American turnpikes were at least this wide, a common width being 20 feet. The Lancaster Pike was at least 24 feet throughout and in places even wider.
Trésaguet’s greatest contribution to highway administration was his insistence on prompt and incessant maintenance of every mile of road by trained and adequately paid workmen. The system of maintenance he established made France’s roads the best in the world for two generations.
Laying stone foundation in Massachusetts. Although macadam roads were in use, as late as 1898 the Tresaguet roadbuilding method could be found.
After about 1820, the ideas of the Scotsman, John L. McAdam, who was responsible for the good roads around Bristol, England, dominated American road building. McAdam didn’t believe in massive foundation courses—he asserted that the native soil, alone,
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