BARRETT—NOTES ON THE ROAD  QUESTION.
 

61
 

NOTES ON THE ROAD QUESTION.
 

By E. E. Barrett, '93, Civil Engineering Course.
 

A great deal has been said concerning the roads of Illinois, but
in the voluminous literature on the question nothing has ever been
given as to the amouni actually collected for road improvement. By
correspondence with a large number of county clerks in all parts of
the state, an endeavor has been made to obtain the approximate
amount collected in Illinois per year for road purposes.

The amounts collected in the counties given in Table I below
are assumed to be fairly representative of that collected in the various
counties throughout the state.

TABLE   I.

Road and Bridge Tax Collected iis 1892 iisr Ten Representative
Counties of Illinois.
 

No.
 

Counties.
 

Area in
Square
Miles.
 

Cash Tax.
 

Tax Per

Square

Mile.
 

Average
OF Rates
Per $100 in
the sever¬
AL T'w'p's.
 

Labor
Tax.
 

1

2
3
4
5
 

Champaign.............

Christian.............

Douglas.................

Madison ................

McDonough.  ........

McLean...............

Pike.....................

Rock Island .........

Stark....................

Whiteside............
 

976
700
410
696
561
1154
800
414
280
675
 

$43 270.97
25 009.27
25 025.52
36 558.91
 

$44.33
35.71
61.03
52.52
 

54.2  ct

35.3    '
60.5   '
42.3   '

41.0    '
44.5   '
41.8   '
51.75 '

57.1    '
46.5   '
 

3.
 

$6 106.07
5 980.72
 

6

7
8
9
 

56 767.59
23 002.02
11867.73
17 872.30-
36 238.68
 

49.92
26.25
28.66
63.83
53.68
 


 

10
 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 

MEAN
 

146.20
 

47.5 cts.
 


 

The writer was uuable to obtain the amount of labor tax col¬
lected in 1892 in any of the counties excepting Champaign and
Christian, as shown in Table I. These counties probably represent
very closely the amount of labor tax collected in the various counties
of the state. If the labor system of taxation cauld be entirely done
away with and the road tax collected in money only, much more
good could be accomplished, even with the limited means now avail¬
able for road improvement.

In 1892 the State Board of Equalization gave $831 310 306 as
the equalized value of assessable property in Illinois. Assuming
47.5 cents per $100, the average of the several counties in Table T,