Modern cities : progress of the awakening for their betterment here and in Europe / by Horatio M. Pollock and William S. Morgan.

  • Horatio Milo Pollock
Date:
1913
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Modern cities : progress of the awakening for their betterment here and in Europe / by Horatio M. Pollock and William S. Morgan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    57/476 (page 35)
    involve great expense. It follows therefore that they should be planned to meet the requirements in any particular case. The construction of broad paved streets where they are unnecessary is ahnost as serious a mistake as the construction of narrow streets where the traffic requires broad ones. The principal thoroughfares of a city should be wide enough to carry easily all the traffic which will pass over them. The minor business streets can be made narrower and the paved part of residence streets still narrower. No fixed general rules can be set dovTi as to the desirable width of streets, but as street pavement itself adds nothing to the beauty or value of a city and is costly to con- struct and maintain, it is clear it should not be laid if not necessary. In residence sections the plan of having a narrow macadam roadway with wide grass plots in front of the houses on each side is a most excellent one. This method of construction is not expensive and permits the paved portion of the street to be widened in case conditions in the city change so as to require it. The tendency in most cities has been to make the paved surface of the street wider than nec- essary and to build the houses close to the side- walk. This system of construction is unneces- sarily expensive and is unsatisfactory from an esthetic and sanitary standpoint. The actual consti-uction of streets is not usu- [35]