Vol.46, No. I HEAD OFFICE: , JANUARY 1965 Our Highwaysand Our

WE HAVE COME TO ACCEPT trafficas a normal Montreal.By the summerof 1735a carriagecould be conditionof ourway of life,but we keeprunning into drivenbetween Montreal and Quebecin four and a totallyunexpected experiences with it everynew year. halfdays. Thereare millionsof complicatedvehicles proceed- An Act of the firstParliament of UpperCanada in ingin alldirections under the impulse of up to three 1793 placedall roadsin whatis now Ontariounder hundredhorsepower. They can travelat a hundred the supervisionof overseerswho werecalled path- milesan hour,but are lucky if theyaverage forty. They masters.The Act alsorequired everyone to workfrom run on roadsthat are neveradequate to accommodate threeto twelvedays on theroads using his own tools. thembut whichcost as muchas waginga war. The firstgovernment appropriation for roadsin the provincewas made in 1804,amounting to £1,000. Thecar itself is a blessing,not an evil.It is among themost valuable tools of livingthat man has invented. Therewas a revolutionarychange in roadbuilding It hasproven itself an adaptableand efficient servant in 1835,when the firstplank road in NorthAmerica in the movementof goodsand people.The highways wasbuilt east of Toronto.Two yearslater the on whichthe carsrun arenot unproductive.They have from Kingstonto Napaneewas macadamized. immenselyincreased the total stock of landin active The Red Rivercart, a smalllow conveyancewith useby bringingit withinreach of people. solid wheelssawed from the ends of trees whose Submissionsto the RoyalCommission on ’s diameterwas about three feet, carried the road prob- EconomicProspects estimated that by 1975three out lem intothe prairies.Highway building reached the of everyfour Canadians will live in a city,that every Pacificwhen gold was discoveredin the Caribooin secondCanadian will drivea motorcar, and that 1860, and the Cariboo Road, the "Great North seventyper cent of alltravel will be on citystreets. Road",was constructedunder supervision of theRoyal Eventoday, with six millionmotor vehicles registered Engineers. in Canada,and a ratioof 4.1 personsper car,prac- It is truethat up untilthe beginning of thenine- ticallythe only persons who walk any distance regularly teenthcentury the speed of travelwas no betterthan are thosewho seekexercise. thatof theancients, a horse pace. But whenimprove- But,as Hon.Dr. F. W. Rowesaid in hispresidential mentsstarted, they came fast. Labert St. Clair points reviewof the work of the CanadianGood RoadsAs- out in his bookTransportation that every major im- sociationat thejubilee convention: "We may wellhave provementexisting today except the airplanewas reachedthe pointwhere the benevolenceof the auto- perfectedduring the life of QueenVictoria, from mobileis beingnullified by itsmalevolence." 1819to 1901,and she missedseeing the airplaneby onlytwo years. Canada’s highways Then came the automobile The storyof the developmentof roadsin Canada is toldin detailin a bookpublished in 1954by the The firstcomplete and workablegasoline-propelled Departmentof Citizenshipand Immigration,called car was made by Karl Benz of Germany,and display Our TransportationServices. of a Benzcar at the ChicagoWorld’s Fair in 1893was responsiblefor the start of theautomobile manufactur- The firstgraded road in Canadawas builtin 1606 ingbusiness in theUnited States. underthe directionof Champlain.It was a military road,ten or twelvemiles long, through Annapolis By 1907there were 2,131 motor vehicles registered Countyin NovaScotia. The firstroad in New France in six provincesof Canada:Nova Scotia 63; was builtby De Courcellesin 1665from Chambly to 254;Ontario 1,530; Saskatchewan 54; Alberta55, and BritishColumbia 175. The otherprovinces had none lemof rapidtran