1984

What? Paved Roads?

As I sit here writing this article, the morning after our first light snow of the year, I hear the cars whirring along the paved country road and the card on the dirt road whine with spinning wheels. How can anyone not want paved roads? The fact is, as many as forth percent of Granger’s residents do not want paved roads. Some believe paving and maintaining paved roads is too expensive, others use expense as an excuse. If you can do basic math, you know the dirt roads actually cost much more than paved roads, as will be shown later. A few people are honest enough to come right out and say they think paved roads would alter the freedom and beauty they find and prize in Granger. Perhaps they are right. With such a possibility, why even discuss road paving?

Granger is one of the poorest towns in Allegany County and is getting relatively poorer each year. Even if you did not know the history of Granger, you need only look around you to see the story of economic decline. There are virtually dozens of abandoned fields reverting to the wild. You can see as many as a dozen abandoned houses decaying to nothing. Most of the houses in town are obviously in a poorer state of repair than in many other towns around. What you cannot see are the many houses already decayed beyond any trace except perhaps a grown over foundation. For example, there is now no readily visible evidence that the center of Short Tract was once up the hill to the East of the present town. Short Tract was then just as populated as Fillmore. The county built the new paved road through the lower edge of town and that is the part of town which survived.

Dirt roads have been a major consistent contributor to Granger’s long term gradual decline. Property values of all but the poorest properties are largely controlled by how a buyer can finance the purchase. Banks will loan less for a property on a dirt road than they will for a similar property on a paved road. Yet the owner has to pay the same for building materials and services. Some owners find they cannot get their repair money back upon sale or perhaps cannot borrow more money needed for repair and let the property go down hill. At some point the house is no longer livable and is abandoned. Sometimes a faulty chimney saves the day for an owner. With difficulty in maintaining a property, do you think you could finance a new house? Or course not, and that is why new houses on our dirt roads are as plentiful as hens teeth.

The value of property increases by thousands of dollars as the paving equipment works its way past. In many cases this is enough to turn an old relic into an easily financed good investment. The property is also considered by the people who would not even look on a dirt road.

Not considering the dust and inconvenience, it also costs more to live on a dirt road. With increased auto maintenance, more rapid depreciation and increased gas consumption it costs at least 300 to 500 dollars a year more to drive a dirt road regularly. This does not take into account the 2 to 4 days a year of lost work, usually do to more severe icing and inability to get to a paved road. Nor does it take into account the lost farm revenue due to lack of pick-up and delivery. It even ignores the half dozen days a year the school bus makes no attempt to leave the paved roads. Because of inflation you cannot calculate the added tax burden due to those abandoned houses. Some people even insist on solving the problem with a 4-wheel drive. Have you checked the price and operating costs of a 4 x 4?

If having a paved road can save $300 a property that is a savings of about $2100 a year for a mile of road. There are 50 miles of road and about 375 taxpayers. You figure it. How much can paving cost and what does it do to taxes?

Towns in our area have been paying about $12,000 a mile to pave roads. They get about $9,000 of that reimbursed for a net cost of $3,000 a mile to the town. Those roads have practically no maintenance for at least five years and have lower maintenance costs than we now pay after that. This assumes the road is properly built with good drainage and a solid road bed of 6 to 8 inches or more. At present, maintenance costs Granger $1320 a mile after all aid is subtracted. If we assume snow removal costs the same as other repairs (a harsh assumption), paved roads would reduce annual maintenance by $770 a year per mile of paved road for at least five years. The savings is $3850. At the end of five years each mile of paved road would have paid for itself and reduced highway costs at least 20% for the highway which is paved. Surely something else would soak up the savings, but the increase of taxes might be smaller.

While paving is a good investment with almost 100% yield each year, it is a high initial investment. Each mile paved would increase the local highway tax by almost 5%. That is somewhat less than $10 per taxpayer. We would probably have to limit ourselves to one mile a year and then perhaps get ambitious and go 2 miles a year after many people are getting the benefits.

Where the Hells is Short Tract?

This popular response to the citizens of Short Tract has generated a substantial amount of business for our local store. While this cliché seems appropriate to the casual observer, the history and vibrancy of our community deserves better treatment.

Short Tract’s story is a fascinating one. It’s a poignant reminder of the oft told story of the early stages in America’s development; backwoodsman, pioneer farmer, craftsman. The village was named for William Short, who purchased a large tract of land from the Ogden family in what was to become the township of Granger.

The town was formed from part of the Morris Reserve. During the early 1800’s the area that was to become Granger belonged to other townships: Grove, Nunda and Portage. When the town was formed from Grove, it was known as West Grove. It was named Granger in honor of Postmaster Francis Granger in 1839.

The first settlement was started in present day Short Tract, by Reuben Smith. He and several other men came to the area in 1816. This was a year in which many Easterners moved to the frontier. The summer of 1816 was a disaster for many farmers because of the erratic weather. Historians call it the year without a summer. Undoubtedly, Smith and his associates had been affected.

Soon after these backwoodsmen/pioneer farmers arrived in Short Tract, ministers, artisan/farmers and men of letter arrived and widened the scope of our community. The first building erected for business was a saw mill, built in 1823 by a carpenter named Issac Van Nostrand. By the 1840’s a school, church and grist mill were operating. In 1855 the NYS Legislature granted a provisional charter to Union Academy in the Town of Granger. By 1880 our town was in its heyday. It sported three stores, two churches, a cheese factory, two wagon shops, three blacksmith shops, a school house and a spacious town hall.

As America entered the twentieth century the primary economy thrived with farming, lumbering and mining. A secondary economy of manufacturing had its major impetus in the Civil War and became pre-eminent by the 1920’s. It made America the world’s number one economy, but it also changed what was up to then a rural America.

As we moved toward the end of this century, America’s economy is again changing; from a secondary economy to a tertiary or third stage (computers, electronics and service). Since such an economy doesn’t require a concentration of people in urban areas, as does the secondary economy, areas such as ours are beginning to grow. Our town now has more businesses (16 plus) than it has had in the past fifty years.

As America continues to decentralize, areas such as ours with the natural beauty intact, will act as magnets to people seeking a life style similar to the one we now enjoy.

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