A definite, nation-wide, coordinated highway system has been established. Highway construction by the Federal Government, States, and other political subdivisions has been stimulated to a degree far in excess of the actual Federal funds appropriated. State highway departments having a trained personnel and centralized authority have been established in all States, and higher administrative and engineering standards have been developed; and Whereas the appropriations thus far made have been wisely expended by the Bureau of Public Roads in cooperation with the States; and Whereas the three-year program of appropriations and construction as now established by law terminates on June 30, 1925; and Whereas this continuity of policy and construction can only be insured by the Congress of the United States, now in session, taking suitable action during the present session: Therefore, be it Resolved by the American Association of State Highway Officials in regular session at its ninth annual convention in New Orleans, La., this 5th day of December, 1923, That said association does hereby respectfully urge that the Congress of the United States at the present session pass suitable legislation providing for a three-year Federal-aid program beginning July 1, 1925, and similar in policy to the program now in force; and be it further Resolved, That this association does hereby strongly recommend that the amount of said Federal-aid program be as follows: For the period July 1, 1925, to June 30, 1926, $100,000,000; for the period July 1, 1926, to June 30, 1927, $100,000,000; for the period July 1, 1927, to June 30, 1928, $100,000,000, it being understood that the actual appropriations of funds need not be made until needed to meet construction costs. A further resolution was adopted, as follows: Whereas the improvement of roads through the national forests is a question of importance to all the States and of paramount importance to many of the Western States; and Whereas these forest roads if properly developed will form important links in our nation-wide coordinated highway system; and Whereas the Congress of the United States has in the past made appropriations for the improvement of our national forest roads: Therefore, be it Resolved by the American Association of State Highway Officials in regular session this 5th day of December, 1923, That this association does hereby recommend to Congress the continuation of appropriations for national forest roads at the rate of $10,000,000 per annum from July 1, 1925, to June 30, 1928, this amount to be in addition to the regular Federal-aid appropriations elsewhere recommended; and be it further Resolved, That this association hereby recommend to Congress that 70 per cent of such appropriations be expended on the 7 per cent system of highways within the national forests until completed, thus giving the greatest efficiency in highway transportation per dollar invested. At the meeting at New Orleans, every State in the Union was represented—that is, every State highway department-with the exception of two, Massachusetts and Washington. The vote on these resolutions was unanimous. There was not a dissenting vote. It would not be out of place here to briefly review to you the Federal road legislation. The first bill was approved July 11, 1916; the bill carried with it a five-year program. It appropriated $75,000,000, $5,000,000 to become available the first year, $10,000,000 the second year, $15,000,000 the third year, $20,000,000 the fourth year, and $25,000,000 the fifth year. The second bill was passed in February of 1919. It carried with it an appropriation of $200,000,000. This also was a program providing for extending the appropriation over a greater period than one year. It extended over a three-year period. The first $50,000,000 became available immediately that is, in February, 1919$75,000,000 became available in July, 1919, for the fiscal year ending in June, 1920. and the remaining $75,000,000 became available in July, 1920, for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1921. The third bill was approved November 9, 1921. This bill appropriated $75,000,000. It covered only a one-year period, the fiscal year ending June 30, 1922. The fourth bill was approved June 19, 1922. It carried a three-year program--$50,000,000 for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1923; $65,000,000 for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1924; and $75,000,000 for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1925. Now, it is of interest to note that all of these bills, with the single exception of the bill approved November 9, 1921, carried more than a one-year program. The first one carried five years; the second, three years; the third, one year; and the last one, three years. That is an important point in our request of this committee, in that we want legislation which will cover more than a one-year program. We want the three-year program in order that we may know, some considerable time in advance, what our Federal participation is going to be, and to keep our program going along in a uniform manner. The bill which was approved November 9, 1921, and which constitutes what we might call our basic Federal aid legislation, established for the first time in the history of this country a system of roads, a national system of roads, which is represented by the map on the wall before you. For the first time in our history then, we have a program, or a road problem, outlined for this country; something on which we can concentrate our efforts, and a definite thing to the development and completion of which we can bend our energies. Up until the passage of this bill there was no such definite program or problem outlined, and the work which was done was more or less in the dark, so to speak. I think this one feature of the bill is one of the greatest features we have, one of the wisest things that Congress did, to provide for a definite system of roads toward which the Federal Government and each of the various States could bend their energies in its completion. Briefly then, the Federal appropriation outlined by the various Federal enactments were as follows: For the fiscal year 1917, $5,000,000; for the fiscal year 1918, $10,000,000; for the fiscal year 1919, $65,000,000; for the fiscal year 1920, $95,000,000; for the fiscal year 1921, $100,000,000; for the fiscal year 1922, $75,000,000; for the fiscal year 1923, $50,000,000; for the fiscal year 1924, $65,000,000; and for the fiscal year 1925, $75,000,000. As to the system of roads which we have adopted: We have definite data from 45 of the 48 States of the Union with respect to the present condition of this system of roads. I am assuming that the committee will be interested in knowing what the condition of this system of roads is, what the problem really is that we have outlined, and in a rough way what it is going to cost to complete it. The data which we have collected from 45 of the 48 States, which I will refer to as table No. 1, is outlined in some detail and shows the completed mileage by types of construction as well as those roads which have been constructed with and without Federal aid appropriations: TABLE 1.—Status of road construction Federal Aid Highway System, January 1, 1927 [Prepared by the American Association of State Highway Officials] Six States have made no road improvement on this system without Federal Aid—Alabama, Georgia, Kansas, Montana, Nevada, and North Dakota. This table shows that in these 45 States the system of roads as outlined includes 183,776 miles. The total mileage which this system of roads may include in the 48 States is 197,412 miles, that is, the system can not include more than 7 per cent of the total road mileage of the State, and that total road mileage is such that 7 per cent would permit a maximum of 197,412 miles. Now in these 45 States there have been a total of 95,047 miles, on which something has been done. Approximately, 46,048 miles have been improved with Federal aid; 48,999 miles have been improved by the States without Federal aid; in other words, there has been improved on this system up to this time approximately 48 per cent, with Federal aid, that is, of the improvements which has been done, 48 per cent has been done with Federal aid and 52 per cent has been done without Federal aid. The CHAIRMAN. Do you mean that in addition to the Federal aid that they match, these States have added this much more to the improvements? Mr. WHITE. Yes. Mr. GARBER. That was done prior to the hard tested construction? Mr. WHITE. A considerable portion of this amount which was done by the States doubtless was done previous to the time when Federal aid was established. That doubtless is true. We have no way of knowing exactly how much the States have done independently before Federal aid was given. Mr. GARBER. I wanted to bring out and develop the idea that the States prefer to act jointly with the United States Government in the building of roads, since they have the privilege of doing so. Isn't that the case? Mr. WHITE. That is the case. They do, and that is why we are here. Mr. NELSON. Does the Government control the construction? Mr. NELSON. How does it happen they seem to run so uniformly about the same? If you look over each variety of road you will see they rise and fall together. Mr. WHITE. It just is that way. I do not know if I can give you the reason, but there is no material difference between the requirements of the Federal Government and the Bureau of Public Roads in its road construction than there is by the State; that is, I mean in the types and general standards of construction and that sort of thing. Mr. ROBSION. Most of this was done before we began our Federal aid. Mr. WHITE. No; I would not say that; some of it was done prior to the time Federal aid was enacted. A great deal has been done since Federal aid was enacted, for instance, in my own State of IowaI, of course, know those conditions, what happened there, and we had nothing in the shape of this system of roads prior to the time when the Federal aid law was enacted, and although the first Federal aid law was enacted in 1916, the war period came on and all that sort of thing, so it was not until 1919 that we got started. Now we have gone forward and have built a great many projects and a great many miles of road absolutely independent of Federal aid. At the same time we have carried on our Federal-aid work sufficiently to keep up with the Federal allotment, and had we had twice the Federal aid allotted to us we would have absorbed twice what we did absorb. We simply absorbed what was allotted to us under the program and did the rest of our work independently of Federal aid. The CHAIRMAN. Now, just one question, what is the work done by the State outside of the Federal aid project? Mr. WHITE. In our State we have been building all our bridges and culverts ourselves; we have built independently of the Federal aid. We have done a great deal of our grading work independently of the Federal aid. We have done a great deal of our graveling work independently of Federal aid, although I want you to get the point, that we have used Federal aid on grading, and we have used Federal aid on graveling. We have principally absorbed our Federal aid in the higher types of construction, simply as an administrative matter. The CHAIRMAN. In a Government aid project do you use the State fund exclusively to build bridges and culverts? Mr. WHITE. Yes, sir. The CHAIRMAN. No Federal aid then, as I understand you, is used for that purpose, but the Federal aid is used in the road itself, and the State pays all of the expenses of the culverts and bridges? Mr. WHITE. Yes, sir; furnishes the right of way and all that sort of thing. Mr. DOUGHTON. You mean that is a condition that is common to the entire country? Mr. WHITE. That is a condition common to our State. Mr. DOUGHTON. That is under your State highway law. Mr. WHITE. The law does not affect that. Mr. NELSON. In the construction of roads with the Federal aid, is that on primary and secondary lines, or outside of them? Mr. WHITE. It is on this system. Mr. NELSON. On the regular system? Mr. WHITE. Yes, sir. Mr. HUDSPETH. You say you exhausted your quota and then it became necessary to use the State fund in this matter? Mr. WHITE. Yes; we have in our State $8,000,000 of motor-license fees per year, all of which goes into this fund, which we use for the improvement of this system of roads. It costs us about $2,500,000 per year out of that fund to maintain the system, leaving us about $5,500,000 per year. Now, with an appropriation of $100,000,000 per year from the Federal Government, our quota in the State of Iowa would be about $2,800,000; in other words, we have enough money coming from motor-license fees, after maintaining our system of roads, to more than match with $2,800,000 of Federal aid per year. Mr. HUDSPETH. We have the same condition in my State. Mr. WHITE. We have absorbed only about half of that amount, simply because there was not enough Federal aid coming available to match against our fund on a 50-50 basis. Mr. HUDSPETH. You could use double the amount you are getting from the Federal Government? That Mr. WHITE. Yes; without a nickel increase in taxes. Referring again to Table 1, there are about 22,200 miles of this system built to grade. That is 12.7 per cent of the system. There are about 35,137 miles surfaced with a low-type surface, sand clay, gravel, etc. constitutes about, 26.4 per cent of the system. There are about 22,109 miles surfaced with the higher-type surface, such as brick, concrete, etc. That constitutes about 12.8 per cent of the system. There are approximately 88,729 miles on which there have been no improvements whatsoever made other than ordinary maintenance work. That constitutes about 49 per cent of the system. Now, the committee is doubtless interested in getting some idea of what the roads will cost, and I have gone through a little mental gymnastics, and wish to say to the committee frankly that the figures which I propose to give you are exceedingly rough, based simply on generalizations, and the total completed cost of the system may vary a great deal from these figures. I believe these figures, however, to be conservative; in other words, that the system will cost a great deal more than these figures. We have 82,000 miles to build to finish grading and providing bridges. I have estimated that at $11,000 per mile. That is $902,000,000 to finish the grading. There is to be surfaced with high-type surfacing 34,000 miles, which I have estimated at $35,000 a mile, or $1,190,000,000; and surfaced with low type, 69,000 miles, at $6,000 a mile, or, $414,000,000. In addition to that, there is an item of 170,000 miles, low-type surfacing to higher type, $595,000,000, making a total of $3,101,000,000. Mr. MOORE. That is for a finished system of hard surface. Mr. WHITE. For a finished system of roads which would consist of 50 per cent hard surface and approximately 50 per cent surface with low type shell, gravel, clay, but the entire mileage being surfaced with something. The total number of miles in these 45 States is 183,776. Mr. HUDSPETH. Half would be low and half would be high. Mr. WHITE. Yes, sir. MR. HUDSPETH. The 183,776 is what? MR. WHITE. Is the total mileage in 45 States. The graded mileage is 88,000. The CHAIRMAN. Is that the 7 per cent or completed miles of roads? |