so that it would be easy to pick up an error of even so much as an inch. We require the States to run a profile of the completed road. The CHAIRMAN. You have reported the way you settled with them financially. Are you allowed to advance any money prior to construction? Mr. MACDONALD. None whatever. The CHAIRMAN. There is nothing in the law allowing you to do that? Mr. MACDONALD, No, sir. Mr. CABLE. Do you pay the contractor direct? Mr. MACDONALD. No, sir; our dealings are all with the State. Mr. CABLE. You pay the money to the State, and then the State officials pay the contractor? Mr. MACDONALD. Exactly. We have no direct contact with any one except the State; the relations with the contractor are between the contractor and the State. Mr. CABLE. But you approve the payments to the contractor? Mr. MACDONALD. We do not approve the State's payments to the contractor. Mr. CABLE. You apportion it, I mean? In other words. I received a couple of letters complaining that the Federal Government was not paying the money to the State, so that the contractor could get paid, and I wondered what relation the Federal Government had toward the contractor. Mr. MACDONALD. We have no relation there. Delays of that kind always come in in the submission of vouchers to us by the State; that is, after the contractor has done the work, then the State must submit us a voucher for the amount of work done, as in this typical case-so many cubic yards excavated or so many square yards of pavement laid, or whatever the items of work are that is done. That is checked by our engineer and forwarded for payment, but the payment goes to the State. Now, the State might put that in the Treasury and not settle with the contractor, as we have had them do in one or two cases where they held the payments for some time. But we are responsible only to the State, and the State is responsible to the contractor. Mr. CABLE. You do not hold up anything at all on the contractor after the work is completed? Mr. MACDONALD. We hold up the final payment only to get final inspection. The CHAIRMAN. You can advance money as every mile is constructed, can you? Mr. MACDONALD. Yes; we can pay for work as fast as it is completed. The CHAIRMAN. No matter how short the distance? Mr. MACDONALD. No matter how short the distance. As a matter of facilitating handling the business, we request the States not to submit vouchers for less than $1,000. The CHAIRMAN. Would that be on a $30,000 road? Mr. MACDONALD. No; we try to carry that as a minimum, the smallest amount. That is simply to avoid bookkeeping and the handling of too many vouchers. Mr. LARSEN. To what extent do you undertake to supervise the contracts between the State and the contractor? Mr. MACDONALD. We do not supervise the contract between the State and contractor, but we report all unsatisfactory work to the State. In the case of this New York project the report reads "quality of work, satisfactory; rate of progress, good; recommendations and remarks-serious defects and action taken; previously noted defects remedied, none." You see, he has a regular form which he has to go through and fill out, which is done by our inspector as he goes over the job, and if you go through these reports you will find the work inspected at intervals of a month as it progresses. Mr. LARSEN. I happen to know of a piece of work that was done, in which the Government. I think, shared a part, and the work did not hold up. For instance, it was across the river, and some of the work later gave way, within a year or So, after the bridge had been accepted. Do you undertake to supervise the making on the contract to the extent of seeing that the original contractor should be liable and have to go back there and repair that, or is that left up to the State to repair-would that be a question between the State and the contractor? Mr. MACDONALD. That would be a question between the State and the contractor. What contract is it? Mr. LARSEN. I have reference to a structure built in the first district of Georgia, not in my district, a bridge across the Cannochee River, near the little town of Daisy. I happened to be down there a day or two before the bridge was finally accepted. Mr. MACDONALD. When was that completed? Mr. LARSEN. Some time last year. I had an invitation to be present, but I have forgotten the date. It is about 60 miles out from Savannah on the Seaboard Railroad. I understand since that time the bridge has given way and sunk down considerably. Some portions of this were built jointly by the State Government and the Federal Government and other portions under local taxation. Mr. MACDONALD. I find upon investigation that the bridge referred to is not a Federal-aid project. Georgia No. 52, however, adjoins this project. I have here a photograph of the bridge and a copy of the project statement for No. 52, showing that the bridge is not included in it. Mr. HUDSPETH. Do you ever approve a contract except for the highest standard of roads in a State? Mr. MACDONALD. Not of any particular class. We try to get the highest standard of construction for each particular class, but we do approve for all classes of roads. Mr. HUDSPETH. Do you not think it ought to be for the highest standard? Mr. MACDONALD. You mean for surfaced, paved, roadbeds only? Mr. HUDSPETH. Yes; paved roadbeds. Mr. MACDONALD. And no sand clay roads? Mr. HUDSPETH. No. Take it in my State. You might want to construct a road there for the purpose of testing the soils, but they have built various roads there and they have found but one class of road that will stand up. The State has expended millions of dollars and the counties have expended millions of dollars on inferior roads that have proven not to stand up under the tests. Now, don't you think your department should only approve a contract for the class of roads that have been tested and proved will stand up? Mr. MACDONALD. Yes; I agree to that fully. We endeavor to do that. The CHAIRMAN. It is not any part of the business of your bureau, is it, to question what the State pays the contractor? Mr. MACDONALD. To question what the State pays the contractor? The CHAIRMAN. What the State pays for the completed road to the contractor. Mr. MACDONALD. Yes, sir. The CHAIRMAN. That is part of your business? Mr. MACDONALD. Yes, s'r. The CHAIRMAN. I thought you took the State's vouchers for the whole thing; I thought the only requirement was that they had to spend that much. Mr. WARD. I thought he led us to that yesterday and said he had something to do with it. Mr. MACDONALD. Perhaps I do not understand your question. check the payments between the State and the contractor; no. We do not The CHAIRMAN. It is only the State that you are concerned with? Mr. MACDONALD. Unless there is a complaint registered. Occasionally we have had complaints registered, as was indicated a few moments ago. In Ohio there was a complaint at one time. Mr. WARD. If I understood the chairman's question, it makes this impression upon me: Suppose in my State they were to make a contract of $40,000 for 4 or 5 miles of road, and a report was to come in here to you and you saw every reason to believe the thing could be done for $30,000, you would not participate in that construction? Mr. MACDONALD. NO. Mr. ROBSION. Contracts are always let by competitive bidding? Mr. MACDONALD. Yes, sir. Mr. WOODRUFF. Will you permit an interruption there just long enough to show the committee the variation between the different bids? Mr. MACDONALD. For example, on this New York project, in earth excavations, the low bid is $1.20 per cubic yard, and the high bid is $1.50. That is the unit price for excavation. For concrete pavements per cubic yard the cost varies— or the bid price varies-between $7.75 and $10.12. Mr. ROBSION. How do the aggregates on that project compare? Mr. MACDONALD. The total in the aggregate--the low bid in the aggregate was $183,000, and the high bid was $204,000. The CHAIRMAN. How many miles? Mr. MACDONALD. 4.83-about 5 miles. That was for a concrete pavement. Mr. DOWELL. When was that contract made? Mr. MACDONALD. May 4, 1921. Mr. DOWELL. What is the difference, if any, in the price now of materials and the price a year ago? Mr. MACDONALD. We figure that prices are down at least 20 per cent. Mr. ROBSION, Which bid did they accept? Mr, MACDONALD. The low bid. The CHAIRMAN. Right here is Maryland putting down that concrete pavement 3 feet wide on each side of the road for $7,000 a mile from here to Baltimore? Mr. MACDONALD. Yes, sir. The CHAIRMAN. How wide is that road? Mr. MACDONALD. Sixteen feet over all, including old and new work. In order to compare the New York and Maryland prices you would have to go through the estimates of all the work that was done on each job and pick out the comparable items. Mr. DOWELL. Let us get back to that other contract that was made. The grading there was how much? Mr. MACDONALD. $1.25 per cubic yard and the total for grading amounted to $23,000. Mr. DOWELL. That is of the one hundred and how much Mr. MACDONALD. $183,000 for the whole of the New York job. Mr. DOWELL. Then one hundred and sixty some thousand dollars went to the materials and construction of the road after it was graded? Mr. MACDONALD. Exactly. Mr. DOWELL. Then that would be on the same basis as the Baltimore road where the grade had already been put in; is that correct? Mr. NELSON. Generally speaking, is there really competitive bidding or does the bureau find evidence of collusion? Mr. MACDONALD. No. Upon making an examination of the records of these two jobs and eliminating the cost of the excavation and other incidental costs on the New York project which are not properly comparable with anything done on the Maryland project I find that the concrete specified for the New York project called for proportions in the concrete of one part of cement and one and a half parts of sand and three and one-half parts of coarse aggregate of stone or screened gravel, while for Maryland they were 1:2:4. I find the cost then to be appropriately $27,800 a mile as compared with $27,000 for the Maryland road. The grading is eliminated from the New York project because there was none on the Maryland project. The New York job was 16 feet wide, 6 inches thick at the edges and 7 inches at the center, while the Maryland section has a uniform thickness of 8 inches and a width of 6 feet except for one section which is only 4 feet wide. I have figured the cost of the Maryland job on the basis of 16 feet in width to compare with the New York job and the result as given above is only an apparent difference of approximately $800. This is easily accounted for by the difference in grade of the concrete and the slight difference in thickness of the two projects. So you will see that when reduced to the same basis the costs are very nearly the same. The Maryland job was built in two 3-foot strips except for one section a quarter of a mile long where there is a 4foot strip on one side only, there being none on the other side. The CHAIRMAN. The cost of the cement on the roads is practically about onehalf of the total cost, is it not-or a little more possibly? Mr. WOODRUFF. That would depend upon the physical conditions surrounding the building of the entire road, would it not? Mr. MACDONALD, Yes; that would be very much dependent upon the condition of the road when we started the work. We figure that the surfacing costs are at least 60 per cent of the entire cost of the work, and that all the other costs, the grading, drainage and small culvert work would not run over 40 per cent. Mr. SEARS. Do I understand you to say that the cost of that is $27,000 a mile for a road 6 feet wide? Mr. MACDONALD. No, sir; 16 feet wide. The Maryland project is only 6 feet wide, but I said that on the same basis as the New York width of 16 feet the Maryland project would be $27,000. Mr. ROBSION. On the Maryland project you understand they put on a Tarvia covering. Is that included in the cost of $7,000 per mile? Mr. MACDONALD. I believe it is. Mr. ROBSION. That is a considerable item, is it not? Mr. MACDONALD. Yes, sir; but these prices are taken from our contract prices for the concrete alone. We eliminated all the other items, and these prices are for the concrete surfacing only. For example, the New York project is reinforced. We eliminate that because the Maryland project is unreinforced. Mr. HUDSPETH. What did you say that average was-6 inches? Mr. MACDONALD. Six inches at the sides and 7 inches at the center. The actual differ The CHAIRMAN. Would it cost only $800 more to reinforce it? Mr. MACDONALD. No, sir; we eliminated the reinforcing. ence, as we figure it, is $800 between the two prices. The CHAIRMAN. And one is reinforced; the other is not. Mr. MACDONALD. The reinforcing cost is eliminated from the New York project, and there is an apparent actual difference, when reduced to the same basis, of $800. Mr. SEARS. Did you say that the net cost was $70,000 a mile complete, taking in the grading and everything? Mr. MACDONALD. $7,000 on the Maryland project. The work there consisted in putting in a curb 3 feet wide and 8 inches thick of Portland cement concrete along either side, and then bringing the intervening or middle portion of macadam up to a uniform crown which required filling in along each side of the concrete curbing, and the total cost of that work was about $7,000 a mile. That is a method adopted for utilizing old macadam roads that have to be widened and strengthened in order to carry the present traffic. The CHAIRMAN. You would not participate in a road that did vary a large amount in price per mile, would you? Would you participate in building a road that varied a large amount per mile-in building it-between States? Mr. MACDONALD. We endeavor to arrive at what is a fair price for that work. Conditions have to be taken▬▬ Mr. DOWELL (interposing). Have you had any questions raised as to the prices in your department? Mr. MACDONALD. Not recently. We did raise some questions frequently dur ing the war when we thought prices were too high. Mr. DOWELL. Are you raising any now on these competitive bids, as to whether they are actually competitive and as to whether they are gtting the contract at a greater price than should be secured? Do you investigate that question? Mr. MACDONALD. Wherever we find a case where we think the price is not reasonable we bring the details to the attention of the State and may disapprove a contract on that basis. Such conditions have not prevailed recently. As stated above, the road work is about the only public construction work that has been going on, and contractors have been competing very sharply for the business. Mr. WOODRUFF. And you find no evidence of collusion at this time? The CHAIRMAN. What about the price of your concrete? What change has there been in the price? Mr. MACDONALD. The price of concrete has been dropping recently. I have prepared a résumé of the actual costs of Federal aid road construction for the different sections of the country for the use of members of the committee. These will be available if you desire them after the closing of the meeting. The costs are divided by the groups, such as New England, Middle Atlantic States, etc. The costs in each group averages about the same. but the price in New York State and Utah is not comparable. Costs are only comparable in areas where all conditions are equal; that is, as to raw materials, labor cost. freights, and many other major factors. I will inclose in the record for your information relative to costs of Federal-aid work tables showing the costs by types over a series of years, a similar table for excavation, one for costs of total steel used, one showing mileage by type, and one table showing costs of common labor. |