Mr. WHITTINGTON. Would that embrace a bridge between Arkansas and Mississippi, or Arkansas and Tennessee?

Mr. MITCHELL. No. Provision has been made for a bridge between Arkansas and Tennessee, I understand.

Mr. WHITTINGTON. Out of what funds?

Mr. MITCHELL. Regular Federal-aid apportionment.

Mr. WHITTINGTON. In other words, your thought is that bridges, both interstate and intrastate, are included in the term "Federal-aid highway" so that you could allocate for a bridge between your State and Tennessee or Mississippi your part of the Federal funds that accrue to you?

Mr. MITCHELL. Yes, sir; that would be our idea.

Mr. WHITTINGTON. And you would have to supply 25 percent, ac cording to the terms of the present bill.

Mr. MITCHELL. Yes, sir.

Mr. WHITTINGTON. So that if a bridge cost $10,000,000, you would have to allocate practically all your funds for the bridge?

Mr. MITCHELL. Of course, we wouldn't like to do that, but we will stand our share of it.

Mr. WHITTINGTON. I understand that. Does it mean 50-50 as between the States on an interstate bridge? I favor them. I am just trying to get your viewpoint.

Mr. MITCHELL. That is right. The States would cooperate 50-50. Mr. WHITTINGTON. So that Mississippi or Tennessee, as the case might be, would put up 50 percent of the cost of the bridge, out of the Federal-aid funds, whatever they may be?

Mr. MITCHELL. Yes, sir; if they were financially able to do so. Mr. WHITTINGTON. And you would put up 50 percent of the cost of the bridge out of your Federal-aid funds.

Mr. MITCHELL. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. All right; thank you. I think California has already been heard from, but I understand Mr. Purcell has an additional statement he would like included in the record.

FURTHER STATEMENT OF C. H. PURCELL, DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC WORKS, STATE OF CALIFORNIA

Mr. PURCELL. The State highway system of California consists of the following mileage of traversable roads and streets:

Urban, 1,035.4.

Rural, 12 621.5.

Total, 13,656.9.

Length of the Federal-aid system, 6,795 miles.

The rural State highway system, which is 12.7 percent of the total public-road mileage of the State, carries 71.2 percent of the total traffic generated on the rural highways of the State. Of the 56,000,000 vehicle-miles generated daily on the public roads and streets of California, about 45 percent are on the State highway system. Over 60 percent of the traffic on the rural State system is of urban origin. Traffic on the rural State highway system had increased 46 percent from 1934 to 1940. It is estimated that in 1950 the increase in traffic over 1940 will be 24 percent.

The cooperative planning survey studies conducted over a period of years since 1934 reveal a number of deficiencies in the State highway transportation system. These include substandard alinement and grade, insufficient sight distance, substandard width, inadequate type of surface, dangerous railroad grade crossings, unsafe bridges, and other hazard-producing conditions.

The planning survey also revealed that these deficiencies were not being corrected at the rate at which they were developing. Any lapse in a continuous program of improvement only aggravates these conditions. Such a lapse is being experienced at this time. We are, therefore, approaching the post-war period with an increasing volume of deficiencies and with aggravated deterioration of road surfaces and pavements, because only maintenance operations are now available. These are insufficient to correct the inadequate and deteriorated condition in which we now find our highways. Comprehensive construction and reconstruction is needed to again bring the highway system to a standard adequate to serve traffic.

The needs on the California State highway system to correct the inadequacies existing on the State highway system, may be expressed as follows:

1. There are 8,231 miles out of a total of 12,621 miles, or approximately 65 percent of the State highway mileage, which are below present-day design standards, either inadequate in width, type of surface, alinement, or some combination of such deficiencies. The reconstruction of this inadequate mileage to standards comparable with present adequate mileage is estimated to cost $283,200,000.

2. Because of traffic increase, 842 miles of highway adequate in 1941 will become inadequate by 1950. Expansion and reconstruction of this mileage is estimated to cost $46,000,000.

3. The surface of a road is subject to constant deterioration, and on the average of 10 percent of the total mileage of surfacing must be replaced annually. In the decade from 1940 to 1950, in addition to surfacing work included in the previous items, this replacement is estimated to cost $34,600,000.

4. It is considered that at least 125 miles of State highways within metropolitan areas will require improvement as freeways, at an estimated cost of about $152,000,000.

5. At least 928 out of a total of 3,436 bridges and structures on the State highway system, or about 27 percent, are inadequate. Reconstruction to standards comparable with present adequate structures is estimated to cost $26,700,000.

6. There are 617 rural grade crossings on the State highway system. During the 13-year period from 1926 to 1938, inclusive, 91 percent of the grade-crossing accidents occurred on 44 percent of these grade crossings; that is, on 270 grade crossings at main or branch lines. To eliminate these 270 crossings will cost at least $27,000.000.

The estimated total cost of the preceding six items is $569,000,000. Appreciating the urgent need of rehabilitating our traffic arteries at the earliest moment the war would permit, the Legislature and the Governor of California, at the last regular session in 1943, provided an appropriation of $12,000,000 from the general fund of the State to the State highway fund. This sum is to be expended by the department of public works in the preparation of surveys, plans,

specifications and estimates and in the acquisition of rights-of-ways for State highway post-war construction projects.

The legislature also, under a supplementary law, set up $1,500,000 to provide for the preparation of county highway construction projects for the post-war period. This money is also to be expended for the preparation of plans by the various counties of the State, and is to cover such projects as farm-to-market or feeder roads leading to the State-highway system.

The California Highway Commission has approved a preliminary program of projects for post-war construction on which the division of highways is authorized to prepare plans, specifications, estimates, and reports, and to acquire the rights-of-way.

This program of projects covers needed construction on the major or secondary State-highway arteries, on important structures, and on urgently needed freeways into and through metropolitan areas.

Projects are chosen particularly to provide urgently needed improvements, and are located generally where unemployment will exist. And they lay particular emphasis on the areas of large unemployment.

A program of the immediate needs which could be accomplished within a reasonable time could be listed as follows:

1. Major and secondary traffic arteries requiring repair, reconstruction, expansion, and improvement, $80,500,000.

2. Bridges and structures which cannot be maintained to legal requirements and are otherwise seriously inadequate for traffic, $15,000,000.

3. Freeways into and through the larger centers of population to eliminate serious traffic congestion, $85,000,000.

This is a total of $180,500,000.

The California Division of Highways expects to have available by January 1, 1945, complete plans, estimates, and right-of-way for projects, the construction cost of which will total in excess of $80,000,000 and it also has considerable additional plan work underway.

The CHAIRMAN. Connecticut is next. Will you state your name and your official position for the record?

STATEMENT OF WILLIAM J. COX, STATE HIGHWAY

COMMISSIONER OF CONNECTICUT

Mr. Cox. William J. Cox, State highway commissioner of Connecti

cut.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you have a highway commission in Connecticut? Mr. Cox. No, sir; we have a single commissioner.

The CHAIRMAN. And you are the commissioner?

Mr. Cox. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Are you elected or appointed?

Mr. Cox. I am appointed by the Governor, and confirmed by the Senate.

The CHAIRMAN. For what term?

Mr. Cox. Four years.

The CHAIRMAN. How long have you been commissioner?

Mr. Cox. I am finishing my sixth year.

The CHAIRMAN. When does your term expire?

Mr. Cox. Three years and seven months from now.

The CHAIRMAN. All right, Mr. Cox; you may proceed. Mr. Cox. Gentlemen, I listened with a great deal of interest to the presentations of last week. I agree with a great deal that has been said by the members of the executive committee of the association of which I am a member. There are some things that I am not able to agree with, and in response to the invitation of the chairman, I am asking your forbearance in presenting some of the reasons why I feel that the bill as it is now before the committee should be amended in certain particulars.

The authorization of Federal highway aid provided for in H. R. 2426 is $1,000,000,000 a year for each of 3 years. This compares with appropriations averaging about $140,000,000 a year for the past 4 years, as shown in the chart which forms the back cover of this brief. The total amount of $3,000,000,000 proposed in this one bill compares with a total of $1,946,810,753 in expenditures of regular Federal highway aid funds from the time of the first appropriation in 1917 right down through 1942. That is, this one bill authorizes appropriations 50 percent larger than the total amount of all previous regular Federal-aid expenditures. It authorizes appropriations substantially equal to all of the expenditures of Federal funds that have been supervised by the Public Roads Administration during the past 27 years, including the emergency funds appropriated in the depression period.

These facts are not cited to suggest that the authorization proposed in the bill is too large. Testimony as to the proper size of a Federal highway aid appropriation bill will be presented to the committee by many persons. I am not undertaking to discuss that aspect of the post-war highway problem, though I will say that in my opinion the deficiencies of our highway transportation plant are so great as to justify the expenditure of several billion dollars for their elimination, if the expenditure is made on projects wisely selected, well designed, and efficiently executed. I cite the size of the proposed authorizations to emphasize the fact that H. R. 2426 is legislation on the grand scale. More than this, the authorizations are proposed at a time when our national debt is many times that which any nation in all history has ever attempted to bear. These are serious aspects of the problem. They mean that if fiscal legislation ever merited thorough consideration, painstaking, conscientious thought, the avoidance of unrealistic sentimentality or any approach to the problem less broad than the national good, this legislation merits those things.

You are not considering just another routine Federal-aid appropriation, merely following the pattern of the appropriations of the years gone by. This is evidently something different, with different justifications and different aims to be accomplished than those which have guided your actions in the past. If the Congress shall decide to make this $3,000,000,000 authorization, I believe that that action will be taken with a realization that it is something special, to be weighed in the light of attendant conditions and circumstances, and not necessarily to be related either to the past or to the more distant future.

Two bills, each of which would provide authorizations of $3,000,000,000 for the post-war highway program, have been referred to this committee. These bills are H. R. 2426, which has already been dis

cussed in detail at these hearings, and H. R. 4170, a bill introduced on February 10, 1944 by Congressman Miller of Connecticut, a copy herewith I submit for the record.

[H. R. 4170, 78th Cong., 2d sess.]

A BILL To supplement the Federal-Aid Road Act approved July 11, 1916, as amended and supplemented, to provide for the establishment of an interregional system of highways, and to authorize appropriations for the post-war construction of greatly needed highway facilities in the locations where such facilities are most urgently required and where the conversion from war to peacetime activities will require the cushioning effects of public works construction

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That, when used in this Act, unless the context indicates otherwise, the term "construction" means the supervising, inspecting, actual building, and all expenses incidental to the construction of a highway, including locating, surveying and mapping, costs of rights-of-way, and elimination of hazards at railway grade crossings.

The term "urban area” means an area including and adjacent to a city of ten thousand or more, the population of such included city to be determined by the Federal census of 1940. The boundaries of urban areas, as defined herein, will be fixed by the State highway department of each State subject to the approval of the Public Roads Administration.

The term "rural areas" means all areas of the State not included in "urban areas".

SEC. 2. There is hereby designated a national system of interregional highways to be known as the interregional highway system and to follow the location of the thirty-three thousand, nine hundred and twenty-mile system recommended in the January 1944 report of the National Interregional Highway Committee. There are designated as adjuncts of such interregional highway system such alternate and auxiliary routes as are required to collect and distribute traffic from the interregional highway routes within and adjacent to the urban areas. These alternate and auxiliary routes shall have their locations established by the State highway departments in a manner consistent with the recommendations in the January 1944 report of the National Interregional Highway Committee and subject to the approval of the Public Roads Administration. All highways or routes in the interregional highway system and such alternate and auxiliary routes as shall be des gnated, if not already included in the Federal-aid highway system, shall be added to said system without regard to any mileage limitation.

SEC. 3. For the purpose of carrying out the provisions of this Act there is hereby authorized to be appropriated the sum of $3,000,000,000 to become available at the rate of $1,000,000,000 a year for each three successive post-war years, to be apportioned into three parts as outlined in section 4. The authorization for the first year shall be apportioned among the States within thirty days from the passage of this Act; the authorization for the second year shall be apportioned among the States within one year after the first apportionment; and the authorization for the third year shall be apportioned among the States within one year after the second apportionment.

The authorization for the first year shall be available for obligation for construction immediately upon the termination of the present war emergency, or on such earlier dates as the Congress may direct; the authorization for the second year shall become available for obligation for construction within one year after the first authorization becomes available; the authorization for the third year shall become available for obligation for construction within one year after the second authorization becomes available.

The Commissioner of Public Roads is authorized to enter into agreements with the State highway departments for the making of surveys and plans and the acquisition of rights-of-way. His approval of any such agreements shall be contractual obligation of the Federal Government for the payment of its pro rata share of the cost thereof when the funds provided herein are made available for construction.

SEC. 4. The sums authorized in section 3 shall be apportioned among the States, in three parts as follows: Part I. $600,000,000 a year for a three-year total of $1,800.000.000 on the basis of the ratio which the estimated number of persons that will be demobilized from the military and industrial service in each State bears to the total estimated number of persons to be demobilized in all of the States; such estimates of demobilization to be based on the figures reported in the July 1943 issue of the Monthly Labor Review of the Bureau of Labor