built. We feel that these roads are obligations of the State and the towns, and their improvement and maintenance will require substantial amounts of State funds.

While the program of secondary road construction and reconstruction is not large-about $2,000,000 a year-it can be started at once and provides more man-hours of labor for the same number of dollars expended than any other work we do.

As to the use of Federal funds, we are most concerned with item 3 above-the construction and reconstruction of State and Federalaid highways—for it is these highways which carry the most traffic.

We have a tentative schedule of highway and bridge work which we feel is a long-range program to be undertaken as funds become. available. These projects are located on State highways, Federalaid highways and Federal-aid secondary highways to include locations which would serve the most traffic. There are, of course, many other roads just as badly in need of attention.

This schedule includes:

1. Highway construction and reconstruction on Federal-aid system, 824 miles; estimated cost, $38,259,000; estimated man-hours, 19,014,000. 2. Bridge construction and reconstruction on State highway system; eştimated cost, $7,488,700; estimated man-hours, 2,500,000.

3. Federal-aid secondary roads; estimated cost, $22,674,000; estimated man-hours, 16,421,700.

The total estimated cost is $68,421,700.

Surveys and plans under way include 414 miles, of which 367 miles are rural and 47 miles are in urban areas.

The estimated total cost is $30,064,000, of which $25,332,000 is for work in rural areas, and $4,732,000 is for improvements in urban areas. Plans and specifications are complete for work in rural areas estimated to cost $411,000, and for work in urban areas estimated to cost $654,000.

Design is under way for work in rural areas, for which the estimated cost is $21,769,000, and for work in urban areas, for which the estimated cost is $3,956,000.

Surveys are under way for work amounting to $3,152,000 in rural areas, and for work in urban areas for which the estimated cost is $122,000.

We are seriously concerned about some of the provisions of the bill under consideration. We do not feel that the same yardstick can be applied to measure the needs of all States in the application of Federal funds. The needs are not the same. We submit that the needs of the several States would be better served by leaving the determination of amounts to be applied to each activity to the public roads administration and the States, and that provision should be included in the bill to permit this.

We have obligations which must continue. We must continue to meet the interest and retirement obligations of outstanding highway and bridge bonds. We cannot eliminate expenditures for maintenance and for other activities which must go on.

Income for the State highway department from the tax on gasoline and motor registration fees in 1941 amounted to $11,010,000.

The average of sums required for the next 5 years to meet the obligations of highway and bridge bonds is $2,338,000. Administrative

charges for maintaining the State highway commission, the auto registration bureau, the State police, and miscellaneous fixed charges amount to $838,000 annually.

Secondary road improvements in cooperation with our towns and cities, now temporarily suspended, must be resumed. The need is great, and this work will furnish widespread employment. The cost of this to the State is $2,000,000.

Highway and bridge maintenance and snow removal will require at least $4,900,000 to do the job adequately.

These estimates do not include any funds for State highway and bridge construction on that part of our State highway system not designated as Federal-aid roads.

The total of these estimates is $10,076,000 which leaves only $934,000 from yearly highway income which, on this basis, could be applied to matching Federal funds without the redirection of funds on hand and added borrowing.

We do not feel that States of small population should be required to match the large sums proposed on any basis which will require States to pay more than 25 percent of the cost. In our case at least, to require greater participation in the cost, with our small population and large mileage, is to create a burden which is unfair and which quite likely we may not be able to carry.

In common with other States our need to modernize our highways and bridges and to bring them up to present-day transportation requirements is great; it is also probable that we shall have our share of unemployment.

To provide employment is one of the reasons for appropriating such large sums for road construction. We do not believe that a publicworks program, following the war, should compete with private enterprise for labor, and in our opinion such a program, after providing for essential rehabilitation of our highways and bridges, should be adjusted to the needs of employment as they develop.

We have offered these comments to give a brief outline of our highway picture and the application of the bill under consideration. We are just as deeply, and probably more, concerned, as to what will be the obligations of the State in order to provide its share of the huge sums which will have to be furnished for apportionments of Federal aid.

Federal aid is only a redistribution of wealth, theoretically a plan under which the rich help the poor, and high standards are maintained under rigid Federal control. We agree that conditions now justify a revision of the distribution of Federal highway funds on some more equitable basis, to the end that there will not be such a wide difference between the amounts paid into the Federal Treasury by some of the States and the amounts returned as Federal aid, but we maintain that it is only just that States of small population, under the theory of Federal aid, should receive at least as much, and, in all fairness, some more, than they contribute to the general fund. We insist that whatever basis of apportionment is adopted it shall be with the understanding that all road-use taxes, which are collected only from people who use the highways, shall be returned to States as Federal aid for highway work only.

98217-44-vol. 1-22

In connection with this proposed post-war program, one of the pertinent questions in our minds is how this great Federal fund is to be raised. We know that it has to be through some form of taxation of the people in every State, but are we approaching an end where possibly we cannot afford to be helped with our own money?

If it is proposed to increase the Federal tax on gasoline, then in my opinion the people of Maine will not voluntarily accept it. Our people have spoken twice in recent years on proposals to increase the gas tax and each time the answer has been "No."

I doubt that the people of Maine will voluntarily accept this bill, or any other bill, if it has to be supported by substantial increases in highway-use taxes when millions of dollars so collected, have been, and are being, diverted to other governmental uses. We do not question this in time of war, but now we are contemplating a post-war

measure.

During the 4-year period 1939-42, Maine paid in Federal gasoline taxes approximately 0.64 of 1 percent of the total, and while Maine received 0.87 of 1 percent of Federal aid returned to the States, this was only 0.39 of 1 percent of the amount it paid to the Federal Government in taxes on gasoline. In dollars, from the Federal tax on gasoline Maine furnished approximately $8,138,000 during the 4-year period and received in Federal aid $5,082,000.

The Hayden-Cartwright Act says:

It is unfair and unjust to tax motor-vehicle transportation unless the proceeds of such taxation are applied to the construction, improvement, or maintenance of highways.

In Maine, we have taken this seriously. We have done our best to carry out this provision, not only to avoid penalties, but because we believe the principle is sound.

Many of the States have constitutional amendments to safeguard such funds. We have for some years had a public law for the same purpose, and the people in Maine will have an opportunity this year to vote on such a constitutional amendment.

The Federal Government has invaded the only source of taxation left to the States as a source of highway income and the same Federal mandates restricting the use of motor-transportation taxes collected by the States should be applied to such taxes collected by the Federal Government.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Barrows. We will hear next from Mr. Everett of New Hampshire.

STATEMENT OF F. E. EVERETT, COMMISSIONER OF HIGHWAYS, STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE

Mr. EVERETT. Mr. Chairman, New Hampshire has a State highway system of practically 3,500 miles, 1,423 miles of which are located on the primary system and which have been wholly constructed since 1909. For the most part, this mileage was of gravel construction with a few miles of macadam. As motor-vehicle travel increased, the necessity of better-wearing surfaces became apparent, so that with the passage of the Federal Aid Road Act in 1916, the reconstruction of our trunk-line mileage began and has continued to the present time.

Today the various types of construction on the trunk-line system are as follows:

Our highway planning survey shows that 380 miles of this primary system should be rebuilt to carry safely the present-day traffic and this cost will be approximately $15,200,000. Sixty-eight miles of this system should be relocated at an estimated cost of $6,700,000. There are also on this system 17 bridges which should be entirely rebuilt to bring them up to modern standards and the approximate cost of this is $1,920,000.

On our secondary system or State-aid roads, so-called in New Hampshire, there are 150 miles of unimproved roads. To complete this mileage with a standard highway will cost approximately $3,000,000. It is, of course, possible that a small mileage of our secondary system, due to changes in traffic conditions and the necessity of heavier types of surfaces, may be shifted to the primary system. This will mean an additional cost. It has been proven in New Hampshire that as soon as our class 2 roads are completed, a great deal of the main traffic shifts from the original primary system to these new routes, with the result that these sections of our secondary system should be included in our primary routes and some of the primary routes should revert to the secondary system.

The proposed interregional highway system crosses New Hampshire in the first instance from Massachusetts to Maine and in the second instance from Massachusetts to Vermont. U. S. Route 1 from the Massachusetts State line to the Maine State line crosses the southeast corner of New Hampshire for a distance of 18 miles. This route carries all of the motor traffic between Boston, Mass., and Portland, Maine. The traffic count on this particular highway in 1941 showed an average daily traffic of 7,100 cars, the peak traffic reaching 22,000 cars per day. The average daily traffic for 1943, due to the curtailed traffic because of war conditions, was 3,900 cars per day.

The normal average nonresident use of New Hampshire highways is 34 percent on a State-wide annual average basis. Under the same conditions, 68 percent of the total passenger-car traffic on U. S. Route 1, at Portsmouth, N. H., is foreign cars. During the summer peak of passenger-car traffic on U. S. Route 1 foreign traffic increases to 76 percent of the total. During the summer of 1943, under stringent gasoline-rationing conditions prevailing throughout the East and during a period when there was a pleasure-driving ban in effect, 69 percent of the passenger cars on U. S. Route 1 were of foreign classification. The surface of this highway, at present, is partly cement concrete and partly bituminous macadam and comprises three lanes practically its entire length. While the surface of this highway may be considered in good condition, the alinement of the three-lane sections is entirely inadequate for present or future traffic. Due to this fact we have planned an entirely new freeway for this route. The survey has been. completed and the plans are well along, calling for the most modern

construction with a "double barrel" road, so-called, for its entire distance and with 14 highway-grade separations, 2 stream-crossing bridges, and 1 railroad grade-crossing elimination. This project will cost in the vicinity of $2,500,000 and will be ready for contract as soon as funds become available.

The remainder of our projects for this proposed post-war construction provides for reconstruction, widening, straightening, and various other betterments for many sections of our trunk-line system and the building of the unimproved sections now located on our secondary or so-called feeder roads.

Like all other States today, our personnel has been greatly depleted, but with the few men who are available and with the addition of a number of women to our drafting department we will accomplish a considerable amount of necessary work. Surveys and plans for a number of post-war projects will be completed as follows:

By constitutional amendment, the net revenue derived from motorvehicle registration and gasoline taxes, after deducting the cost of the administration of the motor-vehicle department and State police, shall be used for highway purposes only. In 1941 this revenue amounted to about $6,000,000 and in 1943, due to war conditions which curtailed traffic, it amounted to $3,900,000.

We, in New Hampshire, believe that at the close of hostilities the amount of income derived from this source will return to pre-war levels and that there will be sufficient funds to meet the allotment of Federal aid as provided in H. R. 2426.

The CHAIRMAN. The next witness is Mr. Vail, State highway engineer of Colorado.

STATEMENT OF CHARLES D. VAIL, STATE HIGHWAY ENGINEER, STATE OF COLORADO

Mr. VAIL. Mr. Chairman, a law was passed by the Colorado Legislature in 1920 creating the existing highway department of Colorado. This organization differs somewhat from the general set-up in other States. It is composed of a highway engineer as the executive officer of the department and reporting directly to the Governor. The law also provides for an advisory board of seven members who, with the assistance of the highway engineer, set up the yearly budget for work to be done on the highways, subject to the approval of the Governor.

Of the 48 States Colorado has the eleventh largest mileage of State highways. Colorado ranks forty-third in the highway income, per vehicle. Colorado has the greatest number of high mountain passes to maintain, and to keep open in the winter-17 passes, of which 11 are over 10,000 feet above sea level. Colorado is seventh in land area, about half of it mountainous, where cost of highway construction is extremely high. Colorado is thirty-third in population.