Congress Urged to Enlarge Road Aid
◂◂◂◂◂◂ THE FOLLOWING article is from the United States Daily.
There are two schools of thought in congress regarding increased appropriations for federal aid to the states for the federal aid highway system throughout the country, Represntative Kelly (Rep.), of Pittsburgh, Pa., stated orally October 11, The major element in congress in all probability, he said, favor augmented highway facilities. The opposition is on the ground that the more prosperous states are carrying on the burden of the less prosperous. Mr. Kelly is a majority member of the House Committee on Post Offices and Post Roads.
“I believe the sentiment of the country and of congress favors expansion of highway facilities,” Mr. Kelle said: “I am in favor of the announced program of the chairman of the House Committee on Roads, Representative Dowell, of Iowa, for $145,000,000, instead of $75,000,000, annually for federal aid for highways and for $10,000,000 instead of $7,500,000 annually for roads and trails in the forest reserves of the United States, I would favor going even further than that increase, if it should be felt to be necessary and the federal government and the states could properly and economically make use of such augmented funds each year.
OPPOSITION NOTED
“I realize that there is opposition from some in the east. They take the position that we are taking out of the income tax revenues of the east to help carry the road burdens of states that do not contribute to any great degree to the income tax revenues of the federal treasury.
“But I do not agree to any such contentions with respect to the federal aid highway system that is now a part of the great system of communication between the whole country. The United States today is a nation—not just a community of states.
“American citizens in all sections are entitled to the benefits of good roads. On a recent trip through Yellowstone National Park I saw hundreds of Pennsylvania and New York cars on the roads and they were all through that part of the country. The same is true in other sections. We are envisaging the federal aid system as a national program of import to the country as a whole.
“Good roads mean advantages to American citizens and to American business—no matter what their particular state may be. We should continue along the lines already established by increasing our national expenditures along with the state expenditures, in order to keep pace with the steadily advancing tides of business.
ROADS IN FORESTS
“As a broad-visioned permanent national policy of gauging national expenditures according to the growing needs of the country as a whole I hope and believe that congress will carry out the roads committee program of $145,000,000 for federal aid roads and $10,000,000 for forest roads and trails annually hereafter. The former is a proposed increase of $70,000,000 over the present regular annual federal aid funds. The latter is an increase of $2,500,000.
“And the increase of the forest road construction program is also important to the nation's economic welfare. Both funds are to meet national needs.
“Road construction is an important part of the country’s activities everywhere. I recall that the head of the Federal Bureau of Roads, Thomas H. MacDonald, just back from an important international road meeting in South America, told our House Committee on Appropriations within the past year that the federal aid highway system then approximated 188,000 miles, that there was a total of upwards of 85,000 or 80,000 miles approved for federal aid. Then he estimated that, as of the same date, the states had improved about 70,000 miles without the aid of the federal cooperative funds.
“There are innumerable ways in which the facilitation of highway traffic wherever it may be is just as important to the great stream of interstate travel as to the immediate residents of a given city or commonwealth.”
COOPERATION SOUGHT
The Chief of the Bureau of Public Roads, Thomas H. MacDonald, in his last statement of views before a congressional committee, told of the demand for cooperation in road building reaching his Bureau. “There is an insistent and growing demand for an increase in the federal support of the annual road-building program" he told the House Committee on Appropriations in urging the appropriation for the current fiscal year 1930. "For about eight years the country as a whole has been spending from $1,000,000,000 to $1,500,000,000 annually for highway purposes. This has been roughly equally divided between work done under state supervision and that done under local supervision. The federal aid road system coincides with the state roads to the extent of about two-thirds of the total mileage of the latter system. The federal aid projects have constituted about one-half of the states' annual program, and the federal contribution has been about 17 per cent of the total expenditures supervised by the states, or only about 8 per cent of the whole of the annual highway expenditures.
“The most generous contributors to the highway program by far have been the local units, particularly the counties. So we find now that in many states the counties have about exhausted their credit for aiding the building of the roads which legally are state, or state and national responsibilities, and there are no funds left to build the feeder roads.”
PENNSYLYANIA—Contractors engaged in state road work were employing 8134 men, according to the last report compiled by the Department of Highways, An additional 8294 were employed in road maintenance by the department.
TENNESSEE—The State Highway Department has opened a new 20.7-mile stretch of concrete pavement near Atwood. In the construction the contractor averaged 1000 feet per day.
