In the late 1950's, we were involved with the investigation of the collapse of the Second Narrows crossing at Vancouver-again a structure under construction-in which about 20 men were killed. A weak shim was found there; some wood blocking got crushed and unbalanced the load on this structure and took it down. We determined without question what it was.

The Tacoma Narrows Bridge, which has become world famous, went down without loss of life in the State of Washington in 1936 or 1937 or thereabouts. My father was on a board of investigators looking into this failure. This was a design weakness that caused the collapse of the bridge but it took quite a while to tear itself apart and people could see it was in danger of going down so no one was on it at the time.

Senator FONG. So, the collapse of bridges is few and far between; is that right?

Mr. MASTERS. Yes; few and far between.

I think it is important that we don't panic at this time and frighten people around the United States into thinking that all the bridges that they are crossing may take their lives. This just is not so.

Senator FONG. Just because of this one major disaster that a bridge brought to our attention.

Mr. MASTERS. Yes.

By the same token, on a certain few structures I can honestly see where it is conceivable we could have a collapse this morning. Senator FONG. Yes.

As an expert, how frequent do you recommend bridge inspections should be?

Mr. MASTERS. Well, this requires judgment, sir, and I think it is related to the age and the use of the bridge, the geographic location, the general location. The bridges that are older and were designed to lesser criteria than the loads that are using them today should be inspected annually; some semiannually.

There are some that we do for our clients twice a year; others, every 3 or 5 years is probably adequate.

Senator FONG. The older bridges require more inspections?

Mr. MASTERS. The older the bridge, the more often it should be inspected, because as a bridge ages, it begins to approach more possibilities of fatigue failures, and the more inspections you make the better chance there is of finding an incipient or inherent failure before it happens.

Senator FONG. Do you know whether there is periodic inspection of bridges by the various highway departments of the States?

Mr. MASTERS. Yesterday, the American Association of State Highway Officials produced testimony here with a sheet attached indicating a survey that they made of the State highway departments, and I have no knowledge except what was presented in that testimony.

I have specific knowledge in one or two instances of the lack of regular inspection because in these instances we have been called in to make an inspection and are aware of how long it has been since the previous inspection was made.

Senator FONG. Do you think that we need several hundred or several thousand more inspectors of bridges?

Mr. MASTERS. Not several thousand; no, sir. We need training and emphasis upon bridge inspection given to people with engineering

training and background. Such people are available today; many are presently in the various highway departments, but just have not been so utilized. We do need some tying-in of bridge inspection, especially structures over 100 feet or thereabouts with the concept of using a registered engineer who recognizes the physical possibilities of a collapse and the liability that the individual takes in making the inspection.

Senator FONG. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Fong.

Mr. Masters, I don't want to appear to have you saying something that we want to hear as you conclude your testimony. It has been very revealing today, very enlightening, and of concern to us what you have said.

Are there State highway departments that are doing a good job in the field of inspection of bridges?

Mr. MASTERS. Sir, there must be or we would have a lot more bridges in the water.

The CHAIRMAN. Then your criticism is aimed at those departments whose practices you believe are inadequate?

Mr. MASTERS. Certainly. I do not mean to impugn the State highway departments of the 50 States and all the major cities and counties in the United States by saying that they are all guilty of using inadequate or improperly qualified people for bridge inspection work.

I think that in many cases they have fallen into this lull of confidence bred by marvelous experience with bridges in this Nation. The CHAIRMAN. You have indicated that there is a byproduct with good from the Point Pleasant disaster. You used the byproduct good. Now, would that byproduct be, not in your language but in mine, an alerting of the people generally of this country to the problem of improving the procedures and the training and having in being more adequate inspection through qualified engineers?

Mr. MASTERS. I think that states it very well.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Masters.

Senator Jordan.

Senator JORDAN of Idaho. I just have one more question that came up after I interrogated the witness before.

You make a statement in your prepared text, Mr. Masters, that gives me a great deal of concern. I think we are all aware of the inadequacies of many of our older bridges, but you say:

We would further suggest that the Department of Transportation, and more specifically the Federal Highway Administration, review what appears to many of us in the highway engineering field to be a preoccupation with holding down initial design and construction costs.

Then you say:

We believe, however, there is a legitimate question which needs to be answered regarding first-cost versus long-term utilization and return.

Are you telling us here that we should be warned of troubles ahead with the present standards that are being promulgated by the Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration? Mr. MASTERS. I think that is a valid conclusion, sir.

We have been probably accused of overconservatism in our particular firm; however, we have been in this business of putting up

bridges since the 1890's, and we see what happens to them, how they are used, and we see the trend to less conservative unit stresses to a reluctance to put a little more metal-I am speaking primarily of big bridges; I am not talking about a 50-foot-beam span over a creek somewhere. I am talking about a 150-foot truss or a 1,000-foot span.

There has been tendency to try to design as perfectly as possible given to criteria for design today. Had we done this in 1910, 1900 to 1915 for the railroads of the United States, there would not be a single railroad bridge standing carrying the present load.

The conservatism of the designers in those days, and of the clients in permitting this conservatism, provided structures of extremely long life and very high safety factor.

Now, we feel that today the reduction in this conservatism because of added confidence in the theory of design and because of this tendency to carry over from short span competition of steel versus concrete, the idea of using less steel to build a bridge is going to hurt the country in the future.

Senator JORDAN of Idaho. In other words, the tolerance of safety and the design of the new bridges of today for the loads of today is less than the design of the bridges of a generation ago were for the loads of a generation ago.

Mr. MASTERS. Well, a generation to two generations. I don't know what number you put on a generation.

Senator JORDAN of Idaho. All right; whatever it is.

As an engineer, as an expert in this field, if you had the allocation of funds as between the construction of the bridges and the construction of the roadways, would you deem it wise to even overbuild the bridges at the sacrifice of underbuilding the roadbeds, themselves? Mr. MASTERS. I would be inclined to do this, sir, because it is easier to add to the roadway than it is to add to the bridge.

Senator JORDAN of Idaho. Precisely the point I wanted you to bring out.

I agree with you that roadways if they fail only push out into the barrow pit and they can be replaced, but a bridge failure could be a disaster.

Mr. MASTERS. I suspect the worst roadway failure I have seen is where a slab fell into a sink hole in limestone country and perhaps a car went in with it; but this does not happen very often.

Senator JORDAN of Idaho. Thank you. You have given us a very good statement.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Jordan.

I am gratified that four members of the subcommittee have been here today to hear you in person, Mr. Masters. I shall do more than just call the attention of the other subcommittee members to your testimony; I will urge them to read it and the responses that you have given to questions that have been asked.

In no way is it a pleasantry to say you are knowledgeable and we consider you as a key witness. Certainly, we consider other witnesses as valuable to the documentation of this subject.

I am very concerned about this matter as are the other members of the subcommittee. We are concerned, as you are concerned, and the public must also be concerned and therefore, we reassess what is being done in this area.

Thank you, Mr. Masters.

Mr. MASTERS. Thank you very much, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Pershing.

We are very happy, Mr. Pershing, to have you.
Will you identify yourself at this time?

STATEMENT OF JOHN PERSHING, GENERAL COUNSEL, INTERNATIONAL BRIDGE, TUNNEL, AND TURNPIKE ASSOCIATION

Mr. PERSHING. I am John Pershing, general counsel for the International Bridge, Tunnel, and Turnpike Association.

My testimony has been prepared and with the approval of the chairman and the committee and counsel, I will submit the testimony for the record. Since the shortness of time prevails, I will brief it as much as I am able to and possibly add some comments in view of preceding testimony which has been offered.

Of course, the International Bridge, Tunnel, and Turnpike Association appreciates its recognition and this opportunity to be present.

By way of background of my own qualifications, I have spent some 45 years in the practice of law in a field which lawyers call municipal bond practice. I venture to speak in that capacity because over those years the law firms of which I was a member have drafted the legislation and approved the bonds outstanding on a great majority of the major toll bridges and turnpikes in the country. Many of the major turnpikes, of which there are 37, include many major bridge structures.

The technique which these toll facilities must follow is set forth fully in my testimony. Simply, to brief it and refer to Mr. Masters' statement, I believe it reflects the conservatism of the client and the conservatism of the consulting engineers; because these major toll facilities are essentially the corpus of a trust. In other words, they are built and there is a contract-a trust agreement between a trustee and the borrower in each one of these instances, obligating the borrower to take the procedure which is best calculated for current adequate maintenance and provision for reserve maintenance. Now, those are legal oblgations upon the borrower.

You have stated, Senator, that this hearing involves highway bridge maintenance and inspection, and there are responsibilities of State and local governments. Each one of these agencies is, of course, created by the State legislature and in that broad sense is the State, itself, or an agency of the State.

My memorandum characterizes briefly the categories into which these agencies may fit. In other words, it may be a district created by the legislature, such as the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and Tunnel District.

It may be the Coastal Highway District of Georgia, as an example. An authority is the Mackinac Bridge Authority operating the Mackinac Bridge.

A State, itself, is my own State of Virginia which operates the Hampton Roads Bridge and Tunnel, the York River Bridge, the James River Bridge, and the Rappahannock River Bridge.

The State of Maryland, acting through the Maryland State Roads Commission, operates the other Chesapeake Bay Bridge and the Potomac River Bridges.

Then it may be bistate or an international authority such as the Delaware River and Bay Authority operating the Delaware Memorial Bridge or the Thousand Islands Bridge Authority, operating the Thousand Islands Bridge over the St. Lawrence.

In other words, it is the State acting through its legislature in creating an agency of this type.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Pershing, you as a lawyer, expert in this field presumably have found it necessary to study each case on its own. There is no format; is there?

Mr. PERSHING. There is very general format, Senator Randolph, as my prepared testimony illustrates.

My prepared testimony refers to specific instances. I will not go over them, but basically this trust agreement to which I refer obligates the authority or the commission or the district to do three things:

(1) To retain an independent firm of consulting engineers of national reputation.

(2) To require such engineers to make at least an annual inspection of the project.

Combined with that is the very important requirement that the consulting engineers make an annual recommendation after each. inspection as to the amount required, in their judgment, to bring about the funds necessary to meet their recommendations for current operation of maintenance.

(3) They the consulting engineers are required to designate the amount which, in their judgment, must be transferred to a reserve maintenance fund for unusual or extraordinary maintenance and repairs; and then they must review the borrower's annual budget of current expenses.

Now I interpolate here.

I noted in one of the exhibits, Mr. Morton's, that there are 18. States where there is no budget item for bridge repair. Now, this procedure, of which I speak, is a contractual obligation to retain the consulting engineers. I may say going back again to Mr. Masters' testimony they are independent firms of consulting engineers and the feeling is that there is a direct relationship between original design criteria, inspection during construction, and current maintenance.

Therefore, almost uniformly, the firm of independent consulting engineers who are retained by an authority or commission to make the annual inspection, recommendations as to the amount of the budget, and recommendations as to the amount of the reserve maintenance fund, are the same engineers who did the original design work and who did the inspection for construction and, therefore, continue the same process in maintenance.

I believe I am correct when I refer to Mr. Masters' statement of the conservatism of the client. In each one of these instances, it is an independent firm of consulting engineers of national reputation and skill in this field. Therefore, it provides that conservatism; it provides that responsibility; and it meets those legal obligations.

Now, I think that that is a procedure which, as I say, is quite common, and more than that, it is almost characteristic of a majority of these agencies to which I refer. My testimony sets forth the details of some of these kinds.

Now, there was a reference to the fact of bridge fatigue, I thinkI speak as a layman now. There was a reference by these engineers

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