Unobligated balance of Federal aid funds available for new projects PAYMENTS TO STATES DURING FISCAL YEAR 1933 Regular Federal aid funds in the amount of $101,266,331 was paid to the States during the fiscal year 1933. Payments of emergency construction highway funds during this same period amounted to $62,131,961, making a total of both classes of funds of $163,398,292. The amounts paid to each State during the fiscal year 1933 from regular Federal aid and emergency construction highway funds are shown in the following table: Payments to States, fiscal year 1933 $1,577, 192. 89 792, 361. 75 $1,463, 650. 73 999, 893. 39 2,383, 353.97 759,959. 46 1,378, 516.99 2, 403, 987. 98 658, 279. 26 Total $3,040,843, 62 2,749, 679. 31 1,728, 540, 38 7,094, 917. 45 3,363, 813. 22 569, 498, 55 401, 968. 10 2,309, 843.26 5, 100, 265, 96 2,075,799.57 6,074, 850.39 3, 150, 523.32 4,939, 114.75 4,500, 871. 19 2,482,793. 73 2,903,261, 55 1,754, 831.50 1,219.857. 48 3, 248, 525. 09 5,556, 833. 70 4,682, 738. 08 1,778, 058, 89 4,590, 979.80 4,594,698, 51 4,985, 041.87 2, 342, 000.37 645, 613.44 2,010,749.98 2,914, 408. 44 7,824, 910, 62 3,459, 810.63 2,337, 110, 51 6,948, 978. 26 SECOND EMERGENCY FEDERAL-AID PROGRAM The Emergency Relief and Construction Act of July 21, 1932, provided $120,000,000 which was apportioned to the States on the same basis as regular Federal-aid funds and made avilable for use in matching regular Federal aid in lieu of State funds ordinarily required. Under this act the limitation of $15,000 per mile on Federal-aid participation was removed; also projects were permitted within the corporate limits of municipalities. Employment on projects financed from this emergency appropriation was limited to 30 hours per week, except in executive, administrative, and supervisory positions. The State highway departments were also required to establish minimum wages which contractors were required to pay labor. These funds were originally made avilable to pay the States' share of the cost of work actually done on approved projects before July 1, 1933, but this time limit was subsequently extended to January 1, 1934. The emergency program involved 12,923.3 miles of highways at an estimated total cost of $194,096,666, of which $120,000,000 was allotted from emergency funds, $59,274,664 from regular Federal aid, and the balance of $14,822,002 from State funds. The detail, by States, is shown in the following table: Emergency construction highway program as of December 31, 1933 Emergency construction highway program as of December 31, 1933-Continued [Act of July 21, 1932, appropriating $120,000,000] Mr. SANDLIN. We have the old question that we have here every year. As to this $11,000,000 that you have estimated for 1935, how much will it take to run you until February 1, 1935? Will $8,000,000 be a sufficient amount to run you until February 1, 1935, if the balance is taken care of at that time? Mr. MACDONALD. Yes, sir. RESEARCH WORK Mr. MACDONALD. I would like to insert in the record a statement about the research work. During these times I am afraid that we get somewhat away from that. Sometimes, on account of the hurry in pressing the program forward we may get a little away from fundamental work along the line of the betterment of our methods, processes, and materials for the production of roads. We are trying not to lose sight of that, and to carry out particularly the development of new methods for low-cost roads and the utilization of low-cost materials. That is true because the big job ahead of us is the building of many miles of what we might call agricultural roads, or rural roads through agricultural districts. Those roads will not carry so heavy a traffic as the intercity roads, but nevertheless, they are necessary and important from the standpoint of the building up of the country on a stable basis. That is if we think of farms as homes and places for people to spend their lives, rather than as places to get away from as quickly as possible. I think that is the big job that we have now ahead of us. In our research we are working in cooperation with the States in trying to develop the use of materials that will permit us to build those roads at a much less cost than for standard pavement construction. We want to build such roads as will give as satisfactory service for their traffic as the main roads give for their traffic. I would like to insert a statement covering our research work. Mr. SANDLIN. All right. (The statement referred to is as follows:) Research, Bureau of Public Roads The research work and investigational studies of the Bureau of Public Roads may be classified into three groups: 1. Physical 2. Economic 3. Combination Physical and Economic PHYSICAL RESEARCH The physical researches of the Bureau relate to the character and use of highway materials and the behavior of highway structures. The purpose of all this work is to develop facts which may be utilized to promote effective and economical highway construction. The investigations include detailed studies to determine essential characteristics of various materials; the comparative values of different materials which may be used for the same purpose and the best methods of using them in construction; the forces which tend to destroy highways and the most effective means of resisting these destructive forces; and the manner in which the various materials and combinations of materials fulfill their purpose. The following major projects are now under way: (a) Subgrade investigations (b) Bituminous materials and low-cost road investigations (d) Motor vehicle impact investigations (e) Investigations of concrete amd concrete aggregates (f) Highway bridge investigations Subgrade investigations. The subgrade soil investigations are continuous in character since they involve fundamental research in a relatively new field. Constant effort is being made to increase the available knowledge on the subject for practical application to highway engineering problems. Previous research has developed a standardized laboratory procedure which ncludes tests sufficient in number and sufficiently varied in character to identify all of the various soils likely to be encountered in a national highway-construction program and to permit their classification, on the basis of physical characteristics, into the various subgrade soil groups which have been established. Much of the present investigational work has the purpose of determining the suitability of soils for some particular use as, for instance, for binder material in sand-clay and gravel roads, for the fine filler material required in bituminous road surfaces, or for use in the mud-jacking operation employed for correcting settlements in pavements; also to distinguish between good and poor varieties of individual groups of surfacing materials such as limerock, caliche, shale, etc., and to determine the effect of various materials which, as admixtures, may assist in the stabilization of subgrades and soil-type road surfaces. Studies of this character require: First, an analysis of the material for the use intended; second, determination of the dominating physical characteristics satisfying these requirements; and third, selection of the particular standard tests best suited to measure these dominating characteristics. The instrument known as the drainage indicator has been developed to furnish information, by means of laboratory tests, regarding the drainage properties of soils. The principles involved in making tests with this apparatus have been utilized in a simplified device which has been designed for use in the field. This new device, termed the combined soil tester, was designed primarily for use in prospecting for soil-type road surfacing materials such as topsoil and sand-clay. It gives information regarding the permeability, capillarity and stability of the soil sample. As research has developed information with regard to the causes of frost heave, the locations where it is apt to occur, and possible methods of elimination, various preventitive measures based on this information have been utilized in road construction. Comprehensive surveys in regions where frost heave is a serious problem have now been made to determine how well the preventive measures have performed their intended functions. The resulting information will serve as a basis for recommendations guiding the construction of roads where conditions indicate the possibility of frost heave. Determination of the practical significance of the Terzaghi compression test as a means of disclosing the effect of proposed loads on the performance of soft undersoils resulted from a comprehensive investigation of the hydraulic fill at Four Mile Run on the Mount Vernon Memorial Highway. In this research, settlements of the fill as determined by levels, and moisture contents of the soft undersoil as determined from samples in the laboratory, were compared with corresponding settlements and moisture contents as computed from data furnished by the compression test performed upon samples of soft undersoil in the undisturbed state. The agreement between computed and observed values seems substantial enough to warrant the conclusion that the settlement of soil layers in the field follows much the same laws that control the consolidation of small soil samples in the compression test in the laboratory. In the design of new tests to disclose the suitability of low-cost road materials, an attempt is being made to arrange for the testing of the entire sample, including coarse, as well as fine material; for the preparation of the sample by bringing i into a state of consolidation similar to that attained by such materials when used in low-cost road construction; and for the testing of the sample directly for the properties on which the service of such materials depend. The present standard tests are satisfactory for fine-grained subgrade soils, but do not satisfactorily indicate the properties of soils containing only a small percentage of fine particles. They are also inadequate in showing the effect of admixtures that may be incorporated in soils for stabilizing purposes and that may materially alter their properties. Investigation will be made of the suitability of tests in which the sample is mechanically consolidated to a density representative of that produced in a soil road surface by traffic. In these tests the entire sample, including coarse fractions, is to be brought to a state of optimum consolidation, and then tested for permeability, capillarity, stability, and shrinkage. Cooperation with the State highway departments in the making of subgrade surveys, in the design of the subgrade treatments and road surfaces, and in the establishment of subgrade soil laboratories, has continued as in past years. The practical value of the subgrade investigations is evidenced by the fact that a considerable number of the State highway departments, with the advice and cooperation of the Bureau, have installed subgrade laboratories and are utilizing the results of this research work in the actual design and construction of highways. Bituminous materials and low-cost investigations.-The bituminous investigations of the Bureau, during the past year, have proceeded along the following lines: (1) Continued observations of experimental highways; (2) field surveys and related laboratory studies in connection with various types of low-cost roads; (3) development of provisional specifications for liquid asphaltic materials based on a standard simplified scheme of analysis; (4) laboratory investigations of bituminous materials and bituminous mixtures to aid in selecting suitable materials, and to develop satisfactory methods of design for special types of low-cost bituminous highway construction. Of the experimental bituminous-treated roads which the bureau has constructed and maintained in cooperation with the highway departments of South Carolina, Nebraska, and California, two projects, one in California and the other in South Carolina, have been discontinued and final reports are being prepared. The Nebraska experiments, which are of mixed-in-place construction in the sand-hill areas, are being closely observed and a report of the construction and behavior of these sections is being prepared for publication. Periodic inspections of the bituminous surfacings on marl and sand-clay bases on the remaining project in South Carolina have been made during the past year, and the maintenance costs and behavior have been recorded. The cooperative effort of the bureau, the State highway departments and the asphalt industry to simplify tests and standardize specifications for liquid asphaltic road materials has resulted in the promulgation of provisional specifications for the principal grades of these materials. These proposed specifications have been considered by the cooperating agencies at a series of regional meetings and have been adopted in whole or in part by a large number of States for use in current construction. This important work will be continued in the hope of accomplishing Nation-wide standardization of specifications and test procedure for liquid asphaltic road materials. Investigations to determine the weather-resisting properties of slow-curing liquid asphaltic materials from different refineries have been undertaken during |