Show ON THE UPGRADE marked expansion predicted ted in farm to market highways TO I 1 by AL JEDLICKA staff writer farmers can look for a substantial improvement in the huge federal state secondary road program in 1947 thomas thoma S H macdonald U S public roads commissioner told a reporter at the annual convention of the associated general contractors in chicago in framing the federal highway act in 1944 congress recognized the vital need for better secondary or farm to market roads in rural regions because most farmers are individual operators who haul their own crops to market and comparatively ively great n xiam distances separate the farms from macdonald trade centers 78 per cent of farmers travel has been found essential in 1944 34 per cent of all trucks were used on farms must match funds the highway act provided for an annual federal contribution of million dollars for secondary roads tor for each of the three postwar years with the states putting up an equal sum out of their own or county funds because of high construction costs shortages of material and equipment and a reduction redaction in contractors the secondary road program fell about 50 per cent short of its goal in 1946 macdonald said indications that costs have reached their peak and will level off that materials and equipment will become increasingly available and that more and more contractors who left the construction game during the war are returning justify the belief lief that the secondary road program will pick up substantially this year macdonald declared the public roads commissioner analyzed the mounting cost of the whole federal state highway program in his address to the associated general contractors in the last quarter of 1946 construction costs were per cent above the comparable period in 1940 and 16 per cent above the previous three months costs skyrocket in breaking down these costs the public roads commission found that common dry excavation increased per cent concrete substructures per cent and concrete superstructures 94 per cent bituminous surface treatment showed the smallest increase at 15 per cent macdonald stressed the marked shortage of contractors available tor for construction work by pointing out that while there were a total of road builders in the 1935 46 period this number dropped to in now that large scale construction has been resumed and materials and equipment should become increasingly crea singly obtainable a large percentage of these former contractors are expected to get back in the business this year the expectation of increased supplies of materials provides a base of optimism for the overall 1917 1947 highway program biagdon ald aid said macdonald echoed the feeling of other construction leaders at the meeting that a sound long range building program should be developed in the U S quoting from the recent economic report drawn up for the president macdonald decried the tendency to consider public works primarily as the means to relieve unemployment in times of depression |