Los Angeles herald., 1910-04-25
HIGHWAY CHIEF
FURNISHES DATA
Engineer Loder Supplies Figures
to Uphold the Commission
Against Advisory Board

Members of the highway commits
sion, in an open letter to the public
last night, stated their position, an
through Chief Engineer Loder brough
figures to bear on their side of tn
argument. The report, which follow
q Communication to the board of super
visors from the advisory commission
urging the removal of the hlghWa
commission, is as follows:
In view Of the fact that at the
present time an erroneous impress
sion of the work on the good
roads is being derived from the
figures in the report of the advi-
sorry committee, a statement OF the
condition and status of the good
roads contracts and estimates is
due the public.
The contract price or prices which
work is costing by force account,
together with the total cost of ma
terials to be supplied by the com
pany, is within the original estl-
mate made at the time of the bond
issue on ten roads, which have been
contracted, or are being construct
ed with complete grading, bridges
and paving These ten roads on
which complete work is being exc
cuted aggregate 53.9 miles in length.
These figures on macadam work
are derived from q draft Of re-
port to be submitted to the high
way commission within the next
few days. These ten roads are:
The Ell Monte road, Wiltshire boule-
ward. Long Beach boulevard, por-
ton Of Washington street, contract
known as Vermont avenue and
Sunset boulevard, Prospect avenue;
contract covering Slauson, Comp
ton and Florence avenues; Los
Feliz road, Bassett and Pomona
road, and Whittier road, aggregat-
ing 53.9 miles.
The estimate previous to the bond
election on these particular pieces
of work was $780, 965, while the &C
tual cost of complete construction,
including contract, force account,
all materials TO be furnished, is
$67O,944, showing a net saving Of
$l0,021.
1t must be borne in mind that
on a large proportion of this work
the county is furnishing broken
stone from Riverside, in order to
supplement the stone to be pro
duced within the county this work.
ing season. Consequently the cost
is proportionately higher than Will
be the case on other roads on when
the county is to furnish stone from
its own quarries at much lower
price per ton, with considerably
less freight rate. By the present
arrangement for furnishing the
major portion Of stone for the en-
tire system Of roads from the
county quarries, a, margin of S115,-
500 will be realized inside of the
bond estimate for that particular
rock at the quarries. Furthermore,
such rock will be placed on the
roads with less average distance of
railroad haul and freight rate than
estimated in the original plans.
The above deductions 90 not in
clude the large number Of contracts
which have been let on work not
recurring macadam, such as heavy
grading jobs like Newhal pass,
Cahuenga pass, Eagle Rock road,
Harbor boulevard, construction of
Newhall tunnel and a number of
permanent bridges which have been
constructed to date, on which
much greater percentage of saving
has been realized than macadam
work above.
While the entire 3O7 miles were
estimated to cost So, 3,500,000 1t is not
correct to say that the cost of each
mile will be $11, 400.65. That is the
average cost per mile. Some of
the construction will cost far below
this figure. The first estimates
show that the cost per mile of the
roads varies largely in each sec
ton. These estimates are now on
file in the office and are open to the
inspection of the public.
The taxpayers of Los Angeles
county will see i'll the completed
roads every dollar of the bond issue
advantag geously expended. Figures
regarding the exact status of the
work will be Forthcoming, but from
the present outlook there is abso-
lutely no evidence that the entire
system of roads will not be COM
pleted. A. E. LODER,
Chief Engineer Los Angeles County
Highway Commission.