Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1919-10-31

! but over which the state has juriSdic-
ton. In this he also states that he
is acting with full knowledge and ap-
prevail of the state highway commits
sion, which is on record as decidedly
opposed to the use of black top paw
ing on the mountain road.
There are also contractors in the
state who will readily join a black
top attack on the highway depart
ment," Commissioner Allen says.
Their grievance is that they have
been held exactly to the specifica-
tions they bid upon and contracted to
follow. In certain instances they
have been required to tear up slight
ed work and put it down again as the
state intended it should be put down
and as the state is paying to have it
laid.
This is not made as general
statement, for plenty of contractors
bidding on highway construction and
improvement are willing and even
anxious to do their work right. am
speaking of those who will resort to
any sort of trick to make extra money
by sighting the job. They are not
making any extra money that way
now and they are not going to while
the present highway department has
any supervision over them.
ION the other hand we have the
opposition of persons who doubt
less think they know what they are
talking about in passing judgment on
highway constructor when all their
time and efforts are taken up by other
lines of business. Engineers who
have qualified sufficiently to plan and
supervise such construction and have
studied it's progress and watched re-
suits for years may not know much,
but they at least do not attempt to
direct berry picking at Puyallup, or
try law cases or doctor horses as a
side line.
Eyes, we also have lawyers, horse
doctors and representatives of other
lines not at all related to highway
construction who are always ready to
tell us, and frequently do tell us, all
about how to build roads. They
know from observation. Our only
means of information is to watch and
record the mixing and laying of every
yard of material that goes into
road.
THAT is what we are doing right
now and what we are going to con-
tinue to do. We keep a template or
depth guage ahead of the mixer. II
the specifications call for a six-inch
course of paving, six inches is laid
uniformly every foot of the way. A
state highway inspector. and he is
not an amateur road builder, stands
right by the mixer and records every
sack of concrete dumped into it. He
sees that each batch of material stays
in the mixer one minute and is thor
oughly mixed.
ION other than state work you will
often see the material running
through the mixer without Interrupt
ton. That means it isn't. mixed at
all. Furthermore, if the standard
number of sacks of concrete do not
go into a certain area of paving the
paving comes up to be replaced in
proper proportions. There is no
guesswork about this. 1t is demon
strated mathematical proposition.
Ask any state road contractor who
has had experience with it.
Justification for opposition to use
of black top paving can be as conclu-
sively demonstrated from the con-
struction engineering standpoint, but
it does not require that much exer-
ton. Any driver or observer knows
that paving material that becomes
soft enough to yield under foot in
summer heat can not be expected to
stand the tremendously heavy auto
mobile traffic of today.
"A demonstration of this is appar-
ent on the highway leading out Of
Tacoma to Camp Lewis where the
wheelprints of a heavy truck have
made two long ruts deep enough to
throw a machine off the road. These
have been recently patched by filling
them full of more of similar material.
That may stay in place but probably
will not.
That is the history of all such
paving under prevailing road traffic
| 1t has to be continually patched from
the time it is laid down 1t probably
does serve satisfactorily on lightly
travelled roads. but it can not stand
the main traffic strain and its advo-
Gates can not honestly assert that it
will
There are black top roads in this
state that have broken through be-
fore they were finished, and an ex-
tended citation of the faults that in
| 6uence the highway denartment