The independent. [volume] (Elizabeth City, N.C.) 1908-1936, 1919-07-04
" WEI COME TO ELIZABETH CTTYJJLY 4 y
THE BIDS ON WEEKSVILLE
ROAD ENTIRELY TOO HIGH
Pasquotank Highway Commission Rejects All Bids
For Construction of First Nine Miles Of Per-
n1anent Roads in This County

The Pasquotank Highway
Commission opened bids for
nine miles of hard surfaced
road from Elizabeth City to
Weeksville on Monday, June 80
and promptly rejected every
bid.
The bids that were opened Monday
called for a Is foot road, to be built of
brick or concrete. The lowest bid for
brick was $2.77 yard for nothing but
brick laid on the natural road founda-
ton and grouted with cement.
The lowest bid for concrete was 1913
a square yard for monolithic mixture
7k inches thick in the center and tap
ering to 51A inches thick on each side.
With only 100000 to spend this year,
the Pasquotank Highway Commission
/ could not see more than Is miles of
improved road in this county at the
figures submitted at Mondays meet
ing.
County Road Engineer T. L. Higgs
says the bids were entirely too high
and that if no better bids can be OBJ
tained Pasquotank should buy her own
material and build her own roads, saw
ing $1,000 Or more per mile.
The most dependable bidder on con-
crete was Porter-Lassiter & Co.. of
Norfolk. They obligated to lay a mar
row gauge rail road from Ilizabeth
| City to Weeksvillo to haul material
for the proposed road and to handle all
|
motives, thus expediting construction
and insuring better construction gener-
| ally But they want $3.13 a square
yard and there are $500 square yards
to a mile of road Is feet wide. That's
equivalent to $27,544 a mile.
The Pasquotank Highway Commits
sion is getting out new specifications
and will give contractors another op-
portunity to bid. IF the bids don't
4 show up right Pasquotank will steer
clear of contractors. One contractor
is said to have made no secret of the
fact that he figured in profit OF
, $4,000 for himself on the construction
of the proposed nine miles of road.
The Highway Commission has not
, committed itself to any type of road
: construction, but facts brought out in
the opening of bids Monday disclosed
many things in favor of brick The
Commissioners are convinced that they
:, can tell something about a brick, but
they are no longer certain that they
know anything about concrete Or what
sort of job they will get if they try to
get a cheap bid for concrete construc-
tion. The Commissioners are begin
ming to find out that contractors car
: build a concrete road to cost almost
any amount one wants to put in 1t
, It's all a matter of sitting in more
sand and leaving out more cement.
The high cost of construction of 1;
foot roads is giving the Highway Com
mission considerable pause. Agar
y the question of nine foot roads ha'
heen revived and several members o.
= the commission are in favor of build
- ing Is foot roads only within five mile:
of town, using nine foot constructor
for more remote distances. the type
of nine foot road suggested would p'
on the right hand side of the roa1
coming into town, with a dirt road t'
the left. The farmer coming into tow
with a. load would keep to the paving
the man going out unloaded would nav
+o t1rn out with one wheel on the DIR
'. road when he met a vehicle coming IN