Evening star., 1924-10-24
BEST CEMENT YEAR
.EVERKNOWN IN us.
Immense Road Building Pro-
grams Are Cause of New
High Records.
BY j. e. ROYLE.

NEW YORK, October 24.-More
Portland cement will be produced in
the United States this year than ever
before in history. Before December
81 there is every probability that the
output will reach 100000 barrels.
That is within 100000 barrels of
the annual capacity of the existing
plants and about an equal amount
above the record production Of 1928.
Those figures give a splendid inti-
nation Of the condition Of the build
ing industry and of paving and high
way improvements, which employees
hundreds of thousands of workers and
which is a potent factor in the buy
ing power of the Nation. For "a per
cent of the cement produced in this
country is utilized in public and COM
mercial buildings and dwellings, and
"a per cent in paving and highway
construction.
Increase i'm Building.
Building activities throughout the
country for the first nine months OF
this year are estimated at per cent
in excess Of those for the similar pc
riod of 1923, a banner year, and re-
uuired the expenditure of approx
mately S2,733, 100000, according to
late surveys. This increase was ex-
ceedingly we'll distributed, all sections,
with the exception Of parts of the
Central and Far West, sharing in the
betterment.
New York, among the larger cities,
made an outstanding record with a
total amount of new construction,
for which plans have been filed OF
s6S1 500, 900. a gain of over 100000
000. Detroit also made an exception
al gain and improvement was shown
in Philadelphia, Boston. San Fran
cisco, Milwaukee, Baltimore. Dallas
Denver Providence, Louisville and
Roche heSter.
slump Is Overcome.
For a time in the late Summer
there was a slight slump in activity,
but the records for the last month
showed that this had been overcome.
Permits issued in 320 cities involved
expenditure of 1854. 4.5S4.210. as COM
pared with s244,522,4 452 in September
last year. OF the 25 leading cities, 20
showed gains in September.
Seven thousand five hundred miles
of concrete pavement averaging IS
feet in width We're placed under con-
tract in the first three-quarters of
this year OF this amount about
$500 miles was for highways and
$500 miles in cities and towns. The
city paVements average 80 feet in
width and the new pavement repre-
sents a concrete street of that width
extending from New York to Chi
cago and thence to Minneapolis This
is a larger amount than was con-
tracted for in the whole year 1928,
the best previous 12-month period.
Hard Roads Are Cheapest.
The increase is due largely to the
effort made by cities to improve their
4
planning that they found the worst
roads just entering or leaving the
towns, where county maintenance
ended and city maintenance began.
The automobile traffic has now grown
to a point where ii is cheaper to
build hard surfaced highways than
those of lighter surfacing. The pas
sage of 500 vehicles a day over a mile
of road so destroys the light surface
that the hard highway is more eco
nomical For a lesser number of We
the same when lnegth of life OF the
road is considered.
BY far the larger portion of the
street pavement laid this year has
been in the 70 cities having over 100,
900 popula ton. New York, Chicago,
Philadelphia and Detroit have award
ed contracts for 250,000.000 square
yards. while the eight cities having
half million to a million residents
ordered 1875, 900 square yards.
AS a result of this activity 13 new
concrete plants now are under con-
struction throughout the country, of
which about half will be completed
before January 1. This will bring
capacity production for the country
to 17O,000.000 barrels a year. In ad-
dition, 16 other plants are under con-
sideration. If these materialize pro-
duction capacity by 1925 should reach
approximately 1S5, 100000 barrels.