Mr. BROYHILL. What is the concrete resting on, then?
Mr. AIRIS. The concrete is resting on the wood pile.
Mr. BROYHILL. How is it anchored in the wood pile?
Mr. AIRIS. The wood pile are incorporated in the bottom part of the
concrete.

Please note in that design that there are no batter piling.
What is a batter pile?

Mr. SAWYER. It is a pile that is like this [indicating].
Mr. AIRIS. Batter piles are usually driven at angles both
they also go to the other angle, too.

ways, and

Now, without those batter piling, and with the scour, and with the deterioration in the wood pile, it would be a little on the foolhardy side, we feel, to put a new superstructure on top with an additional weight. We had to reduce the vehicle bridge loads when we made our previous examination of loads on the bridge. And now with a modern bridge on top of these old piles, what would happen would be that these piles would be subjected to bending stress, and with their deteriorated condition in the outer ring, it would as I started to say, be almost foolhardy to put a new heavier structure on it.

That generally is our conclusion. And I as an engineer would not want to recommend trying to do it without a complete reconstruction. And the reconstruction would be to place new steel pile, both vertical and batter, on down to rock.

Now, that is some 30 feet below that, Mr. Sawyer, somewhere in that vicinity.

Mr. SAWYER. The rock varies from sixty to a hundred feet.
Mr. AIRIS. But below the bottom of the abutment.

Mr. SAWYER. Yes.

Mr. AIRIS. And that would be to underpin this existing structure with steel pile, steel H-beam pile all the way down to rock, and put batter pile all the way down to rock, replace a good deal of the concrete, and as to the shield on the outside, replace it with steel sheet piling. And the cost we have quite carefully estimated. And it is approximately the cost of new piles.

Mr. WHITENER. Do you have anything further to add?

Mr. BROYHILL. Before you adjourn, Mr. Chairman, I am wondering, in view of the position taken by the Highway Department, they were reluctant-General Duke was reluctant to proceed with this, even though counsel had advised him that they had legal authority-but in deference to the committee, since this bill was pending, and the chairman of the full committee has expressed some question about this, and I think many of them have been answered here today, although there seems to be an area of disagreement as to what the legal authority is, I am wondering if the chairman has a feeling about anything that we could indicate to the Highway Department so that they could feel free to go ahead without feeling that they are doing this in defiance of the committee.

Mr. WHITENER. I think we are going to have to come back another day. Mr. Airis has not had a chance to testify, and we want to hear from him. And we also have witnesses from the National Capital Planning Commission here, and possibly others. So if we could fix another date I don't know when it will suit.

Mr. BROYHILL. I will give it priority as far as I am concerned. There is another District subcommittee meeting on Monday.

Mr. WHITENER. What about Wednesday of next week?

Could you gentlemen be back with us next Wednesday, Mr. Airis, Mr. Louchheim, and Mr. Harris?

Mr. HARRIS. Speaking for myself, I think I can be here. I don't know whether it is convenient for Mr. Louchheim to appear.

Mr. BROYHILL. General Duke, this 1 week further delay in hearings on this is not going to really delay the ribbon cutting of a new structure a great deal, is it?

General DULE. I wouldn't say that; no.

Mr. WHITENER. It may expedite it.

Mr. BROYHILL. That is right; it may expedite it. But there are certain things you are doing anyway right now, that are not involved in the physical structure, that have got to be done first.

General DUKE. Yes. We have no fieldwork contemplated in this time frame that would be unduly affected by any week's delay, Mr. Broyhill. Our main concern has to do with the 1967 budget matter, as I mentioned a while ago.

Mr. BROYHILL. I will assure you, as one member of the committee, I will attempt to expedite this so that you can have a clear field as soon as possible.

Mr. WHITENER. Then, we will take a recess of these hearings until Wednesday of next week, at 10 a.m., in this committee room.

(Whereupon, at 12:05 p.m., the hearing was recessed to reconvene, Wednesday, May 4, 1966.)

FOURTEENTH STREET HIGHWAY BRIDGE

WEDNESDAY, MAY 4, 1966

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
SUBCOMMITTEE No. 5 OF THE

COMMITTEE ON THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA,

Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:20 a.m., in room 1310, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Basil Whitener (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Whitener (chairman of the subcommittee), McMillan, and Broyhill.

Also present: James T. Clark, clerk; Hayden S. Garber, counsel; Leonard O. Hilder, investigator; and Clayton Gasque, staff director. Mr. WHITENER. The subcommittee will come to order and we will resume our hearings on H. R. 12119, a bill to authorize the Commissioners of the District of Columbia to reconstruct the substructure and replace the superstructure of the existing 14th Street Bridge, or highway bridge, across the Potomac River.

At this point, we will make a part of the record a letter from the Metropolitan Citizens Council for Rapid Transit, and a letter from Mr. Theodore K. Chamberlain president of the Lamond-Riggs Citizens Association.

(The two letters referred to follow:)

Hon, BASIL WHITENER,

WASHINGTON, D.C., April 29, 1966.

Chairman, Subcommittee No. 6, House District Committee,
U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, D.C.

DEAR CONGRESSMAN WHITENER: May I respectfully urge that H.R. 12119 (to provide for construction of a new 14th Street Bridge) be acted upon negatively by your committee at this time.

Our organization is on record as favoring the deferral of radial highway expansion plans until the rail transit system has been constructed and is in operation. We believe that this bridge would bring additional traffic into the city unnecessarily and detrimentally, and would work against the success of the rail transit system.

We have noted (see Washington Post, Apr. 26, 1966) that the executive committee of the National Capitol Planning Commission, in the wake of the Arthur D. Little report and the subsequent Policy Advisory Committee statement, now favors deletion of some proposed highway facilities and deferral of other until the transit system is in operation. The 14th Street Bridge is recommended for possible construction after 1976, presumably—and quite sensibly—to strengthen the long awaited transit system by avoiding unnecessary competition.

We should like further to point out that the Senate District Committee stated the same goal by recommending in its report on the National Capital Transportation Act of 1960 that "*** any additional highways that will eventually be built should be deferred until the railroads and rapid transit lines have had an