Traffic Slows for Harbor Freeway Project : Transportation: There were no major tie-ups due to start of construction for bus and van deck. But an afternoon accident and drizzle fouled things up.

Traffic on the Harbor Freeway was turned into a commuter’s nightmare Monday afternoon by an injury accident and the start of construction on a $55-million overhead deck for the crowded roadway.

All morning, northbound traffic was slow-and-go because the heavy construction work in the freeway’s median, between Slauson Avenue and Martin Luther King Boulevard, was attracting gawkers, but there were no major tie-ups, as had been predicted.

Then--as a giant crane began lowering a 70-ton steel casing into the first foundation hole near 51st Street--it started to drizzle, slowing northbound traffic even more.

By 2 p.m., traffic on the southbound lanes also had slowed to a crawl through the construction area because of an unrelated major injury accident near Manchester Avenue, two miles south of the construction site.

It took nearly an hour for the crane to lift the 80-foot-long steel cage into vertical position and drop it down the eight-foot-wide foundation hole. During this time, traffic inched past, but once the cage was out of sight, things returned to slow-and-go.

But despite the afternoon’s congestion, California Department of Transportation officials were pleased that the first day of work on the Harbor Transitway Project had gone so smoothly. It will take several months to erect the 50 huge Y-shaped pillars that will support the elevated bus and van pool transitway, they said.

Some of Caltrans’ own engineers had recommended against attempting to work during daylight because moving the huge steel casings and the reinforcing steel cages would “create havoc with the freeway traffic” and present a safety hazard if one of the giant steel cages broke loose and fell across traffic lanes.

But top Caltrans officials rejected that recommendation and announced that the contractor would be allowed to work during the day. They said the California Highway Patrol would run traffic breaks whenever there was a chance that the work could endanger motorists.

The original start date for the 2.6-mile decking phase of the project had been April 16. But irate transportation experts from the city of Los Angeles, Mayor Tom Bradley and Assemblywoman Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) vigorously protested the idea of shutting down the freeway at any time during daylight hours.

Caltrans junked the traffic break idea and decided to go ahead without stopping traffic during the daytime.

“This is the first real work in the median and we had some concerns about working in such a tight area,” said Dan Goble, Caltrans construction chief. “The goal is to do the work without disrupting traffic too much . . . (and) this morning’s operation went smoothly.”

Tom Conner, assistant general manager of the city transportation department, agreed that traffic seemed to flow as well as could be expected Monday. There seemed to be no extra cars on the nearby city streets, he said.