EARTHQUAKE: THE LONG ROAD BACK : 2 Freeway Lanes May Reopen Soon : Transportation: State and Santa Clarita officials seek to ease bottleneck of vehicles heading into the San Fernando Valley and Los Angeles.

Caltrans and Santa Clarita city officials said Tuesday that they plan to reopen two lanes of the southbound Antelope Valley Freeway heading into the San Fernando Valley for the first time since the earthquake either late this week or early next week.

The scheduled reopening is one of a series of immediately forthcoming changes that officials said are aimed at easing the freeway bottleneck for residents of the Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys. Many have faced four-hour or longer commutes to jobs in the Valley and Los Angeles areas.

The plan for the Antelope Valley Freeway, which has been closed southbound in Santa Clarita since the Jan. 17 Northridge earthquake, calls for reopening the two truck lanes to the Golden State Freeway--one for all traffic and the other for car pools, van pools and buses, officials said.

Meanwhile, state Department of Transportation crews were working Tuesday to re-stripe the northbound Golden State Freeway-to-Antelope Valley Freeway route to add a third lane to the two lanes already opened. The third lane would also be reserved for so-called high-occupancy vehicles, officials said.

Charles O’Connell, Caltrans deputy district director for Los Angeles operations, said the agency decided to implement high-occupancy segments on the northbound and southbound interchanges of the two freeways because of the heavy congestion and high level of such traffic through the area.

He said the southbound freeway connection should be open “the latter part of this week or early next week, depending on the rain. The exact timing of it we’re not positive, but that’s what we’re trying to do.”

By using the southbound truck lanes of the Antelope Valley Freeway, traffic will bypass the regular elevated segment of the transition road that collapsed during the earthquake. A Los Angeles police motorcycle officer was killed shortly after the quake when he could not stop from plunging off the severed roadway.

Caltrans and Santa Clarita officials said the changes to the two freeways should come on-line about the same time as Caltrans opens a bypass on the Old Road to resume north and south traffic flow on the Golden State Freeway through Santa Clarita. That, too, had been closed since Jan. 17.

Santa Clarita City Engineer Tony Nisich said various agencies have decided to reconfigure Sierra Highway heading into the San Fernando Valley at about the same time as the freeway lanes will reopen.

Sierra Highway will become three lanes southbound and one lane northbound instead of the four lanes southbound in effect since the quake.