Caltrans Rules Out Quick-Fix Freeway Bridges

Caltrans officials on Wednesday decided against quick-fix bridges that might have eased traffic congestion temporarily and will concentrate instead on full-fledged reconstruction, which they say will hasten the return of normal conditions on the Simi Valley and Santa Monica freeways.

On the Simi Valley Freeway in Granada Hills, where Caltrans originally had planned to spend time and money on a temporary bridge, the agency instead will shore up a two-foot sag in the westbound lanes.

“I can shore up that bridge deck in three or four days,” Caltrans District Director Jerry Baxter said in an interview.

Within a month, the shored-up lanes will be ready to serve as an interim bridge, carrying traffic in both directions until reconstruction of the eastbound lanes is completed, Baxter said. The eastbound lanes will then carry traffic in both directions until the westbound lanes are rebuilt.

Baxter said reconstruction of the downed bridge on the Golden State Freeway in Gavin Canyon near Newhall will begin immediately, and it is hoped that a permanent replacement can be completed within six months. Meantime, he said, work is largely completed on a detour road around the Gavin Canyon bridge. Caltrans expects to open the detour by the weekend.

A few miles to the south, where portions of the interchange between the Golden State Freeway and the Antelope Valley Freeway collapsed, restriping work to add a lane to the two northbound truck lanes from the Golden State Freeway to the Antelope Valley Freeway was completed Wednesday.

“We’re hoping to get the southbound companion lanes done by the weekend,” Baxter said. “But it’s going to be a choke point for some time.”

Traffic on the overall freeway system was down to about 75% of normal Wednesday, apparently because people are using alternative routes. But traffic still crawled through the rush hours, and there were other problems. One bright spot took place in Sylmar, where a Metrolink station was opened Wednesday.

Full reconstruction of the earthquake-damaged Santa Monica Freeway in the Wilshire District could be completed in less than six months, Baxter said.

“We are going to push for six months because we think it can be done,” Baxter said. “If I was looking at one year to replace the bridges, I would look hard at a temporary bridge. But if we can replace this in six months, a temporary bridge doesn’t make sense.”

Although temporary bridges would have handled many of the thousands of cars now detoured along city streets, they would have prevented the simultaneous reconstruction of the eastbound and westbound lanes--thus prolonging the entire project by at least three months, Baxter said.

Accidents in the detour areas claimed the life of a truck driver near Santa Clarita and hospitalized a woman whose speeding car hurtled off a ruptured segment of the Santa Monica Freeway and plunged into a ditch.

The California Highway Patrol said the unidentified truck driver died about 11 a.m. Wednesday when his truck overturned on the transition road from Placerita Canyon Road to Sierra Highway, one of the detours around the shattered junction of the Golden State and Antelope Valley freeways.

Officers said the woman, Marciela Gutierrez, 30, of Los Angeles, apparently did not realize that several bridges on the Santa Monica Freeway had crumbled in the quake.

“She mistakenly thought the temporary openings used by freeway construction crews were available to all motorists to enter the freeway at Venice Boulevard,” CHP Officer Rhett Price said.

He said the woman got on the eastbound lanes of the freeway about 2:20 a.m. and accelerated rapidly, reaching a speed of about 60 m.p.h. before her small sedan vaulted into space, plunged 40 feet and overturned in a 10-foot-ditch.

Price said Gutierrez, who suffered a broken thigh, ankle and wrist in the crash, was trapped in the wreckage until shortly before 5 a.m., when a passing CHP unit spotted her car. She was later listed in stable condition at Kaiser Foundation Hospital in West Los Angeles.

An estimated $1.9 billion in federal assistance is needed over the next year to pay for freeway reconstruction and additional transit services, Linda Bohlinger, Metropolitan Transportation Authority financial coordinator, told the MTA board of directors on Wednesday.

“The big question is when do the feds declare the emergency over,” she said. “What happened in the Bay Area (after the Loma Prieta quake) is that emergency was tied only to the Bay Bridge. That was up and operating in two months, and their funding was cut off. So we have concerns that we really need to be on top of it. We need detailed documentation.”

Peter Hidalgo, a public information officer for Metrolink, said the rail line between Santa Clarita and Downtown Los Angeles, which was carrying 950 passengers a day before the quake, is now carrying about 22,000 a day.

He said the system’s capacity will be expanded soon with the acquisition of additional passenger cars. Eight are being leased from the Caltrans system in San Francisco, and the commuter rail system in Toronto, Canada, has been asked for 25 more.

At the opening ceremony for the Sylmar/San Fernando Metrolink station, Los Angeles City Councilmen Hal Bernson and Richard Alarcon were joined by officials from Metrolink, the Los Angeles Department of Transportation and the city of San Fernando.

“It took a disaster and a tragedy to get us here early, unfortunately,” said Bernson, who had petitioned Metrolink officials to open the station ahead of its scheduled opening next month.

Los Angeles police officers commuting from Santa Clarita have been using the station quietly for the past three days, and 150 disembarked from the 5:43 a.m. train Wednesday. Riding on later trains were several San Fernando city workers, employees of Olive View-UCLA Medical Center and a handful of Valley commuters, who, despite limited publicity, heard about the station’s opening, said an MTA official.

Few riders boarded the Sylmar/San Fernando train, located at 1st and Hubbard streets, but by midmorning, about 340 people had arrived at the station to make connections to other areas.

Some companies provided shuttle service from the station for their employees.

Commuters such as Sherri Princell and Linda Cook, both medical assistants, had no shuttle buses waiting for them. Until the Sylmar station opening, the Santa Clarita residents took Metrolink to the Burbank station and rode MTA buses back to their Sherman Oaks office.

“The fact that this opened today is great,” said Princell, whose round-trip commute Tuesday had taken eight hours.

The yet-to-be-completed station lacked some amenities. Commuters leaving the train walked onto a platform poured just 13 hours earlier.

They walked amid a throng of construction workers pouring still more concrete, drilling holes and clearing space to finish the station by Feb. 21, the official opening date.

Still under construction is the parking lot, benches for commuters and the ticket booth. A table cluttered with schedules and brochures served as the ticket counter.

MTA officials handed commuters bus schedules and gave instructions on making connections.

Alarcon, angered by the station’s many delays, said that even though the station was nearing completion, he was dissatisfied with what he called the MTA’s unfair treatment of northeast San Fernando Valley residents.

“We’re the only station that’s not open,” Alarcon said.

Meanwhile, in Van Nuys, Small Business Administration officials handed out the first $2.5 million in disaster relief loans to 77 families whose homes were damaged in the earthquake.

The first check went to Eli Landaverde of Arleta, a 24-year-old stock clerk who picked up the initial $10,000 installment of his $25,700 loan at the Mid San Fernando Valley Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday afternoon.

“It took like four days,” said Landaverde. “It was great.”

Zamichow is a Times staff writer and Willis is a special correspondent. Times staff writers Eric Malnic and Carlos Lozano contributed to this story.