EARTHQUAKE: THE LONG ROAD BACK : Temporary Freeway Bridges Ruled Out : Earthquake: Caltrans will concentrate on building permanent structures. I-10 could be completed in six months.

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 Santa Monica and Simi Valley freeways.

Full reconstruction of the earthquake-damaged Santa Monica Freeway could be completed in less than six months, Caltrans District Director Jerry Baxter said in an interview.

“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.”

Baxter said his office had considered erecting temporary bridges over one side of the shattered portions of the Santa Monica Freeway in the Wilshire District and the Simi Valley Freeway in Granada Hills.

On the Santa Monica Freeway, temporary bridges on one side of the freeway would have been used for traffic in both directions while the other side of the freeway was being rebuilt. Once that reconstruction was complete, the new lanes would have been used for traffic while the side with the temporary bridges was rebuilt.

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. On the Simi Valley Freeway in Granada Hills, where Caltrans originally had planned to spend time and money on another 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,” Baxter said.

Within a month, the shored-up lanes will be ready to serve as an interim bridge, carrying traffic in both directions until reconstruction is completed on the eastbound lanes, 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.

Traffic on the overall freeway system was down to about 75% of normal, apparently because people are using alternate routes. But traffic still crawled through the rush hours, and there were other problems.

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.

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

“She mistakenly thought the temporary opening 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.

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.

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 Transit 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.”

She said two state revenue options are available: One is quarter-cent sales tax, which would generate about $700 million statewide; the other is a gasoline surtax. “We feel there should be a state sales tax and not a gas tax,” Bohlinger said. “Although gas tax money could help for freeway repair, it could not be used for buses or road repair.”

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.

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.

Although complaints that the government has been slow to respond were widespread, the people who picked up their loan checks Wednesday praised SBA officials for working quickly.

By Wednesday, SBA officials had sent out 86,000 disaster relief loan applications to families and merchants whose homes or businesses were damaged in the quake. Of that number, roughly 2,200 had been returned and will be processed over the next seven days, the officials said.

SBA spokesman Tom MacKenzie said about 70% of loan applications are approved and about 90% of loan recipients qualify for a low interest rate of 3.625%.

Loan amounts are capped at $200,000 for home improvements and $40,000 to replace possessions. Merchants whose businesses were affected can also apply for loans of up to $1.5 million. City officials said they had inspected 21,131 structures and found 16,162 dwellings unfit for habitation.

Times staff writers Aaron Curtiss and Carlos Lozano contributed to this story.

Taking a Ride

Metrolink’s daily ridership throughout the system increased from 9,026 on Jan. 14, the Friday preceding the quake, to 31,276 on Tuesday. Commuters affected by the closure of the Simi Valley Freeway can take the Ventura County Line from Moorpark to downtown Los Angeles.

Tuesday Daily average, Dec. 1993 Santa Clarita Line 21,952 1,439 from Lancaster to Union Station Ventura Line 2,840 2,275 from Moorpark to Union Station San Bernardino Line 4,220 4,468 from San Bernardino to Union Station Riverside Line 2,157 2,312 from Riverside to Union Station

Research by NONA YATES / Los Angeles Times

Source: Metrolink