Muscles for Freeways : No one’s laughing at retrofitting anymore

Of all the terrible damage the Northridge earthquake caused, nothing illustrated the sheer destructive power of a big quake more than the failure of parts of the Santa Monica, San Fernando-Simi Valley and Golden State freeways. In fact, outside California those fallen freeways have become symbols of the quake, shown again and again on television and in the print media. However, it’s easy to forget, while shuddering at the awesome sight of tons of torn steel and concrete and pondering what it all will cost to repair, that only eight freeway bridges collapsed while dozens of others withstood the shaking.

Among the bridges that held up, according to a formal report completed last week by a special Post Earthquake Investigation Team of the California Department of Transportation engineers, were those that had been retrofitted under an accelerated construction program begun by Caltrans after the 1989 Loma Prieta quake. That shows that even if earthquake damage to the vital infrastructure can’t be prevented, it at least can be mitigated. Or, as the chief of Caltrans’ office of earthquake engineering succinctly put it, it shows “what we were doing is right.”

Of course, the Caltrans retrofitting program should have moved along faster. It has been critically noted on this page that blame for the unfortunate delays must be shared. The union representing Caltrans’ engineers fought way too long against giving out design contracts to private engineering firms. And Caltrans let the union’s opposition weaken the momentum of the retrofitting program, which began after the collapse of the Nimitz Freeway in Oakland in the 1989 quake.

But the time for blaming is past. The Northridge earthquake has renewed the sense of urgency in strengthening all of California’s quake-vulnerable bridges and highway overpasses. And this time no delays must be brooked or no reasonable expense spared. For better or worse, freeways and other highways are the backbone of California’s transportation system. That’s why they are such powerful symbols on the rare occasions that they fail.