EARTHQUAKE / LIFELINES OF L.A. : VIEWPOINTS : Most Fear Driving on Freeways During the Big One

Four of every five residents in Los Angeles County believe that they would be unsafe driving on area freeways if the Big One struck, and a majority consider freeway damage after the Northridge temblor as unacceptably severe.

A third of county residents blame the collapse of key roadway sections on budget cutbacks and wrong priorities by state transportation officials, according to a Los Angeles Times poll. But government agencies garner high marks for their efforts to restore the freeways and commutes that define the region.

The countywide survey, based on interviews with 1,116 adults in the week after the magnitude 6.8 quake, found widespread unease over the safety of the area’s major arteries in the event of another intense temblor. Stark images of crumbled concrete and asphalt have become indelible markers of fear for many motorists, although hundreds more miles of freeway in Los Angeles survived intact.

“I don’t want to think about the Big One,” said poll participant Leonor Gonzalez, 55, a secretary who now limits herself to short hops on the freeway from her Woodland Hills home. “I just hope that God will protect me.”

By contrast, only 14% said they would feel secure if a major earthquake hit as they traveled somewhere on the county’s freeway network. For some, that confidence springs more from fatalism than faith in transportation technology and design.

“There’s nothing you can do about it. You could get hit by a truck tomorrow. I’m hopeful at some point that all the freeways will be retrofitted and brought up to standard,” said Claudio Sanchez, 29, a civil engineer from Glendora.

“Chances are that even if you are on the freeway that you’re not going to be one of the statistics,” said Charlotte Vrooman, 44, a Southern California native who lives on the Westside, close to the collapsed portion of the Santa Monica Freeway.

“I guess I’m just playing statistics rather than feeling totally confident in the engineering. If it’s a big enough (earthquake), then it won’t really matter where you are.”

Even though 34% of poll respondents regard the damage to freeways as being unavoidable given the strength of the Jan. 17 temblor, 1 in 10 cited poor engineering and construction as the primary causes of the roadway collapses.

Retrofitting is a good idea but should have been done more quickly, said San Fernando Valley homemaker Debbie Tomasi, 32, who also suggested that California tap Japanese expertise in designing seismically sound roadways.

“If somebody’s living through earthquakes every day, like they do in Japan, they’ve got to have a lot more knowledge and hindsight than we do,” Tomasi said.

Los Angeles freeways may be more aesthetically pleasing than their Japanese counterparts, but “function over form would be the best way to go,” Tomasi said. “So what if the freeway’s beautifully sculpted? There are other ways you can spruce it up.”

In the poll--which has a sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points--19% of county residents attributed the quake damage to misdirected priorities by transportation officials, and another 16% blamed cutbacks in the public works budget.

Jim Drago, a spokesman for Caltrans, said the department hopes to accelerate its retrofitting program.

“These things take time,” he said “Each one is done individually. You want to make sure that the techniques are proven.”

Although 51% of county residents say the damage sustained by freeways in last month’s quake is unacceptably severe, Drago said the damage must be kept in perspective. “Any failure of a structure is unacceptable,” he said. “But . . . we had eight locations (damaged) out of 2,000 bridges.”

In a spot of good news for transportation officials, 84% of those polled rate the government’s post-quake repair efforts as good or excellent.

Expressing more optimism, nearly 60% of the county’s commuters did not believe that their traffic time would increase by much after the temblor.

But the number was significantly lower--44%--in the San Fernando and Santa Clarita valleys, which were hit hard by the collapse of the Golden State and Antelope Valley freeways. Indeed, eight days after the temblor, the evening delay on the northbound Golden State soared to more than two hours. By last week, it had been whittled down to 21 minutes, according to Caltrans.

For traffic relief, thousands of north county motorists have flocked to the Metrolink trains, finding standing room only in many of the carriages and setting ridership records. The Santa Clarita/Antelope Valley line peaked at 21,952 passengers Jan. 25. The figures have tailed off since, but ridership still far outstrips pre-quake levels.

However, only 6% of Times poll participants who drive alone said they would turn to buses or trains to get to work because of the damage suffered by the freeways. Nine percent would try car-pooling, while 83% said they would continue to drive.

“I’m not surprised at that. It’s unfortunate,” Metrolink Executive Director Richard Stanger said.

“People are not married to their cars--they’re married to convenience. They believe the only option for convenience is their private car,” he said. “Once they take it, they realize that Metrolink can be convenient. It’s getting them to try that’s difficult.”

THE TIMES POLL: Freeway Safety

After the Northridge quake, 1,116 Los Angeles County residents were asked a variety of questions about their confidence in the freeway system and their assessment of the failures experienced by a number of major freeways.

* How safe do you think you would be driving on the freeway in your area if the “big” earthquake struck? Safe: 14% Unsafe: 80% Don’t know: 6%

* How would you rate the efforts by government agencies to repair damage to the area’s freeways? Good: 84% Not good: 10% Don’t know: 6%

* Given the size of the Northridge earthquake, would you say the damage suffered by area freeways and roads was to be expected? Was to be expected: 29% Unacceptably severe: 51% Remarkably light: 13% Don’t know: 7%

* To what do you primarily attribute the collapse of several portions of Los Angeles’ freeway system after the earthquake? Excessive cutbacks: 16% Wrong priorities: 19% Unavoidable: 34% Poor engineering/construction (volunteered): 11% Other: 3% None of those factors: 2% Don’t know: 15%

Note: The poll, conducted Jan. 22-23, has a sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.