Most Valley Freeway Quake Repairs on Schedule

As all of Los Angeles celebrates the reopening of the Santa Monica Freeway, a question arises: Why isn’t work progressing as fast on earthquake-damaged roads and bridges in the San Fernando Valley?

“We didn’t set priorities on (finishing) any of these reconstruction projects ahead of others,” said Jerry Baxter, Caltrans district director for Los Angeles and Ventura counties. “We’re just trying to do everything as fast as possible.”

Some projects are far more difficult than others and therefore require more time, added Jay Steele, a Caltrans project engineer.

Comparing the Santa Monica Freeway repairs with, say, rebuilding several bridges near the interchange of the Golden State and Antelope Valley freeways “is comparing apples and oranges,” said Steele.

For one thing, he noted, the Antelope Valley Freeway bridge projects “are 85 feet in the air and you’re also working with detour traffic underneath you all the time.

“We haven’t had a day off since Sunday, Jan. 30,” he said. “We’ve had an average of 160 to 175 people on the site on a daily basis.”

Two of the four bridges at that interchange are to be completed by July 28. The remaining bridges at the site--the southbound Antelope Valley Freeway to the northbound Golden State, and the southbound Golden State to the northbound Antelope Valley--are expected to be finished by the end of the year.

Only four of the nine Caltrans contracts awarded for major repairs to local roadways after the Jan. 17 Northridge quake have been completed so far:

* Reopening two lanes of the southbound Antelope Valley Freeway connecting to the southbound Golden State Freeway;

* The Old Road detour around the damaged bridges of the Golden State Freeway at Gavin Canyon;

* The Simi Valley Freeway detour using the former westbound lanes; and

* The demolition of three main bridges that are part of the Golden State-Antelope Valley freeway interchange.

The five remaining projects in the Valley area “are all close to being on schedule,” said Baxter.

However, Caltrans may approve an extra week or so of work on two projects because engineers at those job sites have run into unforeseen problems, officials said.

One of the projects that may be affected is the rebuilding of Butte Canyon Bridge over the Golden State Freeway, north of Calgrove Boulevard and south of Valencia Boulevard. Completion of the project is now set for May 17.

The other is the reconstruction of the Mission-Gothic undercrossing and the Bull Creek overcrossing on the Simi Valley Freeway. The scheduled completion date for that work is now May 22.

All of the contracts by Caltrans after the Northridge quake include financial bonuses for contractors who finish ahead of schedule and penalties for not finishing on time.

In the case of the Santa Monica Freeway, that bonus or penalty was $200,000 a day. The bonus or penalty for repairs to the Golden State Freeway is $150,000 a day, Steele said.

The bonuses and penalties were determined by the relative “public benefit” of completing the repair projects quickly, said Steele.

The Santa Monica Freeway, thought to be the world’s busiest freeway, “carries over 300,000 cars a day,” he noted. “On the (Interstate) 5, it’s about 135,000 cars a day.”

Baxter added that the contractor on the Santa Monica Freeway repairs, C. C. Myers Inc. of Rancho Cordova, went after the job with unusual vigor.

He noted that Myers hired five times the usual number of carpenters and ironworkers used on such a project--and worked them around the clock, seven days a week.