Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : Freeway Fixes Deplete Road Funds : Transportation: Seismic retrofitting of existing bridges has become a top priority since the Jan. 17 Northridge earthquake, bringing other state highway projects to a halt, Caltrans official says.

Several major highway improvements in northern Los Angeles County--including the widening of the Antelope Valley Freeway through Santa Clarita--could be delayed indefinitely because earthquake repairs to freeways have depleted state funds.

Car-pool and truck lanes were planned for a 16-mile stretch of the freeway between Santa Clarita and Agua Dulce, said Jim Drago, a Caltrans spokesman. The state was to pay about $39 million of the estimated $60-million cost, including the entire $30 million necessary to widen the northern 10 miles of the route. The remainder of the costs would be paid with county funds.

But seismic retrofitting of existing bridges has become a top priority since the Jan. 17 Northridge earthquake, bringing other state road projects to a halt, Drago said. The retrofitting better enables the bridges to withstand the shock of earthquakes.

Drago said the state faced a funding shortage before the earthquake, and the defeat of a June bond measure to supply nearly $1 billion for retrofitting the state’s roadways left officials no choice but to raid state highway improvement funds.

“The retrofitting proceeds, along with certain vital transportation improvement projects, such as those critical to safety and traffic movement,” he said.

The California Transportation Commission approved an allocation program in August that does not include the Antelope Valley Freeway expansion, originally scheduled to start in 1995, Drago said.

Plans to add car-pool lanes along a six-mile stretch between San Fernando and Sand Canyon roads, widening the freeway from six to eight lanes, will probably go ahead as scheduled because the county is paying $21 million of the $30-million cost, said Russell Snyder, another Caltrans spokesman.

But expanding the four-lane freeway between Sand Canyon and Escondido Canyon roads to six, and in some cases, eight lanes “could be subject to some delay,” although it is unknown for how long, Drago said.

“Under the guidelines of the allocation program we may decide to do the project anyway because it makes no sense to retrofit a bridge and then tear it down,” he said.

Twenty bridges on the freeway are scheduled for retrofitting, half of which are along the stretch to be widened, according to Caltrans reports.

Also facing delay is the widening from two lanes to four of a deadly stretch of California 126 between the Golden State Freeway and the Ventura County line, scheduled to begin in 1996, Drago said. Serious accidents on the winding highway are common, with drivers losing control at high speeds and vehicles colliding head-on.

Other projects threatened are two widenings of California 138 in the Antelope Valley, which were scheduled to begin in 1999. One project would widen a stretch of 138 between Avenue T and Longview Road from two to four lanes. The other would widen the road between 10th Street West to 30th Street East from four to six lanes.