LOS ANGELES COUNTY : Last Quake-Damaged Interchange Reopened
With television cameras, video recorders, reporters and scores of onlookers witnessing the event, the last earthquake-damaged link in the region’s vast freeway network was reopened at 11 a.m. Friday.
A lone California Highway Patrol car, lights flashing, escorted the first three cars onto the connector from the southbound Golden State Freeway to the northbound Antelope Valley Freeway in northern Los Angeles County, culminating nine months of work since the Jan. 17 Northridge quake.
The restoration of the interchange was of more symbolic than real importance. Only 1,300 vehicles a day used the transition before the quake, compared to the 287,000 cars and trucks that travel the freeways it connects. But its repair closed the final link in a chain of post-quake roadway projects that included the reopening of the Santa Monica Freeway in April and the Golden State Freeway above Gavin Canyon in May.
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