A Costly Freeway Lesson

The Orange Crush is one of Southern California’s busiest and best-known interchanges, the joining of three freeways traveled by nearly 200,000 drivers a day.

Three years ago new bridges were built where the Orange, Garden Grove and Santa Ana freeways funnel cars from one road to another. Now comes the disclosure that some welds in the columns supporting the bridges fail at pressures less than they were designed to withstand. In earthquake country, that could be devastating.

A legislative committee this month said it would investigate and find out why it took Caltrans so long to find the problem and then to order corrective action.

A Caltrans spokesman said there were flaws in the process. Well, that much certainly is clear.

The agency says its inspectors did not have sufficient training to spot the bad welds immediately. The firm that welded the reinforcing bars in the columns says Caltrans was always shown X-rays of the work and the agency may have been too overwhelmed with work to understand what it was being shown. That’s unacceptable.

Caltrans says that no matter what the result, contractors are supposed to do the work they are paid to do. That’s correct, but there are few endeavors of any sort in which oversight is not required. Surely when taxpayers’ money is being spent to build structures essential to public safety, oversight is a priority.

The bad weld problem is all the more troubling in light of Caltrans’ other problems this year.

Several months ago, the agency acknowledged that it allowed issuance of at least two dozen permits for trucks to pass under bridges too low for them. In one incident, a truck passed through an Anaheim overpass with insufficient clearance, knocking off a 7,000-pound fuel tank and crushing a following motorist to death. When that problem came to light, the Caltrans director promised to hire more workers and improve existing technology.

More workers may be needed to inspect welds, as well. If so, it’s up to the agency to present its case before the Legislature.

Although the problematic welds were said to still be able to withstand a moderate earthquake, there is a chance they could fail in a temblor the size of the one centered in Northridge more than five years ago.

Contractors on projects other than the Orange Crush said they proposed using mechanical couplers rather than welds, but Caltrans ruled that unacceptable. However, later the couplers were approved for use in place of welds. Caltrans said the reason was that the designs of couplers improved.

The welds at the Orange Crush interchanges were installed during the $71-million project that improved the interchange of the freeways and added carpool lanes. It was a massive undertaking and lasted two years.

Just before the Orange Crush construction was complete, Caltrans began examining bridges throughout the state to see if they had flimsy welds similar to those discovered in a San Diego interchange.

Caltrans discovered the San Diego problem, at the interchange of the 8 and 805 freeways, during construction. It rightly ordered a halt to building and repairs to the welds. The process reportedly cost $5 million and is subject to a continuing dispute over who will pick up that bill.

At the Orange Crush, Caltrans says it will pay $4 million to get the problem of flimsy welds corrected, beginning in December or January. It says it has not decided whether to bill contractors for at least some of the remedial action. The federal government, which paid more than three-quarters of the construction cost, has refused to pay for the repairs.

The agency is examining other bridges as well. It should learn from the problem at the Orange Crush that a bridge is not necessarily built to specifications just because it’s supposed to be done that way. Monitors are necessary, but can only do proper work if they have been trained in what to look for.