Caltrans Takes a Few Wrong Turns

* Caltrans is a behemoth bureaucracy with a budget bigger than many countries, an inscrutable face and the arrogance to match the worst of the world’s dictators.

A little ground water under the 105 freeway? Not a problem--”We’re fixing it.”

A few bad welds under the Orange Crush? “Not a problem; we’ll fix it and get back to you with the name of the responsible and negligent party, in due course.”

And guess who gets to pay for these little “errors in judgment”?

Two days ago, as I threw my car out of alignment by hitting two “temporary” joints on the 605-105 interchange, I thought fondly of what I’d do were I able to investigate this agency.

Does anyone know who runs the place? Is there any oversight of their massive expenditures?

DON COULSON

Temecula

* On Sept. 22 you reported on the U.S. government’s refusal to bail Caltrans out of the Orange Crush retrofit mess.

First we discovered that a large number of the welds at critical areas of the overpass bridges are faulty and will not withstand the stress of a major earthquake. In our locality, that is not good news.

Next, you reported that Caltrans tried to toss the blame on the contractor, who promptly denied responsibility and claimed that in the early engineering they had called for additional safety in the construction, but were overruled by Caltrans.

We can all assume that the new fix on the problem will come in at a “taxpayer” cost of much more than the cost of original construction had the job been done correctly.

And on the heels of everything else, the U.S. government has tossed the ball back at us taxpayers to pay the tab for this high-grade ineptitude.

The lack of oversight on the Orange Crush overpass reminds us of the Highway 73 toll road fiasco. As many of us know, shortly after opening this high-priced avenue to South County, it was hit with rain.

The new customers soon discovered that the water had turned their ride home into a game of ice hockey. The surface of the road, when wet, was a long slippery hazard.

Is there to be no end to the costly litany of mistakes that we taxpayers have to shoulder the cost of? Somewhere along the line, we must have accountability for these costly wrong decisions.

KEVIN B. CONNOLLY

Costa Mesa

* Re “Probe Ordered of Faulty O.C. Bridge Welds,” Sept. 14:

Before we give a sigh of relief that Caltrans will spend $4 million to repair faulty welds in the 3-year-old bridges of the Orange Crush interchange, stop and think about the real problem.

A perfect repair project will enable the bridges to withstand earthquake intensities up to 6.5. Big deal.

California, and Southern California in particular, is noted for quakes in the 7.0 and 7.4 range. Unless we can change the 6.5 number to 7.4, we will still be facing a disastrous future.

It would appear to us taxpayers that Caltrans is incapable of planning any transportation project that will solve a given problem.

Many of us believe that the Caltrans entity plans only to extend its workload along with job security.

STAN BOYLE

Santa Ana