Surprise! Los Angeles Freeway will reopen next week, Newsom says
A large section of a Los Angeles freeway that was closed due to fire damage is expected to reopen no later than Tuesday — much earlier than officials originally estimated and before the full onslaught of holiday traffic.
The fire, which exploded in the early morning hours of Nov. 11, damaged more than 100 columns supporting the 10 Freeway, a central artery that runs through the city. This forced the closure of a nearly two-mile segment that traverses approximately 300,000 vehicles each. day.
Officials had initially suggested it could take months for the area to reopen — an eternity for a commuter-heavy city that relies heavily on cars. California Governor Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency to help speed repairs.
Engineers tested samples of the structure and within days determined that the damaged section of Interstate 10 did not need to be completely rebuilt, cutting repair time to a handful of weeks.
On Thursday, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and Governor Newsom shortened the timeline again, declaring that all lanes would be open by Thanksgiving.
“This is what happens when we work with urgency. This is what happens when we come together,” Mayor Bass said in a statement. “I want to make sure there are no barriers to fully completing the repairs and that when the highway opens it will be completely safe.”
She added that city services would continue to respond urgently to the impacts of the traffic closure during ongoing construction work. The burned portion of the highway included access to several other highways, pushing traffic onto side streets and affecting area businesses.
“I am grateful for the crews working around the clock to safely repair the 10 so we can get traffic moving in Los Angeles in days instead of weeks,” Governor Newsom said in a statement.
The fire, which broke out in a downtown industrial neighborhood, is believed to have been deliberately started in a room filled with wooden pallets, authorities said.
The property is owned by the California Department of Transportation, but the so-called airspace under the highway exits was leased to Apex Development Inc., a Southern California construction company.
The affected section is much busier than a section of Interstate 95 in northeast Philadelphia, which partially collapsed after a fire in June. Similar to the situation in Los Angeles, officials in Philadelphia initially expected the freeway closure to last several months, but they reopened it in less than two weeks.