Government can work: the Santa Monica story - federal government sponsored post-Northridge quake Santa Monica Freeway Project: includes a related article on the timely action of the FDA on tobacco ads targeting teens

Washington Monthly, May, 1997 by Michelle Cottle, Sherri Eisenberg

QUICK--NAME A MAJOR SUCCESS THE federal government has enjoyed in the last 30 years. Public school reform? No. The wildly popular War on Drugs? Not exactly. Health care Rural electrification and the interstate highway system? OK. You got us there.

Still, with all of Washington's much-publicized failures, it is easy to see why conservatives' government-bashing strikes a chord with so many Americans. In a recent survey conducted for the Council for Excellence in Government, 42 percent of surveyants could not offer a single important success of the U.S. government in the last three decades. And with the daily news reports of government corruption, incompetence, and waste run amok, why wouldn't Jane Q. Public entertain fantasies of ousting the bureaucrats and turning D.C. into a giant Disney theme park?

But it has long been the mission of this magazine to show that government can work. And when it does work, the onus is on all of us to highlight the successes and see what lessons can be applied to other areas. Of course, government's grand, far-reaching achievements are the most memorable, whether they be the accomplishments of the Peace Corps and NASA in the 1960s, or the military's 1990s performance in the Persian Gulf. It is just as vital, however, to recognize government's more pedestrian, yet equally important, small successes, like the Food and Drug Administration's handling of public comments on proposed tobacco regulations (see sidebar), or the Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA's) response to the Midwestern floods of 1993. After all, it is on the domestic front, with the not-so-glamorous projects, that bureaucratic lethargy most often threatens to sabotage action.

An example of government at its best--which occurred, ironically, just as anti-government sentiment was paving the way for the Republican Revolution--could be seen in the aftermath of the 1994 earthquake in southern California. At 4:31 a.m. on January 17, the Northridge quake rippled through the Los Angeles area, shaking down houses and office buildings, injuring more than 1,500 people, and disrupting power and water service to tens of thousands of residents. But, this being California, the most newsworthy aspect of the damage was the collapse of the stretch of 1-10 known as the Santa Monica Freeway.

Anyone who's ever experienced rush hour in L.A. knows the going is tough under the best of circumstances. The Santa Monica Freeway is the nation's busiest highway, carrying well over 300,000 vehicles each day. Traffic crawls and blood boils, turning commuting into the vehicular equivalent of roller derby. When the 6.8 magnitude Northridge quake exploded concrete columns supporting two of the freeway's bridges, the resulting effect on traffic could in itself have been designated a major disaster. Commuters had to be diverted onto alternate highways and surface streets; truckers had to follow long and costly detours. The governor's office estimated that each day the freeway was closed cost the local economy more than $1 million in lost production and wages.

According to the state transportation department, CalTrans, a reconstruction project of this size normally requires two years to complete--one year for design planning and award of contracts, and one for actual construction. But Los Angeles is car dependent, and the closure of a major freeway for more than a few months had the potential for a backlash that would make the city's 1992 riots look like a junior-high pep rally. As an added impetus, this high-profile federal-state partnership affected the politically key, voter-rich state of California. Neither President Clinton nor California Gov. Pete Wilson (who was up for re-election that year) could afford to have it fail. With the entire nation watching, both state and federal governments went into no-bullshit mode. Clinton declared Los Angeles a disaster area (something many of us had suspected all along) and targeted freeway reconstruction as a top priority. Transportation Secretary Federico Pena called for slashing bureaucratic red tape to push through emergency repair funds (the DOT awarded $45 million the first week and another $50 million the following week), and outlined a variety of innovative contracting techniques to speed reconstruction.

It was certainly in the state's interest to expedite repairs. In addition to the project being under intense public scrutiny--nothing generates interest in California like its roadways--cost was a major concern. The federal government was responsible for picking up 100 percent of construction expenses incurred within six months of the quake; beyond that, the state had responsibility for 20 percent of the bill. After intense consultation, officials from the Federal Highway Administration and from CalTrans pledged to reopen the Santa Monica Freeway within six months.

Forget bureaucratic procedure. Wilson issued an emergency declaration, allowing the normally interminable contract approval process to be scrapped. Within 12 hours of the quake, Pena approved nearly $4 million in demolition contracts, and the clearing of debris from the roadways began that same day. For the major construction projects, CalTrans compiled a short list of contractors with freeway construction experience and gave them five days to bid on the project. (Normally, open bidding allows all interested contractors six to eight weeks to respond to an official Request for Proposal) The contractors assumed a substantial amount of risk in submitting bids, because they were working with incomplete construction plans. (Instead of being allotted the usual 6 to 8 weeks at the onset of a project, the freeway's detailed construction planning took place concurrent with construction) This risk, coupled with the accelerated schedule set by the Federal Highway Administration and CalTrans, called for establishing serious financial incentives to win contractors' interest.