Freeway Quake Repair to Cost $500 Million Less : Recovery: Caltrans asks to spend leftover federal aid on bridge strengthening.

State transportation officials Monday lowered--by about $500 million--their estimate of the cost of rebuilding the Los Angeles area’s earthquake-damaged freeways and asked federal officials for permission to spend $160 million of leftover relief funds on strengthening bridges.

Caltrans Director James van Loben Sels made the request at a Los Angeles hearing while sitting next to Federal Highway Administrator Rodney Slater, whose approval is required. Slater agreed to consider the request but noted that Congress has already approved “the largest disaster relief package in the history of the nation� for California.

The hearing on the earthquake recovery effort, chaired by U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), came as the number of requests for government assistance reached 500,411.

While Caltrans was asking to spend relief funds on retrofitting freeways, Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar) grilled state transportation officials regarding their use of earthquake aid to send out a brochure that he claimed looked “like a reelection piece.�

The four-page brochure features a front-page article describing Caltrans’ “Herculean effort� to restore Los Angeles’ freeway system. Inside are articles offering tips on how to avoid traffic delays. Caltrans spent $292,000 of federal disaster funds to send out 3 million of the brochures.

“There is some real good information on one of the four pages,� Katz griped. “The other three seem to be promoting what a great job Caltrans is doing, what a great job the governor is doing. . . . I really wonder if that is the best use of the money given the fact we’ve got bridges we need to retrofit.�

Tom McCarthy, an aide to the Caltrans district director in Los Angeles, said the agency has received “nothing but compliments� on the brochure.

Calling the government’s response “the largest single disaster relief operation in the nation’s history,� James L. Witt, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said, “We are providing victims and their communities with assistance faster than ever before in FEMA’s history.�

He said more than than 1,000 inspectors have examined more than 331,000 homes for damage.

Caltrans originally put the cost of repairing freeways and establishing alternative forms of transportation at about $1 billion. But the revised estimate puts the cost at about $500 million.

“Caltrans engineers have determined that repairs can be made to several damaged bridges and overpasses which were originally slated for full demolition and replacement,� explained Dean R. Dunphy, California’s secretary of business, transportation and housing.