Freeway railing concrete flaking exposes re-bar on the I-10

(FOX 11) - It is one of the most heavily traveled roadways in the country. But FOX 11 found exposed re-bar along one entire stretch Thousands of people take the elevated 10 fwy through downtown LA everyday. So, we wanted answers about that exposed re-bar we've been seeing.

You're driving on the 10 freeway past the 110 through Downtown LA. Look! Off to the drivers side. That curb is falling apart. Rebar is showing and in some places sticking out entirely. Its so chopped up even our crew in SkyFOX could see it clearly!

It's deterioration. What Caltrans calls spalling or delapidated concrete. But, drivers we spoke with say it looks dangerous.

By a local gas station we showed motorists pictures of the chopped up concrete. Miriam Guzman reacted saying, "Oh my God… that's dangerous. It's very dangerous."

We showed pictures to drivers Downtown.

Lou Reed told us, "From the pictures you can see its horrible. It's not safe it looks like."

Chris Duarte added, "Not only is it a hazard to the tire. It could cause an accident. There's nothing to protect them. You hit that and you could get into an accident."

And, Jennifer Alvarado said, "What if there's an emergency and someone needs to pull over to the left right?"

We took their concerns to Caltrans' Mark Bishoff who told us, "I understand its not in the condition that it should be in and if I was driving by, sure, I can see why people would be concerned about it."

Bishoff the problem stems back to the pouring of the concrete, "because the original mix of concrete was not the mix that it should have been…" which is why it's flaking. Others at Caltrans told us that the project was signed off a long time ago so repairing it is Caltrans responsibility. They've known about this for awhile. "It's on our radar," says Bishoff adding, they need to "take some core samples and then make some repairs."

Caltrans officials say that the rebar was shallow in some locations and the mixture of concrete didn't have the appropriate amount of calcium chloride. Cars hitting it didn't help. So, it started flaking, but despite that they insist the road deck is safe.

The agency says the 12-cent-gas tax money you pay at the pump or about 2 billion dollars a year is specifically for things like payment, drains, bridges, striping and traffic information elements.

This spalling has not been addressed yet because, as they put it, other projects have taken priority.

Says Bishoff, "Since last November we've done 1 billion dollars worth of repairs and upgrades in Los Angeles county alone. We plan on doing another 1 billion in the next four years and this is exactly the kind of problem we need to address with these funds because we have a 10-year backlog on maintenance."