Barriers

Residents in the foothill communities hit by the Station fire cheered when officials trucked in thousands of white concrete highway barriers and placed them in front of their homes. The hulking "K-rails" helped channel rainwater and mud away from homes during this week's storm. But now, officials said the barriers could stay on the streets for up to five years -- the length of time the risk of mudslides is expected to last in hillside areas of Glendale, La Crescenta, La Cañada Flintridge and other locations.

Re "Peak-hour bus lanes are urged," April 26 Bus lanes on Wilshire Boulevard are a great idea, but I am dismayed at the persistence of the parochial attitude of Los Angeles City Council members. Why does Councilman Bill Rosendahl think that the Brentwood bus lanes should be suspended pending implementation in other districts? This kind of thinking is the problem, not the lack of innovative ideas and opportunities for progress. Designate the bus lanes, study the one-way couplet, build the subway and stop putting up parochial barriers to real solutions.

A group has sued the California Department of Transportation to prevent construction of suicide barriers on a scenic bridge in Santa Barbara County. In a Superior Court filing, Friends of the Bridge contends that the agency violated state environmental laws by not fully considering the visual impact of a 9-foot-tall chain-link barrier on the Cold Spring Bridge. Since the bridge opened in 1953, 47 people have jumped to their deaths, according to the suit. The span on Highway 154 soars 220 feet over Cold Spring Canyon.

Re "Farmers Market Tragedy Evokes Thoughts on Driving Skills, Habits," July 27: Your editorial suggests that new laws are needed to require the aged be tested more often for their driving competence. And indeed, this may be needed. But what are more needed are city ordinances and laws that require temporary physical barriers that would make it virtually impossible for a vehicle to injure some number of gathered people, which would also protect against a possible mechanical malfunction.

Smuggler Gulch once symbolized the struggle for control over the U.S.-Mexico border, a shrubby trough so often traversed by undocumented immigrants that erstwhile Republican presidential candidate Patrick J. Buchanan used it as the backdrop for his hard-line appeal for stricter border enforcement. A steel fence and more border agents mean few migrants now cross into the United States here.

Douglas Waddel used to wake up at least once a week to find so much trash dumped in the alley behind his South Los Angeles home that he couldn't open his garage door. That was before the city put up gates at the alley's entrances, turning a once-dangerous wasteland into a secure neighborhood refuge. "We had burglaries and traffic going through the alleys, and the gates really cut down on that," said Waddel, a retired city truck driver who lives near 91st Street and Towne Avenue.

The men and women selected to decide Timothy J. McVeigh's guilt or innocence will sit behind a permanent partition intended to shield them from all reporters and most spectators in the federal courtroom. The 6-inch-thick wall, covered in beige fabric and slightly curved toward the judge's bench, slants from a height of 10 feet, where it is attached to the left courtroom wall, to about 3 feet near the front of the jury box.

The high number of drownings and near-drownings in Orange County this summer has prompted county officials and the cities of Orange and Villa Park to take steps to reduce preventable deaths of children, officials said. Orange City Council members on Tuesday decided to tighten requirements for barriers around new residential pools, fountains or spas.

The Orange County Board of Supervisors is expected to vote Tuesday on whether to approve spending $474,000 to help pay for a federal beach protection project for four communities, including Surfside. "It looks like everything is falling into place," said Eugene "Gino" Salegui, a Surfside resident who spent an anxious winter worrying that storms and high tides would erode the fragile beach and flood homes.