Bus Stops

Senovia Amigon arrived at the Boyle Heights street corner at 3 a.m. Valentine's Day to stake out her turf. After eight years peddling romantic trinkets near the auto body shops and menudo stands at 4th and Soto streets, Amigon wasn't about to let anyone crowd her customary spot. "If someone comes," she said in Spanish, "you kick them out." At the prime corner location, early arrival could mean the difference between a modest windfall and bunches of wilting, leftover flowers.

Arnie Pike's never met a curb he didn't want to have cut. Pike, 68, began using a wheelchair after suffering a stroke 12 years ago. The Placentia resident has become a voice for disabled people, arguing before city councils and transit authorities throughout Orange County for smoother sidewalks, wheelchair ramps and better access. "We never ask for more than any other person, just what is fair," he said during a recent interview with his service dog, Fort, at his side.

Every Mother's Day for seven years, Marilyn Herod set up a flower stand selling gift baskets and teddy bears in the parking lot of an auto body shop near her South Los Angeles church. The Riverside mother set up the stand again early Sunday morning, working with other mothers of her congregation at St. Reed Missionary Baptist Church.

Wendy Whitaker cannot live in her new home, a 106-year-old bungalow with rocking chairs on its front porch and an American flag flying from its white picket fence. A month after Whitaker, 26, bought the house in Harlem, a small town in northeastern Georgia, police officers informed her that it was within 1,000 feet of a child-care center. Whitaker is a registered sex offender: When she was 17, she had consensual sex with a 15-year-old boy.

The family of Juan Rojas, the 7-year-old killed at an Orange County bus stop last week when a driver allegedly lost control of his SUV while reaching for a cellphone, filed a wrongful-death lawsuit Monday against the motorist. The family also filed a $15-million claim against the public agencies in charge of the design and placement of the bus stop. Claims are typically forerunners to lawsuits.

When Eva Toledo learned that Greyhound was canceling its eight daily stops in Thousand Oaks, her thoughts turned to the dozens of passengers she sold tickets to each month. Many of the passengers were bound for Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, Tijuana and points in between. Some were local laborers relying on the longest-running nationwide bus service in the United States to take them home for weekends with their families, Toledo said.

The Los Angeles City Council acted Friday to remove roadblocks that have kept hundreds of ad-bearing bus shelters and other street furniture out of affluent areas of West Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley. The council voted to curtail the power council members have to block such things as bus shelters, kiosks and self-cleaning toilets from their districts.

Few places in Los Angeles are lonelier than the series of concrete-and-tile bus stations on the Harbor Freeway that Caltrans built for roughly $25 million to accommodate commuters between San Pedro and downtown. Most of the eight stations are 30 feet from freeway traffic, with the rush of nearby cars creating a head-splitting roar. Plumes of vehicle exhaust choke the lungs and sting the eyes.

More than 125 bus stops in northern San Diego County will be illuminated by solar-powered lights as a cost-effective alternative to running electrical wires to remote areas. Pressing a button on the street lamp turns on the light for 10-minute intervals during the nighttime only. Each street lamp costs $1,500 and is part of a bus stop improvement program financed by a $350,000 county grant and a $600,000 rural transit improvement grant from the California Department of Transportation.

Transit agencies in California can be held legally responsible when patrons are injured on their way to a bus stop that is hazardous to reach, the California Supreme Court ruled Monday. The 5-2 ruling was a defeat for more than 200 transit agencies in California that had joined the case on behalf of the defendant, the Central Contra Costa Transit Authority. A lawyer for the transit agencies predicted that the ruling will increase lawsuits and hurt public transportation in California.