California Department Of Transportation

In Los Angeles, the good things often slip away in the night. One morning you head for your favorite breakfast spot only to discover it's been turned into a used-clothing store. No one seems to know why. It's just got switched. When I first came to Los Angeles in the early 1970s, I remember walking past the old Sunkist building in downtown and thinking how perfect it seemed.

With the state's fiscal woes making many major freeway improvements unlikely, and with severe geographic restraints limiting options, Caltrans was looking for an inexpensive way to reduce congestion and accidents on the notorious interchange of the 5 and 110 freeways near Dodger Stadium. The agency came up with fluorescent bluish-white lights and electronic warning signs. Until recently, motorists crawling out of downtown Los Angeles on the 110 north queued up in the far left lane to transition to the 5 north.

It is penal service hiding behind coy euphemisms. Work release. Celebrity diversion. Special programs. They are, in essence, chain gangs without shackles. "I sentence a lot of people to work with Caltrans," said a Los Angeles municipal court commissioner. "Because it is hard work that in the heat of summer becomes hard labor."

For a while, it appeared that the economy around Mojave was going to get a badly needed boost. Rival developers were battling to grab a patch of state-owned scrubland on the outskirts of town, planning to transform it into a bustling travel plaza that would employ 100 local residents in its restaurants, store and filling station. But five years later, the truck stop still has not materialized. And a jury has ruled that the state's sale of the 20-acre property, intended to generate cash for the government while helping the local economy, was bungled so badly that it will instead cost taxpayers about $1 million.

The Los Angeles City Council voted Wednesday to help the California Department of Transportation improvethe 405-101 freeway interchange. The unanimous approval of Councilman Jack Weiss' motion clears the way for Caltrans to permanently close the eastbound Ventura Boulevard onramp to the northbound San Diego Freeway and widen nearby Sepulveda Boulevard. In exchange, Caltrans will build an underpass as a substitute for the closed Ventura onramp.

The California Department of Transportation will close the connector from the eastbound 101 Freeway to the north- and southbound 405 Freeway in Los Angeles from 6 to 11 a.m. Sunday, weather permitting. The closure is to include the eastbound 101 at the Haskell Avenue offramp and the Hayvenhurst Avenue onramp. The closure is to allow Caltrans to do repair and maintenance work.

Menacing razor wire being strung around Southern California freeway signs is aimed at keeping graffiti vandals at bay. "It wasn't our first choice," said Pat Reid of the California Department of Transportation. "But we get a lot of calls from people about the graffiti. They don't want us to look like New York City." Coiling wire around overhead freeway signs, at about $1,000 per sign, is "a last-ditch effort to protect the public's investment," Reid said.

Westbound Interstate 8 will be closed for construction every night through Saturday from 10:30 p.m. to 6 a.m. at the California 163 interchange, California Department of Transportation officials said. The two left lanes of westbound I-8 will close by 10:30 p.m. and the remaining lanes will follow by 12:30 a.m. The ramp from westbound I-8 to southbound 163 will also be closed, Caltrans said. Traffic will be detoured north on 163 to Friars Road, then back south on 163.

Highway Contracts Reinstated: A Sacramento judge ordered the California Department of Transportation to reinstate for at least 22 days all contracts that it had canceled two months ago with private highway design and engineering firms. The order means that about $40 million worth of highway design, engineering and surveying work will be returned immediately, said Jim Drago, a Caltrans spokesman. An Aug. 27 hearing was set to determine whether a more lasting injunction should be issued.

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.

In a landmark court settlement proposed Tuesday, Caltrans agreed to spend $1.1 billion over the next 30 years to repair and improve state-controlled sidewalks, crosswalks and park-and-ride facilities so they are accessible for people with disabilities. The settlement, filed at the federal courthouse in Oakland, was a major victory for civil rights activists, who have been battling for years with the transportation agency to provide equal access to public rights-of-way for the blind and those who use wheelchairs, canes or walkers.

Civil rights advocates asserted in federal court Wednesday that California's highway agency has denied people with disabilities equal access to sidewalks throughout the state by failing to install wheelchair ramps and warnings for the blind at street corners. The class-action lawsuit, which went to trial before U.S. District Judge Saundra Brown Armstrong in Oakland, alleges that Caltrans has violated the 1992 Americans with Disabilities Act, a federal law that requires improvements in accessibility whenever sidewalks and roads are built or undergo major repairs.

The message of the proposed freeway signs doesn't seem controversial, memorializing individuals killed in traffic accidents and urging California motorists to drive safely. But a proposal to allow families to pay the California Department of Transportation to put up dozens of such signs along state highways has been caught up in a revolt by environmentalists against what they see as the growing clutter of signs and billboards along California roadways. The latest flare-up involves plans to expand a program that allows families to pay $1,000 to cover the cost of signs that read, "Please Don't Drink and Drive -- In Memory of . . ."

It's the freeway controversy that just won't quit. The fight over whether to finish the 710 Freeway -- which stops just short of South Pasadena -- has been going on for more than half a century, with the records in a 1998 federal court case so voluminous that they filled some 500 cardboard file boxes.

An anti-illegal-immigration group's Adopt-a-Highway sign was re-posted this week on Interstate 5 near the Border Patrol checkpoint in San Clemente after a federal judge ruled that it did not pose a danger to the public. State transit officials had moved the San Diego Minutemen's sign to a less-busy highway in eastern San Diego County, saying they were concerned that it would become a gathering place for protesters and clog the busy interstate.

Caltrans has abruptly suspended its popular Adopt-A-Highway program several months after an anti-illegal immigration group sued the state agency for discrimination after it was forced to move its stretch of highway farther from a U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint along Interstate 5 in San Diego County.

In a surprise move, the California Department of Transportation removed the main obstacle Tuesday to the $100-million restoration of the Bolsa Chica wetlands, paving the way for the project's approval. Caltrans' previous insistence on turning a four-lane section of Pacific Coast Highway into a six-lane bridge was the primary reason the state Coastal Commission staff had recommended against the project Friday. But Tuesday, the transportation agency agreed to a four-lane bridge.

Fearing that their homes might be on an unstable slope, some residents of an upscale neighborhood began evacuating Thursday night on the advice of Caltrans officials. Heavy winter rains may have undermined seven residences in the 3000 block of Maple Tree Drive, officials with the California Department of Transportation said. "We don't have fear of homes slipping, but are concerned with continuing damage," Caltrans spokesman Albert Miranda told residents late Thursday.

Caltrans has given the San Diego Minutemen a new stretch of road to clean up for the Adopt-A-Highway program, moving the group that fights illegal immigration from Interstate 5 near the U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint to a quieter, less visible state highway. Caltrans officials say the change was made because of safety concerns.

Millions of gallons of polluted runoff from state highways in Los Angeles and Ventura counties will be prevented from contaminating local waters and beaches every year under a court agreement reached Friday between Caltrans and environmentalists. Caltrans vowed to reduce storm water pollution by 20% below 1994 levels along more than 1,000 miles of state highway in the region, according to the agreement in federal court with the Natural Resources Defense Council and Santa Monica BayKeeper.