Caltrans

In an effort to prevent landslides along Pacific Coast Highway, Caltrans began excavation Tuesday of an unstable portion of a bluff overlooking the roadway. The 53,000 cubic yards of soil to be removed will be used by the city of Malibu to help reconstruct Kanan Dume Road, said Caltrans spokeswoman Margie Tiritilli. Officials closed Kanan Dume Road to traffic in September 1996 after a landslide.

Reacting to political pressure, state transportation officials reversed themselves and announced Monday that a new Caltrans office in Orange County will be permanent rather than temporary. County officials, who have agreed to contribute $1 million toward the cost of the new office, have long sought such a permanent facility.

A veteran Caltrans engineer--who rose through the ranks after designing the controversial, never-to-be-built Pacific Coast Freeway through Orange County--was named Tuesday to direct the county's new Caltrans district office. Leo J. Trombatore, director of the state Department of Transportation, introduced Keith McKean, 63, during a press conference at Caltrans' temporary offices on 17th Street in Santa Ana.

A state Senate committee will quiz Caltrans officials next month about routing mistakes that have sent oversized trucks under low overpasses, causing several accidents since June. Sen. Joe Dunn (D-Santa Ana), vice chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee, said that news accounts of errors by Caltrans workers who approved routing permits--including one that led to a fatal accident in Anaheim--have him concerned.

Re "O.C. Wetlands Renewal Project Putting the Squeeze on Cyclists," March 16: Caltrans' treatment of all the commuting and training bicyclists that have for years used Pacific Coast Highway at Bolsa Chica has been highhanded and arbitrary, despite its own claim to "fully consider" bicyclists. The Orange County Bicycle Coalition has tried many times to make contact with most of Caltrans' local officials, and (except for one meeting at which the local deputy director promised to "research the issue" and never did)

More than four years after her husband suffered severe brain damage in a motorcycle accident on the San Bernardino Freeway, a West Covina woman has received a multimillion-dollar settlement from the California Department of Transportation. Vicky Koelling sued Caltrans in 1983, alleging that the short, curving Baldwin Park Boulevard on-ramp did not provide drivers sufficient distance to reach freeway speed.

Re "Route 39 Work Gets Green Light," July 15: This is an incredible waste of Caltrans money that could be better spent on widening Highway 138 to four lanes from the L.A. County line to I-15 through San Bernardino County. The residents of Wrightwood, Pinon Hills and Phelan have been fighting for funding for years. Now we read that Caltrans is planning on spending millions of dollars to reopen Highway 39 to make the mountains more accessible. Unfortunately, the terrain is too fragile to sustain a major road, which is why it was closed in the first place.

Re "Caltrans Takes Heat for Dropping Its Drawers," May 14: As a public school teacher, I am appalled at Caltrans' destruction of this supposedly "damaged and not usable" (according to Caltrans spokesperson Judy Gish) furniture. For years in my classroom I sat at a roachinfested desk. I had to acquire three bookcases on my own to house textbooks. The journalism program's computers would be on the floor were it not for winning a journalism competition. I have a pair of battered metal filing cabinets with broken locks that I would love replaced.

The reopening of the Simi Valley Freeway in Granada Hills has been marred by the fact that Caltrans wasted a huge amount of tax money on public relations for the construction. Apparently deciding its own people couldn't handle its own community relations, Caltrans approved two PR firms (The Sierra Group and Century Diversified) in two contracts totaling over $308,000 from January to September. The contracts show the PR firms were being compensated at rates ranging from $121.16 to $25.20 per hour.

Demolition began Friday on one of two homes atop a hillside that partially collapsed onto Pacific Coast Highway and left a portion of the road between Topanga and Las Flores Canyon roads closed indefinitely. Bulldozing equipment was being used to raze a sprawling residence on Sierks Way, one of two homes that were in danger of tumbling down onto houses and the highway below.