Coldwater Canyon Avenue

A heavily traveled stretch of Coldwater Canyon Avenue in Studio City that was closed for a week because of a ruptured water pipe reopened Saturday night, according to officials with the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. The stretch is part of a route connecting the San Fernando Valley and the Westside. The road was closed for roughly half a mile between Halkirk and Moorpark streets after a 62-inch-diameter, 95-year-old water trunk line ruptured Sept. 5. Water gushed as high as 10 to 15 feet in the air, witnesses said.

The rash of water-main breaks continued early Tuesday, with three more ruptures causing flooding and street closures in the Hollywood Hills and South Los Angeles. But with 18 major bursts so far this month -- about average for this point in October -- water officials said the recent upswing in major leaks in the city's water system, which reached an alarming 44 in September, appears to have eased. "It's settled down," said Joe Ramallo, a spokesman for the Department of Water and Power.

A 33-year-old singer with the rhythm and blues group Krystal was fatally injured when her car plunged about 200 feet into a ravine off Mulholland Highway a mile east of Coldwater Canyon Avenue, authorities said. Dolores Warren, a Hollywood-area resident from St. Paul, Minn., suffered massive internal injuries and died at St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank.

A heavily traveled stretch of Coldwater Canyon Avenue in Studio City that was closed for a week because of a ruptured water pipe reopened Saturday night, according to officials with the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. The stretch is part of a route connecting the San Fernando Valley and the Westside. The road was closed for roughly half a mile between Halkirk and Moorpark streets after a 62-inch-diameter, 95-year-old water trunk line ruptured Sept. 5. Water gushed as high as 10 to 15 feet in the air, witnesses said.

Robert Lee was standing in his frontyard near the intersection of Coldwater Canyon Avenue and Dickens Street in Studio City late Saturday night when he heard a low rumble and saw water at his feet. Then he saw water gushing from a sinkhole. "Maybe 10 to 15 feet in the air, and it was making a beeline for our front door," Lee said, adding that a friend with him was swept off his feet by the rushing water. A rupture in a nearly 100-year-old, 62-inch water trunk line caused flooding several feet deep on some nearby streets, officials said.

Robert W. Poole Jr. uses "we" seven times in his article, "The Price of Breaking up Gridlock," (Jan. 17). I do not want to pay another red cent for road maintenance that I am constitutionally guaranteed. So, take the gas tax money out of the general fund and spend it on the roads and highways. I know of four alternative routes to the 101 / 405 interchange: Laurel Canyon Boulevard, Coldwater Canyon Avenue, Sepulveda Boulevard and Topanga Canyon Boulevard (Highway 27). These heavily traveled roads all need maintenance, some widening.

The effort by Chandler Boulevard residents to divert a busway onto equally residential Oxford Street is as hypocritical as the name Concerned Citizens for Transit ("Bus-Only Route on Chandler Is Unsafe," Valley Perspective, Feb. 18). The essential difference between the two streets is that Oxnard is less affluent and does not have a 26-foot tree-lined median purchased by the taxpayers for use as an exclusive transit corridor. Oxnard Street already has an offramp to the Hollywood Freeway, which creates rush-hour gridlock for both buses and cars.

In spite of city workers laboring into the night to repair a 75-year-old ruptured underground pipe that threatened water supplies to hundreds of hillside residents, city officials say it will be a week until normal traffic can be restored on busy Coldwater Canyon Avenue. The five-foot-wide pipe burst Saturday beneath Coldwater Canyon Avenue uncorking a geyser that flooded yards, dug a 30-foot-wide crater in the road and forced a shutdown of the busy traffic corridor.

Officials raced Monday to fix a large broken water main in Studio City and braced for tough rush-hours today near Coldwater Canyon Avenue, a heavily used mountain route connecting the San Fernando Valley to the Westside. Commuters are advised to avoid the area and, if forced to detour, stick to Beverly Glen Boulevard to the west and Laurel Canyon Boulevard to the east rather than wind their way through unfamiliar mountain streets. Los Angeles Department of Water and Power crews finished welding the 62-inch water main -- one of the largest in the city -- that burst late Saturday, flooding residences and washing away cars in a powerful torrent that lasted hours.

High above Studio City, where Coldwater Canyon Avenue meets Mulholland Drive, seven actors will perform a staged reading of the original screenplay for "Airplane!" tonight and Saturday night. The event, in its third year, will benefit the environmental group TreePeople, which operates the S. Mark Taper Foundation Amphitheatre in Coldwater Canyon Park. "No expense has been spared.

Officials raced Monday to fix a large broken water main in Studio City and braced for tough rush-hours today near Coldwater Canyon Avenue, a heavily used mountain route connecting the San Fernando Valley to the Westside. Commuters are advised to avoid the area and, if forced to detour, stick to Beverly Glen Boulevard to the west and Laurel Canyon Boulevard to the east rather than wind their way through unfamiliar mountain streets. Los Angeles Department of Water and Power crews finished welding the 62-inch water main -- one of the largest in the city -- that burst late Saturday, flooding residences and washing away cars in a powerful torrent that lasted hours.

Robert Lee was standing in his frontyard near the intersection of Coldwater Canyon Avenue and Dickens Street in Studio City late Saturday night when he heard a low rumble and saw water at his feet. Then he saw water gushing from a sinkhole. "Maybe 10 to 15 feet in the air, and it was making a beeline for our front door," Lee said, adding that a friend with him was swept off his feet by the rushing water. A rupture in a nearly 100-year-old, 62-inch water trunk line caused flooding several feet deep on some nearby streets, officials said.

The effort by Chandler Boulevard residents to divert a busway onto equally residential Oxford Street is as hypocritical as the name Concerned Citizens for Transit ("Bus-Only Route on Chandler Is Unsafe," Valley Perspective, Feb. 18). The essential difference between the two streets is that Oxnard is less affluent and does not have a 26-foot tree-lined median purchased by the taxpayers for use as an exclusive transit corridor. Oxnard Street already has an offramp to the Hollywood Freeway, which creates rush-hour gridlock for both buses and cars.

High above Studio City, where Coldwater Canyon Avenue meets Mulholland Drive, seven actors will perform a staged reading of the original screenplay for "Airplane!" tonight and Saturday night. The event, in its third year, will benefit the environmental group TreePeople, which operates the S. Mark Taper Foundation Amphitheatre in Coldwater Canyon Park. "No expense has been spared.

Robert W. Poole Jr. uses "we" seven times in his article, "The Price of Breaking up Gridlock," (Jan. 17). I do not want to pay another red cent for road maintenance that I am constitutionally guaranteed. So, take the gas tax money out of the general fund and spend it on the roads and highways. I know of four alternative routes to the 101 / 405 interchange: Laurel Canyon Boulevard, Coldwater Canyon Avenue, Sepulveda Boulevard and Topanga Canyon Boulevard (Highway 27). These heavily traveled roads all need maintenance, some widening.

In spite of city workers laboring into the night to repair a 75-year-old ruptured underground pipe that threatened water supplies to hundreds of hillside residents, city officials say it will be a week until normal traffic can be restored on busy Coldwater Canyon Avenue. The five-foot-wide pipe burst Saturday beneath Coldwater Canyon Avenue uncorking a geyser that flooded yards, dug a 30-foot-wide crater in the road and forced a shutdown of the busy traffic corridor.

The rash of water-main breaks continued early Tuesday, with three more ruptures causing flooding and street closures in the Hollywood Hills and South Los Angeles. But with 18 major bursts so far this month -- about average for this point in October -- water officials said the recent upswing in major leaks in the city's water system, which reached an alarming 44 in September, appears to have eased. "It's settled down," said Joe Ramallo, a spokesman for the Department of Water and Power.

The San Fernando Valley is 260 square miles of suburbia. Actually, make that suburbia on nutritional supplements. And antidepressants. With perhaps a little cosmetic surgery south of Ventura Boulevard, where the big money is. Or maybe - now that it's grown to more than 1.7 million people in nearly three dozen cities and neighborhoods rich and poor - the Valley isn't even a suburb anymore. It begins just 10 miles northwest of Los Angeles City Hall, sprawling west to the Simi Hills, north to the Santa Susana Mountains, and east to the Verdugo and San Gabriel mountains.

A 33-year-old singer with the rhythm and blues group Krystal was fatally injured when her car plunged about 200 feet into a ravine off Mulholland Highway a mile east of Coldwater Canyon Avenue, authorities said. Dolores Warren, a Hollywood-area resident from St. Paul, Minn., suffered massive internal injuries and died at St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank.