Interstate 5 Freeway

Two developers are hoping that bargain-hunters will soon be singing "I Bought It on the Grapevine." A pair of giant factory outlet centers totaling 720,000 square feet are being planned for the Golden State Freeway near Gorman, a truck-stop hamlet just below the Los Angeles-Kern county line, 65 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles. They would continue a trend begun in the late 1980s, when manufacturers began opening wholesale outlets in the western United States.

A runaway truck carrying hazardous materials crashed into 11 other vehicles on Interstate 5 north of Tejon Pass on Wednesday, injuring 11 people and closing all northbound lanes for almost three hours, the California Highway Patrol said. The accident happened in thick fog shortly before 1 p.m. on the long grade that descends from the mountains into the southern San Joaquin Valley.

A sudden, blinding dust storm trapped hundreds of holiday motorists on Interstate 5 in the San Joaquin Valley on Friday, leaving at least 14 people dead and 114 injured in a series of chain-reaction accidents, the California Highway Patrol said. CHP officials said at least 93 cars and 11 big-rig trucks slammed into one another at 2:30 p.m. along a 1 1/2-mile stretch of the highway approximately 45 miles north of Coalinga.

The federal government declined Thursday to breathe new life into a plan to carve a toll road through southern Orange County, apparently ending a contentious, years-long campaign by transportation officials who predict that without it, the current freeway system is destined for breakdown.

A big-rig crash ignited a brush fire Thursday morning and shut down all but one lane of southbound Interstate 5 near Camp Pendleton. For much of the day, southbound traffic was backed up for about 20 miles, into Orange County, as a tow truck and Caltrans workers tried to clear the wreckage, California Highway Patrol Officer Larry Landeros said. The semi-truck overturned about 5 a.m.

The project to widen more of the Santa Ana Freeway could clear traffic running through Orange County, but it may clog the courts. While 222 businesses will be partially or completely displaced by the current project, 139, about 63%, have rejected the state's offer to purchase their properties, forcing Caltrans to initiate eminent domain eviction proceedings.

The collapse of the Golden State Freeway (Interstate 5) at Gavin Canyon in the Northridge earthquake severed the main artery between Southern California and the rest of the state. A four-lane detour along The Old Road was constructed two weeks later to handle traffic, which nonetheless continued to bottleneck through the Newhall Pass.

Tiffany Morrison was trying to be a fun mom. The Lake Isabella resident had agreed to take her two daughters and their three friends to Magic Mountain's Hurricane Harbor. Unfortunately, the Grapevine killed her station wagon. "This isn't fun. It's the middle of July, there's five kids with me and the car stops running," said Morrison, as the girls tried in vain to convince her that their amusement park adventure could be salvaged.

Bringing another dose of relief to quake-weary Southern California commuters, officials said Tuesday that the reconstruction of two Interstate 5 bridges will be completed a month early, enabling the heavily traveled freeway to open to traffic next week. Gov.

Commuters who drive on Interstate 5 today are being urged by Caltrans officials to use alternative routes even though the southbound lanes could reopen at 5 a.m. and the northbound lanes could reopen as early as this afternoon. "It would make the commute easier for everybody," said Caltrans spokeswoman Deborah Harris. An even better plan, officials said, would be to use Metrolink trains.

A big-rig crash ignited a brush fire Thursday morning and shut down all but one lane of southbound Interstate 5 near Camp Pendleton. For much of the day, southbound traffic was backed up for about 20 miles, into Orange County, as a tow truck and Caltrans workers tried to clear the wreckage, California Highway Patrol Officer Larry Landeros said. The semi-truck overturned about 5 a.m.

The California Department of Transportation launched an ambitious effort Friday to fix a troubled mile-long section of Interstate 5, a six-week construction project that will close the freeway for days at a time. Authorities braced for huge traffic snarls because of the project, dubbed "The Big Fix." Workers from the construction firm C.C. Myers will repair the roadbed and drainage system in what's known as the "boat section," a swath of freeway that dips below the level of the Sacramento River west of downtown.

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.

A San Juan Capistrano man has been arrested in connection with the weekend rape of a woman on the side of Interstate 5. Alejandro Martinez Leyva, 25, was taken into custody about 9:30 p.m. Tuesday at his home, about a mile from where the assault occurred, said Orange County Sheriff's Department spokesman Jim Amormino. Detectives traced the man to his residence in the 26400 block of Calle San Luis through a description provided by the victim, a 24-year-old San Diego County woman.

A motorcyclist was killed Wednesday in a three-vehicle crash on southbound Interstate 5, authorities said. The accident occurred about 11:30 a.m. south of 17th Street when a 2002 black Ford Mustang traveling at a high speed hit a white Ford F-250 that then hit the motorcycle. The motorcyclist, whose name has not been released pending notification of relatives, was pronounced dead at the scene. The driver of the Mustang, Alexander Jakusin, 24, of Aliso Viejo, was arrested.

Caltrans has chosen a construction firm to repair the southbound Newhall Pass tunnel truck lanes on Interstate 5 that were damaged in a fiery vehicle pile-up earlier this month. Security Paving Co. of Oxnard won the $11-million contract to re-slab the damaged lanes and repair concrete barriers and metal guardrails. Work will begin immediately, according to a state Department of Transportation announcement Monday. The company may earn up to a $2.

Pilgrims, start your engines. This is it, the day before Thanksgiving. It is a day when by tradition half of California drives north on Interstate 5 to watch football and carve turkey with kin, while the other half of California pushes south in order to do the same with relatives living below the Tehachapi. Who does this leave behind to greet arriving travelers? And why can't everyone simply agree to meet here, at the midpoint, and thus cut the travel agony in half?

As the death toll in the chain-reaction crash on Interstate 5 reached 17, authorities battled biting winds and blinding sand clouds Saturday to clear piled-up vehicles and managed to reopen the main artery linking Northern and Southern California in time for today's post-holiday rush toward home.

In the aftermath of last week's deadly collision on Interstate 5 near Santa Clarita, a top Caltrans official on Wednesday confirmed that the speed limit in the area where the fiery pileup occurred was raised several years ago, and transportation authorities are now trying to determine whether that decision was appropriate. "I am unclear at this point in time as to exactly why the speed limit was raised," said Douglas Failing, Caltrans district director for Los Angeles and Ventura counties.

The chain-reaction crash on Interstate 5 that left three people dead and damaged a vital portion of the north-south artery late Friday was apparently set in motion when a trucker hauling a load of coffee beans and other goods emerged from a tunnel and lost control of his vehicle on wet pavement, slamming into a guardrail, sources with knowledge of the investigation said Tuesday. The truck came to rest about a third of a mile south of the tunnel.