Los Angeles Transportation

The U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee approved $244 million Wednesday for an array of Los Angeles transportation projects, including subway construction and design of a high-tech bus. The funding is part of a $4.5-billion bill that includes transportation projects nationwide, said Michael Bustamante, spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The bill is expected to reach the Senate floor next week, he said. The measure includes: * $69.

Moving to address problems in Los Angeles' embattled Transportation Department, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Friday nominated one of his closest deputies to lead the agency and installed a top police commander to oversee reform. The department has come under intense scrutiny in recent months, including sharply critical audits and inquiries into a little-known parking ticket appeals operation. Two city traffic officers were placed on leave recently after allegations that they participated in a pornographic film involving use of a city vehicle and city uniforms.

Commuters riding the Metrolink train to downtown will have to take a shuttle bus to the Van Nuys train stop for at least six months after the service begins Oct. 26 due to lack of parking space there, Los Angeles city transportation officials said Tuesday. The shuttle bus from a lot half a mile away will operate for up to a year because the city has yet to purchase land for a parking lot next to the stop, they said.

It has been 40 years since the last clang-clang-clang of a trolley in Los Angeles. The Yellow Car -- the city's local electric-car line -- made its final run March 31, 1963, a farewell tour on the "V" Line from Los Angeles City College on Vermont Avenue to Pico Boulevard. Two years earlier, the interurban Red Cars that once ran from Redlands to Santa Monica for a penny a mile had made their last runs. Once both were gone, so was the golden age of mass transit in Los Angeles.

The 20 longest streets within Los Angeles city limits: STREET: MILES 1. Sepulveda Boulevard: 25.4 2. Mulholland Drive: 23.8 3. Figueroa Street: 22.2 4. Sunset Boulevard: 20.2 5. Western Avenue: 20.0 6. Vermont Avenue: 19.8 7. Victory Boulevard: 17.9 8. Vanowen Street: 17.0 9. Roscoe Boulevard: *16.4 10. Foothill Boulevard: 16.4 11. Ventura Boulevard: 16.1 12. Sherman Way: 15.9 13. Laurel Canyon Boulevard: 15.3 14. San Fernando Road: **15.1 15. Burbank Boulevard: 15.1 16. Oxnard Street: 15.0 17.

Los Angeles' Metro Blue Line trains had more accidents involving pedestrians last year than any other light rail system in the state, the Public Utilities Commission reported Thursday.

The City Council, concerned about a proposed Los Angeles transportation plan that calls for widening Lincoln Boulevard from four to six lanes, voted to ask the staff to evaluate and comment on the plan. Council members said they were concerned that the Los Angeles environmental impact report does not include Santa Monica.

Less than three months after the Northridge earthquake knocked down two sections of the world's busiest thoroughfare, Gov. Pete Wilson announced Tuesday that the Santa Monica Freeway will reopen next week, ending frustrating delays and bottlenecks for thousands of commuters. State officials hope the final cleanup of construction work can be completed early April 12 in time to let rush-hour traffic inaugurate the two new freeway bridges at La Cienega and Washington boulevards.

The Los Angeles County Transportation Commission on Wednesday expanded a free taxi ride program formerly restricted to residents of riot-torn areas to include needy residents throughout the county. The program, dubbed Operation Food Basket because it provided transportation in neighborhoods where markets had been burned, will now offer residents from Pacoima to El Monte free taxi rides to doctors' offices, food banks, battered women's shelters and other locations 24 hours a day.

Joining the Cherokee Nation has been worth millions of dollars in construction work to Jon McGrath. The blue-eyed, fair-skinned contractor from Tulsa, Okla., who is 1/64 American Indian, has obtained $19 million in minority subcontracts on the rapid transit system in Los Angeles--more than any other "disadvantaged" firm. McGrath's Cherokee ancestry is the equivalent of having a great-great-great-great-grandparent who was a full-blooded Indian.

A controversial plan to widen a stretch of Sepulveda Boulevard through the Westchester area north of Los Angeles International Airport has been kicked to the curb by city officials. Los Angeles traffic engineers had proposed adding two lanes to the six-lane roadway, which is a popular shortcut for motorists headed to the airport. But the $5.

In the long night after the East Coast terrorist attack, many Southern California residents were alarmed by the sound of low-flying aircraft over their homes. Federal transportation officials said Wednesday that what the public heard, in the absence of regular commercial flights, were emergency and military aircraft on patrols and mercy missions. The nationwide shutdown of commercial air traffic had created the erroneous impression that there would be no planes in the skies.

The City Council adopted a plan Wednesday to accommodate 611,000 more people in Los Angeles by 2010, and agreed to conduct six-month reviews of whether transportation improvements are keeping pace with population growth. The reviews were approved to address complaints by slow-growth advocates that the plan does not protect neighborhoods if growth overwhelms freeways, streets and commuter rail lines.

Saying that small things can make a big difference, Los Angeles Mayor James K. Hahn announced Wednesday that more than two dozen of the city's most dangerous intersections would be improved to ease congestion and make them safer.

Traffic-weary motorists who try to get around freeway congestion by cutting through residential streets will face a bumpy road if many Los Angeles homeowners get their way. Frustrated with increased speeding through their neighborhoods, homeowners throughout the city requested speed humps on 350 streets in the last 12 months, nearly 50% more applications than in the previous fiscal year, according to city officials.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority will hold a workshop to brief its board members on a preliminary environmental impact report for the San Fernando Valley east-west busway project, agency officials said Monday. The session will be held at 2 p.m. Thursday in the third-floor board room of MTA headquarters, One Gateway Plaza downtown, agency officials said. Public comment will be included. The board will not take formal action on the report before July 26.

Los Angeles County transportation officials gave preliminary approval Wednesday for free rides aboard the city's newest subway line between MacArthur Park and Union Station. The Los Angeles County Transportation Commission's Planning and Mobility Improvement Committee voted Wednesday for free fares on the Metro Red Line--whose first leg is scheduled to open Jan. 30--for the first two months of operation. The LACTC board is expected to vote on the committee's recommendation later this month.

The Southern California Assn. of Governments on Monday began a $500,000, 18-month study of traffic problems in a wide area northeast of downtown Los Angeles. Announcing the study, Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alatorre said he hoped that it would show the need for new forms of mass transportation, such as a light-rail line.

For the third time in a century, Los Angeles and state planners are trying to reshape Glendale Boulevard in Echo Park to meet Southern California's evolving transportation needs. And they are not finding it easy going. Before World War II, Glendale was a main thoroughfare for Red Car trolleys serving downtown, entering or leaving a tunnel at Beverly Boulevard.

Hoping to ease the crunch brought by an increase in rush-hour commuters, MTA officials Monday announced the start of work on a crucial leg of the Metro Blue Line expansion project. The downtown Julian Dixon Metro Rail Station, where the Blue Line ends, will undergo a $1.2-million renovation to allow the light rail to accommodate three-car trains. Officials expect the project will take 13 weeks. "What we're suffering from is success of the Blue Line," said Jess Diaz, MTA rail superintendent.