Rail Route

The slowdown at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach is having a ripple effect on the Alameda Corridor, the 20-mile rail route built to speed the flow of cargo from ships to retail shelves. Reacting to a swift erosion in the corridor's traffic and revenue, Fitch Ratings recently placed about $2 billion worth of Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority bonds on a "rating watch negative."

Honolulu's $5.2-billion rail project, which already launched construction earlier this year, has been dealt another setback with a court order requiring substantial new studies - including the possibility of a tunnel underneath parts of downtown to avoid the disruptions of a highly visible elevated guideway. U.S. Circuit Judge A. Wallace Tashima also said the city would have to reexamine the "quite serious" impacts the rail project might have on historic Mother Waldron Park, and also try harder to identify traditional cultural sites that might be affected along the rail route.

Surgical precision Re " When a nose makes news ," May 6 You might well ask if The Times has enough real reporting to do if it is wasting its and our time writing about "the public's right to know" about Gov. Jerry Brown's basal cell carcinoma. To imply that basal cell carcinoma, which is almost never serious except for cosmetic issues, is somehow comparable to John McCain's melanoma, which is often life threatening, is just hot air of the most odoriferous sort.

Train tracks carry a lot of history. In 1862, President Lincoln inked the Pacific Railroad Act to fund construction of a transcontinental rail route. Seven years later it was completed with the symbolic golden spike ceremony at Promontory Summit in what was then the Utah territory. National Train Day on Saturday marks the 143rd anniversary of the completion of the route with free events in Philadelphia, Chicago, New York City and Los Angeles, and many cities and towns in between.

In response to homeowner protests, the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission on Wednesday stopped buying land along a San Fernando Valley railroad line that is one of two routes under consideration for a mass transit system. Homeowners along the so-called Chandler-Victory route had complained bitterly that purchase of the land suggested that the freight corridor had already been selected for the cross-Valley line. One homeowner leader along the route, which roughly parallels Chandler and Victory boulevards from North Hollywood to Warner Center in Woodland Hills, Wednesday compared the proposed buying of land to "constructing a gallows outside the courthouse before an accused is tried."

Orange County rail planners have said for weeks that they would probably recommend a 28-mile urban rail route between Irvine and Fullerton. On Wednesday they did so, in a report to be discussed Monday by the Orange County Transportation Authority. The OCTA board is scheduled to vote on the route April 11 as part of the first step in applying for federal transit funds. A public hearing is planned for March 14, with results of a related public opinion survey to be presented March 28.

A 28-mile urban rail route linking the Fullerton Amtrak station with Irvine's rail depot emerged Monday as the favorite among six under consideration by the Orange County Transportation Authority. Last week, OCTA staff disclosed that it recommended the longer route and rejected three others that offered future opportunities for expansion beyond an initial starter line. If ultimately approved, an initial urban rail project could be operational between 2002 and 2004, officials say.

The Los Angeles County Transportation Commission, brushing aside objections from angry homeowners, voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to resume a study of San Fernando Valley rail route options and declared its intent to pick a route by next March. The commission's 9-0 vote ended nearly two months of delay during which homeowners fighting rail routes that traverse their neighborhoods sought to have the routes deleted from the study.

In response to homeowner protests, the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission on Wednesday shelved plans to buy land along a San Fernando Valley railroad line that is one of two routes under consideration for a mass transit system. Homeowners along the so-called Chandler-Victory route had complained bitterly that buying the land suggested that the freight corridor had already been selected for the cross-Valley line. One homeowner leader along the route, which roughly parallels Chandler and Victory boulevards from North Hollywood to Warner Center in Woodland Hills, Wednesday compared the proposed buying of land to "constructing a gallows outside the courthouse before an accused is tried."

The Los Angeles County Transportation Commission on Wednesday voted unanimously to take a first step toward purchase of a little-used 14-mile railroad right of way that is one of two routes under consideration for a San Fernando Valley mass transit line.

The proposed California bullet train will undergo major design changes, involving more than half of the route that traverses the Central Valley, the authority building the system said Wednesday. The plan for building a 114-mile segment of the system between Fresno and Bakersfield was released in August, but encountered heavy criticism from citizens groups, local cities, major land owners and financial experts. The California High-Speed Rail Authority, responding to public feedback, said it would issue a new plan for that section next spring.

Surgical precision Re " When a nose makes news ," May 6 You might well ask if The Times has enough real reporting to do if it is wasting its and our time writing about "the public's right to know" about Gov. Jerry Brown's basal cell carcinoma. To imply that basal cell carcinoma, which is almost never serious except for cosmetic issues, is somehow comparable to John McCain's melanoma, which is often life threatening, is just hot air of the most odoriferous sort.

Crunching through fallen leaves in a sprawling walnut grove, John Tos frets about the high-speed railroad headed his way. He gets why many in this part of the Central Valley are excited about a construction project that could mean tens of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in economic activity. But a newly selected route cleaves through prime cropland his family has farmed for 94 years. Fields would be split, complex irrigation systems disrupted and operations complicated, says the grower with a graying Abe Lincoln beard.

A rating company's decision to downgrade certain bonds issued by the Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority this week left economists scratching their heads. The reason? The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are celebrating one of their biggest one-year increases in trade in the last 25 years. That means it's also a good year for the Alameda Corridor, a 20-mile express route built to speed the flow of cargo from the ports to the region's railroad hub and on to retail shelves across the U.S. "It seems like an overreaction," economist John Husing said about Moody's Investors Service's downgrading of the bonds.

In a sting aimed at curbing accidents along the Blue Line, police and sheriff's deputies staked out a two-mile stretch of the line's tracks in downtown Los Angeles on Wednesday and ticketed nearly 300 jaywalkers and drivers they caught using cellphones and making illegal left turns. Transportation officials said the crackdown was the latest effort in a push to improve safety along the Blue Line, the city's oldest and most popular light rail line but also its most dangerous. Ninety-nine people have died in accidents and suicides involving the line in the nearly 20 years since the service from Los Angeles to Long Beach began.

The slowdown at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach is having a ripple effect on the Alameda Corridor, the 20-mile rail route built to speed the flow of cargo from ships to retail shelves. Reacting to a swift erosion in the corridor's traffic and revenue, Fitch Ratings recently placed about $2 billion worth of Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority bonds on a "rating watch negative."

Train tracks carry a lot of history. In 1862, President Lincoln inked the Pacific Railroad Act to fund construction of a transcontinental rail route. Seven years later it was completed with the symbolic golden spike ceremony at Promontory Summit in what was then the Utah territory. National Train Day on Saturday marks the 143rd anniversary of the completion of the route with free events in Philadelphia, Chicago, New York City and Los Angeles, and many cities and towns in between.

Proponents of "two more gates" and other such Band-Aid solutions to the mayhem at Blue Line crossings just don't get it (letter, Dec. 1). The rail route for the Blue Line was originally laid out when animal-drawn vehicles waited leisurely at the crossing until the iron horse chugged away and the wooden bar rose to allow safe passage. As the third millennium approaches, we must bite the (costly) lifesaving bullet: grade separations. MAX FREEDLAND Long Beach

Some Angelenos are obsessed with perfection. They want perfect noses, perfect thighs, perfect skin, perfect food and perfect vacations. Public-transit fanatics just want a perfect subway; so much so that they spend hours fantasizing about their dream line: the often-discussed "subway to the sea," or a 24-hour route down Sunset Boulevard through Echo Park, Silver Lake and Los Feliz. Today, with gas prices at record highs, fantasizing is no longer an option for more and more people.

For years, a homeowners association in Cheviot Hills has been able to derail plans to put modern-day streetcars on an old railroad line that skirts the upscale Westside neighborhood. But now, those residents' long opposition to mass transit in their backyard is encountering resistance from neighbors fed up with worsening congestion that has slowed traffic to a crawl.