Road Construction

Drivers should avoid the intersection of Carmen Drive and Ventura Boulevard today because of construction, city officials say. Crews will shut off traffic signals at the intersection and at the southbound Ventura Freeway offramp at Ventura Boulevard. During this time, temporary stop signs will be used and the street will be restriped. The work is scheduled from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., but will continue until the job is completed. Traffic delays are expected.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is rarely at a loss for ideas, and in recent months he's put that boundless mental energy to work on the flagging local economy. The latest brainstorm: using borrowed funds to spend almost three decades' worth of street repair dollars during the next few years. That would create more jobs now, but it would do so at the expense of road construction work in the future. It would also add needless costs and hamstring city leaders long after the mayor has moved on to his next gig. Filling potholes is a mundane part of city government, yet one of the most common complaints about Los Angeles is that it doesn't fill enough of them.

Residents of Topanga Canyon may want to adjust their commuting routine for the next few weeks, as Caltrans works to shore up Topanga Canyon Road after El Nino had its way with it. The construction project on the road began early Monday about eight miles south of Ventura Boulevard. Caltrans officials said it was too soon to determine how long a delay commuters will face during rush hour. "The earlier residents can get going in the morning, the better," said Caltrans spokeswoman Margie Tiritilli.

The Senate blocked President Obama's jobs plan Tuesday night, prompting Democratic leaders to begin laying plans to divide the $447-billion package into pieces they hope will be too politically popular to oppose. The legislation, which is the centerpiece of Obama's latest effort to boost the economy and avoid what economists warn could be a double-dip recession, failed to attract the votes needed to overcome a filibuster. Sixty were needed, and it received 50 — with all 46 Republicans present voting against.

The developer of a huge subdivision near Santiago Oaks Park will ask the City Council tonight for a break on the scheduled extension of Serrano Avenue. During a public hearing for developers of the planned 1,800-unit Serrano Heights community, council members will decide whether to give Newport Beach-based California Quartet Ltd. some room to maneuver. Serrano now peters out near the park, then picks up again to the east at the Anaheim city limit.

The temperature climbs. The rage rises. How long will they have to wait? The traffic at the intersection of Walker Street and Victoria Avenue is at a hot standstill--stalled back to Trader Joe's. A woman in a Toyota Camry shovels down lunch behind the wheel. A man in an Isuzu Trooper, windows rolled down in the heat, slumps over the steering wheel and puts his head in his hand. A young man in a pickup taps his fingers impatiently on the steering wheel.

A list of repairs to property that residents say has been damaged by toll road construction won City Council approval Tuesday. Residents of Maverick Circle say that the Transportation Corridor Agencies, the toll road authority, reneged on promises to build a berm that would block noise and shield residents from unsightly views during construction of the San Joaquin Hills toll road.

Several hundred residents of Costa Mesa and Fountain Valley may feel the earth shake again Monday night, but the tremors will be man-made. California Department of Transportation officials said Friday that highway construction crews will be using heavy pile drivers at the San Diego Freeway bridge over the Santa Ana River. "It will be heard and felt for about a mile around the site," said Caltrans spokesman Albert Miranda.

U.S.-led coalition troops killed 22 road construction workers with airstrikes in eastern Afghanistan because of mistaken intelligence reports, Afghan officials said today. The coalition said it was looking into the incident. The engineers and laborers had been building a road for the U.S.

Construction now underway on a 1.6-mile road that will offer an alternative to the Riverside-Costa Mesa freeway interchange marks the end of a long battle by residents of the hillside neighborhoods affected. The residents, who formed Residents Opposed to Arterial Roads, "did everything we could do," said Mary Wright, an organizer who protested the construction at numerous Orange City Council public hearings. Her Villa Park home faces the project site.

The long-delayed Expo Line was recently dealt another setback when authorities revoked a permit that allowed construction 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Authorities said they revoked the permit last week because of complaints about noise during late-night construction on the line. The move could further delay construction, which is already more than a year behind schedule, and add to the $862-million price tag to complete the first segment from downtown Los Angeles to Culver City.

With the state's fiscal woes making many major freeway improvements unlikely, and with severe geographic restraints limiting options, Caltrans was looking for an inexpensive way to reduce congestion and accidents on the notorious interchange of the 5 and 110 freeways near Dodger Stadium. The agency came up with fluorescent bluish-white lights and electronic warning signs. Until recently, motorists crawling out of downtown Los Angeles on the 110 north queued up in the far left lane to transition to the 5 north.

When Sepulveda Boulevard's namesake reigned in the 1840s, the present-day road was part of a huge cattle ranch with grazing land and canyons studded with oaks and sycamores. Few motorists who now crawl along the Westside thoroughfare know about Francisco Sepulveda, but they can be excused for feeling a little like the rancher's cattle as they inch along in rush hour traffic. Officials have talked for years about improving Sepulveda, which is a major route into Los Angeles International Airport.

Along Sunset Strip, the 75-year-old pavement could tell some incredible stories about Hollywood through the ages. "There's probably chewing gum spit out by Jim Morrison in front of the Whisky a Go-Go," West Hollywood Councilman John Duran said Wednesday. "Don't tell anybody or they'll want to go pick it up." The Sunset Boulevard "strip" has not been repaved since the 1930s. So it's possible there may be gum deposited there by movie stars who once frequented the Strip, like Humphrey Bogart, Greta Garbo or even regal Shakespearean actor and unlikely gum-smacker, Sir Laurence Olivier.

Transportation officials are about to embark on major construction of a $1-billion widening of the 405 Freeway through the Sepulveda Pass, the final leg in their campaign to create continuous carpool lanes between Orange County and the San Fernando Valley. But they admit that a relatively small percentage of commuters will share in the full benefits of the project. The extra lane will allow carpoolers and some drivers of hybrid vehicles to traverse the entire 405 -- from the 5 Freeway in Irvine to the 5 Freeway near Sylmar -- using carpool lanes.

A long-awaited geological study for a proposal to complete the 710 Freeway as a tunnel under either the San Gabriel Valley or northeast Los Angeles found that such a project would be scientifically feasible. The findings mark a small step in what even supporters say is a long road for the tunnel idea, which was proposed by transportation officials and some politicians after residents fought for decades against completing the 710 as an above-ground freeway. The tunnel has also generated opposition, and building it would be significantly more expensive than a regular freeway.

One of Southern California's toughest commutes is about to get somewhat easier. Officials today will break ground on a $59.5-million project to widen the eastbound side of 91 Freeway with the hope of easing congestion for commuters along the heavily traveled stretch between Orange and Riverside counties. The section has long been considered one of the worst freeway bottlenecks in the nation, connecting bedroom communities in the Inland Empire to job centers in Orange and L.A. counties.

The half-century battle to complete the 710 Freeway through Pasadena and South Pasadena using a surface route could come to an end as early as today if Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signs legislation that would bar aboveground construction on a route that has long been considered the missing link in L.A.'s highway system. The bill would eliminate the possibility of completing the final leg of the 710 Freeway from where it ends at Valley Boulevard at the edge of Alhambra to Pasadena using a surface route.