Road Repair

A proposal to convert the carpool lanes on three Los Angeles County freeways into toll roads could be a boon to frustrated solo commuters willing to pay for a quicker drive to work. But the big losers could be motorists who now use the carpool lanes for free. Carpoolers would also have to pay a toll, possibly reduced. Also, the proposal provides no toll exemptions for hybrid vehicles that can now use carpool lanes regardless of the number of passengers.

Orange County transportation planners are closing a chapter on a spending plan that will have generated more than $4 billion in freeway and road improvements by the time it expires in 2011. On Monday, the Orange County Transportation Authority agreed to spend $41 million on a variety of freeway and road fixes, the final chunk of cash tied to Measure M -- the half-cent-on-the-dollar sales tax approved by voters 17 years ago.

Orange County transportation planners are closing a chapter on a spending measure that has led to more than $4 billion in road improvements over the last two decades. The Orange County Transportation Authority on Monday agreed to spend the final $41 million tied to Measure M. Although voters approved renewal of the sales tax measure in November, county leaders Monday treated the moment as a destination reached. -- David Reyes

After years of disrepair, Santa Ana's crumbling streets will get a $100-million face-lift following a vote by the Santa Ana City Council. The council Monday night unanimously approved a five-year plan that will use about $40 million in county, state and federal grants and $60 million in bonds, backed by gas tax revenues, to fund the repairs. In 2006, state voters approved a governor's infrastructure bond and Proposition 42, a sales tax on gasoline.

Santa Ana is poised to spend $100 million over the next five years in an aggressive push to repair aging city streets. The effort will increase the city's spending on its road projects by about one-third. The money will come from a statewide infrastructure bond approved last year, as well as from Orange County's Measure M funding. The City Council voted unanimously Monday night to approve the additional funding.

It's a treacherous, serpentine stretch of Topanga Canyon Boulevard dubbed the Narrows, and it's the bane of cyclists and runners alike. Bounded by a sandstone bluff on one side and a sheer drop into the Topanga Canyon Creek on the other, the Narrows is infamous for washouts, landslides and fallen rocks that frequently paralyze long lines of commuters traveling between the Valley and the Westside.

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.

Officials on Friday christened the end of a decade-long effort to improve the notorious 405-101 Freeway interchange, but they still have a way to go on a far more ambitious widening of the traffic-choked San Diego Freeway. Earlier this year, Caltrans finally secured nearly $1 billion to widen the 405 Freeway through the Westside and Sepulveda Pass, but the proposal that adds the most lanes has met with strong opposition from residents as well as the Getty Center.

Santa Ana resident Jose Contreras, 77, had great hopes for the Bristol Street expansion project, believing that the road-widening would spruce up his tough-luck neighborhood. To make room for two new lanes, the city bought the home next to Contreras' for $565,000 in August. But when his longtime neighbors left in September and vagrants began slipping through the boarded-up back door, Contreras began to question the way the city was going about the widening.

To drive along the winding canyon roads of Los Angeles just west of Santa Monica is to glimpse neighborhoods that are in the city but not of the city -- at least not the realm of asphalt and grit known to most Angelenos. Instead of mini-malls and graffiti, there is a collage of funky and fancy houses inhabited by a diverse bunch -- tattooed bikers, retirees, artists, lawyers and screenwriters. They revel in their proximity to the beach and the occasional flash of surf glancing through the trees.