Robert K Best

On a unanimous 5-0 vote, a Senate committee voted Wednesday to confirm Gov. George Deukmejian's appointment of Robert K. Best as new director of the state Department of Transportation. The Senate Rules Committee vote sent the 49-year-old Best's nomination to the floor of the Senate, where final confirmation is expected to be nothing more than a formality.

Robert K. Best, director of the State Department of Transportation, will step down from his $99,805-a-year job. Best, 51, who has held his post since 1988, will be temporarily replaced by A. A. (Del) Pierce, undersecretary of the state Business, Transportation and Housing Agency. A nationwide search will be conducted to find a successor.

Robert K. Best, director of the State Department of Transportation, will step down from his $99,805-a-year job. Best, 51, who has held his post since 1988, will be temporarily replaced by A. A. (Del) Pierce, undersecretary of the state Business, Transportation and Housing Agency. A nationwide search will be conducted to find a successor.

On a unanimous 5-0 vote, a Senate committee voted Wednesday to confirm Gov. George Deukmejian's appointment of Robert K. Best as new director of the state Department of Transportation. The Senate Rules Committee vote sent the 49-year-old Best's nomination to the floor of the Senate, where final confirmation is expected to be nothing more than a formality.

Gov. George Deukmejian on Saturday appointed attorney Robert K. Best of Davis, Calif., to direct the vast Department of Transportation, the state's road building agency that has drawn increasing criticism for its alleged failure to aggressively construct more highways. Best, 48, served as a deputy director and chief deputy director of the department in the 1970s during Ronald Reagan's second term as governor.

California Transportation Director Robert K. Best acknowledged Wednesday that political leaders have no coordinated vision of how the state's transportation system should be developed to meet the monumental traffic congestion problems of the present and future.

Caltrans officials this week unveiled a billboard campaign warning drivers that highway crews will be working on extensive freeway widenings in Orange County during the next few years. During a ceremony this week, a billboard was unveiled near John Wayne Airport that contains a photograph of a highway crew at work with the slogan, "Give 'em a brake." About 500 of the billboards will be installed around the state this year, donated by a Los Angeles billboard advertising firm.

Two quake-damaged freeways that were scheduled to reopen this fall will not be ready for traffic for at least six more months, Caltrans officials said Wednesday. Caltrans Director Robert K. Best said there was no possibility the Central and Interstate 280 freeways--elevated roadways that carry 250,000 vehicles a day--could be reopened in October as promised only two weeks ago. The problem, he said, is that the work--expected to safely survive a magnitude 8.

Current trends and solutions to problems in the industrial real estate field will be explored Tuesday at the 1988 Industrial Real Estate Conference at the Los Angeles Airport Marriott Hotel, 5855 W. Century Blvd. Among the speakers at the event sponsored by the American Industrial Real Estate Assn. are: Allen Moore, under secretary of commerce for international trade; Martha R. Seger, governor of the Federal Reserve System; Peter F. Allgeier, assistant U.S.

Your editorial "Wrong Road: No on 74" (May 16) presented an inaccurate picture of the use of bonds to pay for improvements to our transportation facilities as authorized by Proposition 74 on the June ballot. Your comment that the bonds are expensive suggests that nothing is gained for the interest charges paid. The truth is that substantial benefits in saved lives, reduced accidents, and less congestion are achieved. Bonds allow critical projects to be built in advance of the receipt of funds and, therefore, to provide these benefits to the public many years earlier.

California Transportation Director Robert K. Best acknowledged Wednesday that political leaders have no coordinated vision of how the state's transportation system should be developed to meet the monumental traffic congestion problems of the present and future.

Gov. George Deukmejian on Saturday appointed attorney Robert K. Best of Davis, Calif., to direct the vast Department of Transportation, the state's road building agency that has drawn increasing criticism for its alleged failure to aggressively construct more highways. Best, 48, served as a deputy director and chief deputy director of the department in the 1970s during Ronald Reagan's second term as governor.

Deukmejian Administration officials Wednesday unveiled the prototype of a computer-equipped car that they hope ultimately will be part of the solution to California's traffic congestion problems. Tests of the car will begin on the Santa Monica Freeway this summer and continue into 1991. The experimental car shown here comes equipped with a dashboard-mounted console that displays an electronic map of Los Angeles city streets warning the driver of accidents and other congestion problems.

Keith E. McKean, the first full-fledged director of the California Department of Transportation office in Orange County, has announced that he will retire Dec. 1. McKean, 65, said he had always intended to retire this year but was waiting for passage of Proposition 111, the gasoline tax hike approved by California voters in the June 5 primary. McKean has headed the Orange County District since 1988, following Robert H.