San Fernando Road

The San Fernando Road Development Project and Polygon I and the currently proposed Polygon II projects affect all people, workers and visitors in north, south, east and west Glendale. These projects over the next 10 years will greatly hurt their prosperity, health and happiness as they are planned. The Glendale Fire Department records 444 hazardous materials handlers in the San Fernando Road area. Northern Glendale homeowners can expect their psychoses, psychosomatic symptoms, Glendale Blues syndrome, family breakdowns and legal costs to skyrocket because they neglect the interdependency between themselves and the heartland of Glendale.

A 53-year-old male transient from Santa Monica was arrested Thursday and booked on suspicion of attempted murder in connection with the stabbing of a woman on a busy street in Glendale, police said. Michael Caudill is being held in lieu of $1-million bail, Glendale police Sgt. Tom Lorenz said. The woman, who hasn't been identified by police, suffered a non-life-threatening stab wound to her upper torso and was taken to a hospital for treatment, he said. Police received numerous 911 calls from witnesses about the stabbing just before 10:30 a.m. at San Fernando Road and Pacific Avenue.

A water main broke under a Glendale street Wednesday night, causing the asphalt on San Fernando Road to collapse, closing a quarter-mile stretch of the street, Glendale police reported. The main broke about 6 p.m., causing a minor loss of water pressure to some residences in the area near the Ventura Freeway, and closing San Fernando Road from Newby Street to Doran Street, Police Lt. Mark Distaso said. There were no injuries. The break apparently was not caused by an accident, Distaso said.

Glendale's housing manager was blunt with his concerns about giving a prominent developer $12.2 million to build low-income housing near the city's downtown. "I strongly recommend … not funding this project at anywhere near the level currently being requested," Mike Fortney wrote in an April 2008 letter to his boss. Glendale City Council members awarded the money anyway. The following year, they paid an additional $1.7 million for the project, dubbed Vassar City Lights, a five-story stucco building on San Fernando Road.

Los Angeles City Councilman Mike Woo introduced a motion Friday seeking $150,000 in city transit funds to pay for a study of a light-rail route paralleling San Fernando Road from Sylmar to Union Station. The City Council sent the proposal to the Transportation and Traffic Committee for review.

The Los Angeles City Council agreed Tuesday to spend $150,000 to study a third commuter rail route through the San Fernando Valley. The route would run north-south along San Fernando Road from Sylmar to downtown Los Angeles. The environmental impact of two proposed east-west routes for a commuter train is being reviewed by the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission.

Instead of industrial or office buildings, the first signs of urban renewal to sprout up in the blighted San Fernando Road redevelopment area could be more recreation-oriented than business-oriented. An entire, triangular-shaped city block bounded by San Fernando Road, Los Feliz Road and Central Avenue is being eyed for a park in an emerging plan to give the new redevelopment area a major face lift.

Faced with the threat of a school district lawsuit that would have stalled a prized redevelopment project, the city has agreed to give schools a bigger share of revenues generated by the overhaul of run-down San Fernando Road. The Glendale Unified School District will receive an estimated $51 million over the 35-year life of the San Fernando Road redevelopment project, which is expected to generate $712 million in property tax revenue.

Two people were critically injured Sunday when their car was broadsided during a suspected drag race at a popular Sylmar street-racing spot, police said. The area where the accident occurred on San Fernando Road has been the site of illegal street races for many years. Just a week ago, a woman was killed and her two children were seriously hurt when their car was rear-ended by a speeding car on the way to another illegal road race. The latest accident occurred about 2:45 a.m.

Santa Clarita Mayor Jo Anne Darcy said Monday night plans to route a 92-mile oil pipeline through the heart of the city would intolerably disrupt traffic and the local economy. The proposed route through the city's oldest business district in Newhall would clog traffic on heavily congested San Fernando Road, one of the city's few main arteries, and drive customers from small businesses lining the roadway, Darcy said.

The Glendale City Council this week gave its blessing to a proposed 338,000-square-foot expansion of Walt Disney Co.'s creative campus. The plans call for a six-story office building walled largely in glass, landscaping with palm trees and a park-like area for outdoor activities. "It's a beautiful project," Councilwoman Laura Friedman, chairwoman of the Glendale Redevelopment Agency, said during a public hearing on the development. "It's going to look terrific and certainly improve the area aesthetically."

For years, Old Town Newhall in Santa Clarita has been wrangling with an identity crisis. Its history is entwined in the Wild West -- oil, gold and ranching -- but the city of Santa Clarita is redeveloping, encouraging the proliferation of new bicycle shops and boutiques on Main Street (also known as San Fernando Road) and hoping to turn the area into an arts and entertainment district. Just a few weeks back, Santa Clarita's Festival of Arts ( www.streetartfest.com) took over the area, strong evidence of a new direction.

Re "Plans for trains, river may collide," Oct. 18 The Times' weekend picture of a man walking along the Metrolink tracks near San Fernando Road is the height of irresponsibility. Just weeks after a series of articles in your paper about Metrolink safety, you show an individual walking with his back to train traffic and trespassing on a railroad right of way. It's unsafe and against the law. You owe an apology to all the public safety professionals, railroad workers and volunteers who spend hours trying to teach adults and children to stay away from the railroad.

When pedestrians are struck by Metrolink trains, rail officials are often quick to declare them suicides or trespassers and slow to try to prevent others from the same fate. Critics say that in many deaths, Metrolink performs only cursory investigations and fails to follow up with measures that could make it harder for people to reach the tracks. For example, when Joan Vowels stepped into the path of a train in 1994, Metrolink released a statement saying she was a Bible-toting transient.

A 25-year-old Northridge man who allegedly dangled his girlfriend's 18-month-old daughter from a second-story motel railing in Sylmar on Tuesday was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder, authorities said. Los Angeles police officers responding to reports of a kidnapping in progress about 1 a.m. found Antonio Llerenas fighting with his girlfriend at the Del Monico Motel at 13055 San Fernando Road, police said. Llerenas, who is not the baby's father, reportedly struggled with police.

Two men and a teenage boy, all pedestrians, were critically injured in two separate hit-and-run accidents in Pacoima believed to be committed by the same driver Thursday night, authorities said. The men, who are in their 30s, were struck by a vehicle in the 11400 block of San Fernando Road about 8:30 p.m., fire officials said.

After 11 months of study and dozens of community meetings and public hearings, the Glendale City Council on Tuesday adopted a series of resolutions and introduced an ordinance to form a second redevelopment zone in the city. The new zone comprises 750 acres of largely industrial property along San Fernando Road, parallel with the Golden State Freeway from the southern tip of Glendale north to Burbank.

"Will it be better for us if we go someplace else?" asked the 14-year-old girl with wide brown eyes, who giggled at the cockroaches scurrying at the doorway of a neighboring apartment. It was a brave question for Norma Garcia, a student at Toll Junior High, who lives with her family of eight and about 100 others--mostly poor Latinos--in a dilapidated apartment complex in an industrial section of Glendale. But it was also a question no one can answer.

Metaphorically speaking, people play a bit fast and loose with the road. They talk about the call of the road, the song of the road, the road of life, which is all well and good, but no one ever mentions which road exactly, and that's a mistake. Especially in Los Angeles.

Rob Cohen's elitist comments reek of Hollywood's typical disdain for the effect of movies on young people ("Modified for Maximum Impact," by Robert W. Welkos, June 3). Cohen whines that road racers should be allowed by police to race early mornings on San Fernando Road and to "drive safe." Instead "they want to impound their cars." How thoughtless! Teenagers racing at night, illegally, unsupervised, with gangs, drugs, theft and alcohol sometimes involved, plus running (racing) from the police.