Traffic Management

Every time Qantas lands one of its giant Airbus A380s at LAX, parts of the nation's fourth-busiest airport come to a halt. Service roads, taxiways and runways must be closed to airfield trucks, cars and other commercial aircraft as the world's largest passenger plane -- with wings almost as long as a football field -- arrives, departs and taxis with an official escort of operations vehicles.

A little bit of the future is coming to Los Angeles freeways later this year in the form of "smart" road studs that gauge road conditions and traffic flow and open and close a freeway lane accordingly. Caltrans has contracted with a New Zealand company to pilot the "dynamic-lane" system on the 110 Freeway where traffic backs up in a tunnel at the single-lane connector to northbound Interstate 5.

Construction began Friday on the last leg of a carpool lane for the northbound San Diego Freeway through western Los Angeles, a $1-billion project designed to ease congestion on one of the busiest traffic corridors in the nation.

Five o'clock on a workday and you're about to pull into traffic: Let's hope you're not in a hurry, especially if you're on the Westside of Los Angeles. Times editors asked the six candidates in the Los Angeles City Council's 5th District race about their ideas for easing traffic problems in that part of town. Here are excerpts from their answers to this question: What concrete proposals will you pursue to reduce traffic congestion in the 5th Council District? Adeena N.

If they can win a huge federal grant, Los Angeles County transportation officials said Tuesday that rush-hour toll lanes could become a reality on three local freeways by spring 2009. The prediction underscored what has been a radical turnaround for leaders who only eight months ago were reluctant to do anything more than study "congestion pricing" as a way to discourage drivers when freeways are clogged.

Backers of an anti-traffic initiative in Thousand Oaks cheered the news this week that their growth-control measure had qualified for a special election in June, while a similar proposal in Oxnard failed to make the November ballot. "What a thrill!" said Nino DeFranco, one of two Thousand Oaks residents leading the campaign for the local initiative. "I was very excited. I know we'll win if people show up to vote."

Customers hoping to savor challah at their Shabbat dinners know that the line often trails out the door of Delice Bakery on West Pico Boulevard. The purveyor of French kosher breads and pastries sells hundreds of its creations every Friday.

It's been candidates gone wild here in Southern California in recent days, as some of those aspiring to be the next president have been jetting in and out of the region in preparation for Tuesday's big primary. The key word there: jetting. These aren't folks who have to worry about traffic. You would think that something affecting millions of voting Americans would top the list of talking points for every one of the candidates.

Everyone deals with slow-changing traffic lights in different ways. Some reach deep down to find inner peace, others grind teeth, and a few write haiku. Keith Sikora, a cameraman who lives in Burbank, is among the latter. His inspiration comes from the traffic lights in his city, where he has found himself sitting at red lights late at night for no discernible reason. Wait! Wait for the red at Angeleno and Third; no other cars for miles.

Despite fierce opposition from residents and concerns by two City Council members, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has ordered Los Angeles transportation officials to implement a plan to make Pico Boulevard mostly one-way eastbound, and Olympic Boulevard mostly one-way westbound. Under the mayor's plan, which had stalled earlier this week in a City Council committee, parking would be forbidden on all but a few stretches of Pico and Olympic during rush hour beginning March 8.