Transportation Routes

Orange County's most extensive bus route change in three decades begins Sunday, including the elimination of four routes and the addition of smaller buses called runabouts on eight new community routes. "We've been working really hard to get the word out but people still have a lot of questions," said Dee Traverzo, a spokeswoman for the Orange County Transportation Authority. "This is by far the biggest route change we've had in 35 years."

The space shuttle's drive from Los Angeles International Airport to Exposition Park over the next few days is shaping up to be an L.A. commute like no other. While Endeavour will travel at a top speed of only 2 mph, it will be forced to do some maneuvers as nerve-racking as any high-speed pursuit. At five stories tall and 170,000 pounds, the shuttle is so big that any shift in winds or unexpected weather could bring the move to a halt. At several points along the 12-mile route, the spacecraft will be inches away from buildings, even protruding onto driveways and over sidewalks.

Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan and Olympic gold medalist Janet Evans on Wednesday unveiled the route for the Olympic torch relay, which will start at the Los Angeles Coliseum, site of the 1932 and 1984 Olympics. The torch will arrive in Los Angeles from Greece on April 27 and be lighted at the Coliseum, "where it last touched American soil," said David Emanuel of the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games.

In a stern directive late last week, state regulators ordered Expo Line officials to replace a flawed piece of track that could trigger a derailment and also fix an automated safety system that has not worked properly since the line opened in April. The California Public Utilities Commission cited problems with a short length of rail called a "frog" at Washington Boulevard and Flower Street, where the Expo Line and the Blue Line merge near downtown Los Angeles. A frog is a piece of track no longer than a couple of feet that helps guide train wheels through a switch connecting one set of rails to another.

Driving for the pure fun of the road is one of my secret pleasures. Speeding along a highway going no particular place, windows down and the wind blasting my face, is an indulgence I usually choose not to resist. And of all the roads in my life, U.S. 395 is like a love interest that I never quite get enough of.

It's the age of the customized commuter. At least, that's the vision of Rapid Transit District officials. In the latest move to encourage more drivers to leave their cars at home, the RTD announced Tuesday a computerized planning service that gives commuters a tailor-made schedule for taking the bus from home to work and back. "It's a whole new way of reaching out and touching someone," RTD spokesman James Smart said at a news conference Tuesday.

The county's toll road agency will spend $16.5 million to start designing a highway route that some conservationists predict will wreak more environmental damage than any other Orange County toll road to date.

In Costa Mesa, Emulex Corp. says its business has been disrupted by heightened security at local airports. The company has found it harder to find a shipper for its computer components and has had up to a week's delay in deliveries. In Hong Kong, shippers howl at 70-cent-a-pound surcharges imposed by air cargo carriers to Europe who can no longer overfly the Mideast. Elsewhere, companies complain as prices to ship goods by sea or air climb and military shipping requirements strain capacity.

In an effort to open up the Central Coast to more rail traffic, newer and faster trains are being added to the most popular rail line in California. The ocean has always been the visual highlight of riding the San Diegans route between San Diego and San Luis Obispo, so the train will be renamed the Pacific Surfliner in April with the arrival of double-decker trains. "The new name is really a nod to the entire coast," said Dominick Albano, an Amtrak spokesman.

In a standoff with federal forest officials, Caltrans is proposing to abandon a popular, cliff-hanging highway in the San Gabriel Mountains because it is too expensive to maintain. The proposal to walk away from California Highway 39, enjoyed by an estimated 3 million people a year, comes as the state struggles to close a $9.2-billion budget shortfall. To avoid closure, the California Department of Transportation is trying to persuade the U.S. Forest Service or Los Angeles County to take over the roadway, which runs 27 miles from the city of Azusa nearly to the crest of the San Gabriels.

For some, the opening of the Expo light rail line means an easier commute to work or school. For others, it's a chance to ride mass transit to Staples Center or to visit the museums in Exposition Park. But for Ayanna White, a 31-year-old mother of four, including 3-year-old twin boys, the new rail line could give her something precious -- an extra hour of sleep each morning. "It means a lot. To you, maybe not, but to me it means the world," said White, who lives within walking distance of the line's current western terminus at La Cienega and Jefferson boulevards.

In a standoff with federal forest officials, Caltrans is proposing to abandon a popular, cliff-hanging highway in the San Gabriel Mountains because it is too expensive to maintain. The proposal to walk away from California Highway 39, enjoyed by an estimated 3 million people a year, comes as the state struggles to close a $9.2-billion budget shortfall. To avoid closure, the California Department of Transportation is trying to persuade the U.S. Forest Service or Los Angeles County to take over the roadway, which runs 27 miles from the city of Azusa nearly to the crest of the San Gabriels.

When the Obama administration gave California $3.4 billion in startup money for a high-speed rail system, it insisted on a guarantee that the project would not become a white elephant -- something critics could brand as a train to nowhere. The first section of track had to run down the spine of the Central Valley and have another use, should the rest of the bullet train project collapse. Those requirements are now at the center of an intensifying political battle, waged by critics who say the state's fallback plan to use a 130-mile stretch of track for slower Amtrak service is a sham because there's no guarantee the national rail service will ever use it. Amtrak said it has no agreement to operate on the track and has not analyzed the possible negative effects on one of its most successful rail lines.

Rick Perry launched his Texas gubernatorial campaign in 2002 with an idea that he hoped would become his legacy: a 4,000-mile-long, 21st century transit network on which motorists would drive 90 mph on toll roads 10 lanes wide, high-speed trains would hum alongside, and there would be room for electric power lines, broadband fiber and pipes to pump oil, natural gas and water to a rapidly growing state. Perry called it the Trans-Texas Corridor, and advertised his blueprint as "bold" and "visionary" -- a "plan as big as Texas and as ambitious as our people.

The extent to which modern, multicultural and ever-morphing Atlanta can be considered a "Southern" city is one of its richest and most mystifying questions. At times the metropolis feels most comfortable wearing its Southernness in quotation marks: At the Heirloom Market BBQ, the pulled pork comes marinated in Korean gochujang chile paste. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has declared the dish an unqualified hit. But this month, the city proved quintessentially Southern in its inability to deal with 5 inches of lingering snow.

The $2.25 billion in federal stimulus funds awarded this week to the California high-speed rail project ensures that construction can proceed on a 520-mile route between Anaheim and San Francisco within three years, rail officials said Thursday. Mehdi Morshed, executive director of the California High-Speed Rail Authority, said the infusion of federal dollars would pay for completion of the project's engineering and environmental reviews and provide a significant amount of seed money to start building the system by September 2012, as required by the federal grant.

It was another G'day for travelers looking to head Down Under. Delta Air Lines Inc., which recently became the world's biggest carrier by merging with Northwest Airlines, said Thursday that it would begin nonstop service between Los Angeles International Airport and Sydney, Australia, starting in July. The start of Sydney flights -- which may prompt a fare war on the popular U.S.

More than 4,000 miles of train tracks stretch through California, winding up the blustery Cajon Pass and snaking through the desert surrounding Barstow. Those tracks could be seeing a lot more traffic in the next few years as trains loaded with Chinese-made toys, electronics and clothing roll eastward, connecting West Coast ports with cities across the U.S. Warren Buffett is a believer. In November, the world's second-richest man paid $34 billion for railroad giant Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp.

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.

More than 4,000 miles of train tracks stretch through California, winding up the blustery Cajon Pass and snaking through the desert surrounding Barstow. Those tracks could be seeing a lot more traffic in the next few years as trains loaded with Chinese-made toys, electronics and clothing roll eastward, connecting West Coast ports with cities across the U.S. Warren Buffett is a believer. In November, the world's second-richest man paid $34 billion for railroad giant Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp.