Transportation Safety

Compelled by their hankering for a breakfast of pozole, Ricardo and Rosa Solis casually strolled across the railroad tracks on First Street to a Mexican restaurant. They didn't know that around the corner, MTA and law enforcement officials had just concluded a news conference Monday exhorting people not to do exactly that. Later this summer, light rail trains will return to Boyle Heights and East L.A. for the first time in half a century.

Metrolink engineers are now being recorded by video cameras in all of the commuter rail agency's locomotives. Installation of the cameras comes in response to the deadly 2008 rail crash in Chatsworth that apparently involved a distracted engineer. "Metrolink becomes the first rail system in the entire nation, passenger or freight, to install and operate these cameras," Metrolink Board Chairman Keith Millhouse said at a morning news conference Monday at the agency's maintenance facility near Elysian Park.

California officials lack the authority to determine whether Metrolink was partly responsible for the deaths of 11 people in a commuter train crash in 2005, lawyers for the transit service argued Tuesday. Facing skeptical state judges in Los Angeles, Metrolink lawyers argued that federal railroad regulations ban most attempts by California to improve commuter rail safety. Only the federal government can do that, lawyers for Metrolink argued.

Miguel had more reason than usual to be anxious as he drove his aging big rig out of the Port of Los Angeles' bustling China Shipping Terminal. By his own admission, his 24-year-old truck was dangerously overloaded. The suspension was shot, the tires nearly bald. Over his CB radio, other drivers barked warnings that the California Highway Patrol had set up several checkpoints nearby.

Federal officials are expected to announce today that they will install a $6-million warning system at LAX that dramatically reduced close calls on the ground in tests at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. At a news conference this afternoon, Robert A. Sturgell, acting FAA administrator, is expected to detail the agency's plan to install lights on one of the airport's four runways and at various taxiways on the north and south airfields. Testing is to begin early next year.

YOU KNOW the shot: Seen from above, the hero (or villain) is hurtling down the freeway, top down, one hand on the wheel and the other clutching a cellphone to his ear. It's Hollywood's image of how deals are made, dates are broken and gossip is shared, at 65 miles per hour. On Tuesday, that shot will be history. California motorists -- as well as those in Washington state, where a similar law was recently passed -- will be prohibited from talking on hand-held cellular phones while driving.

A year after the collapse of Minneapolis' Interstate 35W bridge, which killed 13 people and injured more than 100, the drive to improve the safety of the nation's bridges has faded amid waning public interest to fund such projects in a souring economy. "The push to repair bridges and our country's infrastructure has become a victim of the bad economy," said Pennsylvania Gov. Edward G. Rendell, a Democrat who, along with California GOP Gov.

Metrolink should add a second engineer to its locomotives, install anti-collision technology and place an additional video camera in the cab of its engines to monitor train drivers, according to a motion supported by several Los Angeles city and county officials. The improvements, however, are not being sought by Metrolink.

Metrolink officials said Monday that they have ordered engineers to slow down as they approach possible red lights, a new safety regulation that comes shortly after two trains collided in Rialto and two months after a fatal head-on crash in Chatsworth killed 25. Under the rule, which was put in place Friday, Metrolink trains must immediately slow to 40 mph or less when they are alerted that a light ahead may be red, the agency said.

Five-year-old Khushi Kumari was heading home from school last week with her sister Radha when a speeding Blueline bus veered toward them at the side of the road. Witnesses said Radha was hit from behind and knocked into the air by the commuter bus. But Khushi was crushed under its giant tires. She died almost instantly. "That day it was the turn of my Khushi; tomorrow it could be anybody, it could be me, you or who knows who," said their mother, Suman Kumari, tears streaming down her cheeks.