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Heads up on this one: A portion of the westbound Riverside (91) Freeway will be closed tonight and tomorrow night to prepare for demolition of a bridge that crosses the freeway on the west end of Corona, transportation officials said. Three of six lanes on the westbound 91 will be shut down between 6 p.m. and 3 a.m. tonight, and 11 p.m. and 3 a.m. tomorrow night, according to Caltrans. The lane closures are necessary for crews to set up temporary structures around the Green River Road bridge, Corona’s oldest, which is being torn down Saturday night, when a full closure on both the eastbound and westbound sides of the freeway will be in effect for 12 hours, said Caltrans spokeswoman Shelli Lombardo. Half the new six-lane bridge is complete and drivers have begun using it, Lombardo said. Motorists will encounter lane closures tonight and tomorrow night around Serfas Club Drive, about two miles east of Green River Road, Lombardo said. The lanes will be open again after the bridge, she said. Roughly 22,000 motorists use the overcrossing on a given day, according to Caltrans. The $21 million bridge replacement project includes reconfigured ramps and extra clearance for commercial vehicles, Lombardo said. Though rain is forecast most of this week, including Saturday, Lombardo said wet weather should not interfere with the demolition work. However, project engineers could decide to shorten or cancel the job if there’s a downpour. (CNS)
 The Gold Line is perfectly safe, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority says. But the Star-News gets a lawsuit that might not put passengers' minds totally at ease:
A Metro official said Tuesday the Gold Line is safe for riders, even though the agency is seeking $25 million in a lawsuit that claims shoddy construction led to "dangerous conditions" along the route.
The 118-page suit, filed Friday, does not mention any specific problem locations along the Gold Line, though it does exclude the elevated portion of the line through Chinatown, which was built by another contractor.
Parsons, a Pasadena-based engineering firm that designed the line, is one of several defendants named in the lawsuit. Metro accuses Parsons and several contractors of breach of contract, negligence and product liability in the construction of the line.
Grumblings about the mayor's plan to push ahead with the Pico/Olympic realignment are growing in the Westside. Legal action is coming, according to the Bel Air Assn. Blog: Councilman Bill Rosendahl, who had asked that the plan be delayed until the Planning Department could become involved, said he might remove his district from the plan. He called the Mayor’s action “disrespectful to my constituents and an insult.” Rosendahl’s response was the tip of the iceberg. Jay Handal, Chair of the Greater West Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce has announced that “a coalition of businesses and residents will file suit to stop the Mayor’s ill-conceived plan.” “The actions of Villaraigosa and (Jack) Weiss have made a mockery of the neighborhood council process and even the democratic process.” Handal said, “Every neighborhood council along the route has opposed the plan until key issues have been addressed. The two other City council members whose districts will be impacted have opposed the plan. The Beverly Hills City Council hasn’t even been given the respect of discussing the matter prior to its implementation – even though Olympic passes through their city.”
Robert Gottlieb on sfgate.com talks about the time he biked on the Pasadena Freeway -- why officials should open up more freeways to bikers: It was a heavy fog that settled over the freeway in the early morning of that day when we closed the Pasadena freeway for four hours to allow bikes and walkers on the roadway. More than 3,000 bike riders and several thousand more pedestrians began to appear from every direction. The excitement was palpable. Getting Caltrans to agree - as well as the California Highway Patrol and all of the different transportation departments - required months and months of organizing. But here we were, on the freeway. It was June 15, 2003. The bike riders took off just as the fog began to lift. Because it was Father's Day, a number of families came to ride for the sheer pleasure of biking and walking on a freeway. The experience for the bike riders, particularly, was a revelation about how a bike ride not only provided pleasure but could potentially serve as an alternative form of transportation. Several bikers who traveled the entire 8.5-mile stretch of the freeway corridor reported that they did it in far less time than their rush-hour car commute the previous week.
The Schwarzenegger administration collided head-on Tuesday with transportation officials from five Southern California counties over the governor’s proposal to use public funds to help two private railroads pay for a $198 million rail project at Colton crossing in San Bernardino County.
At a two-hour public hearing in Los Angeles, representatives from Los Angeles, Ventura, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties urged the California Transportation Commission to spend $2.2 billion in state bond money on dozens of highway, rail, and bridge projects that would speed the movement of goods across Southern California.
Tensions rose when Caltrans official Ross Crittenden urged the commission to invest public money to help eliminate a major bottleneck where the Union Pacific and Burlington Northern Santa Fe tracks cross at Colton.
California Transportation Commission member Larry Zarian, a former chairman of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, demanded to know who would pay for cost overruns if the Colton crossing project goes over budget.
Juan Acosta, a Sacramento lobbyist for Burlington Northern Santa Fe, told the commission that any cost overruns would be borne by the railroads. But Acosta took a rhetorical shot at Zarian, noting there were major cost overruns on MTA’s construction of the Los Angeles subway system. "I don’t think the public sector manages cost overruns better than the private sector," Acosta said.
The remark reflected the high stakes as competing regions of the state battle for a share of $3 billion in goods movement money that was included in a nearly $20 billion transportation bond measure approved by California voters in November 2006. The commission is scheduled to decide April 10 which projects will receive state bond money.
After listening to the disagreement between the five counties, the administration and the railroads, Commission Chairman James Ghielmetti had some advice for advocates of investing public money in the Colton crossing project. "I would suggest we get busy" if this is going to be a proposal the commission is going to consider seriously, Ghielmetti said.
-Jeffrey L. Rabin
Getting around Hollywood could be a little more difficult starting tonight as preparations begin for the 80th annual Academy Awards ceremony at the Kodak Theatre. Beginning at 10 p.m., Hollywood Boulevard will be closed between Highland Avenue and Orange Drive. The street will reopen at 6 a.m. tomorrow, but will close again at 10 p.m. tomorrow and remain closed until 6 a.m. Feb. 26. The south sidewalk of Hollywood Boulevard between Highland and Orange will be closed -- with the exception of an 8-foot-wide pedestrian access -- at 6 p.m. and remain closed until 6 a.m. Feb. 26. The north sidewalk will be closed in the same area, also allowing an 8-foot pedestrian access, at 10 p.m. and remain closed until 6 a.m. Feb. 25. The mid-block pedestrian crosswalk on Hollywood Boulevard will be closed at 10 p.m. and remain clused until Feb. 26. The north and south curb lanes of Hawthorn Avenue will be closed between Highland and Orange at 10 p.m. and remain closed until Feb. 25. Metro buses will be rerouted, but school buses will be permitted in the area. The Hawthorn alley behind El Capitan Theatre will also close at 10 p.m. and remain clused until Feb. 26. The Oscar ceremony is scheduled for 5 p.m. Feb. 24. (CNS)
The mayor's decision to move forward with the Pico/Olympic one-way plan has critics -- including the South Carthy Neighborhood Assn., racing to block the idea. Here's an email:
We have only one chance to stop this disaster. Please support Olympic Pico Solutions’ lawsuit seeking an injunction against the Mayor’s decree. Olympic Pico Solutions has already raised approximately $10,000.00. (The SCNA has already donated $1,000.00 and I am also writing a personal check.) Olympic Pico Solutions still needs to raise approximately $10,000.00 by Friday, February 22, 2008 to hire the law firm that defeated the Mayor’s plan to take over the Los Angeles Unified School District.
The Times' Sharon Bernstein notes the one winner in the plan might be Councilman Herb Wesson, who got the what he wanted:
The mayor reduced the size of the project by more than a mile. It was initially supposed to run from the Santa Monica city limits to La Brea Avenue. Now, the idea is for it to end at Fairfax Avenue. The change is apparently a nod to Wesson, because the project no longer goes through a part of his district for which he expressed concern.
Old Map:
Former L.A. Councilwoman Ruth Galanter doesn't seems to think all the talk of bringing Maglev transit to L.A. makes much sense. Writing in the Daily News, she says: Local maglev fans claim the private sector will build the trains, so this isn't going to cost the taxpayers. But here are some questions no one has bothered to ask: Where will the train lines be located? What is there now, and where will it be moved? Who will pay to relocate displaced residents and businesses? Who will pay for the right of way? What happens if the technology doesn't work out as promised? Are there warranties or a plan to remove anything that doesn't work?
More on where the route would go: How does the train get from LAX to a freeway? No answer. Which freeway? Doesn't matter, the SCAG director said. So I picked 105 to 110 to 101 to Union Station. Do we run at freeway level or on top? On top, he said. What happens at the interchanges? (Let me remind you that before the 105 reaches the 110, it crosses the 405 at a many-level interchange.) Does my train go through the middle or over the top? The top? How high and how steeply can a maglev train climb?
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.
Traffic signals would be timed to favor faster eastbound traffic on Pico and westbound traffic on Olympic by April 28. After six months to a year, the two streets probably would be restriped so that Pico would have four lanes going east and two going west, while Olympic would have four lanes going west and two going east, a spokesman for the mayor said Thursday.
The move comes a day after Councilmen Bill Rosendahl and Herb Wesson said they might remove their districts from the proposal because of concerns from local businesses and residents that the changes would harm shops and restaurants by making it impossible for customers to park.
On Thursday, the mayor, backed by Westside Councilman Jack Weiss, overrode the council's Transportation Committee, which had postponed action on the plan, saying through a spokesman that the council did not have jurisdiction over such issues as parking regulations or whether streets were one-way.
"The Department of Transportation reports to the mayor," said Matt Szabo, a spokesman for Villaraigosa.
-SHARON BERNSTEIN
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