California Department of Transportation

[Summer Guide] Guerrilla Gardeners Strike an Earthy Tone as They Beautify Medians and Empty Lots

Toll Road Opposition for the Lazy

Just when you think the government's a complete and total failure, something happens to restore your faith. Why, just this afternoon I was perusing the Governor's website, filling out a webmail information request on Chuck DeVore's industrial hemp bill and bemoaning my lack of decent contacts up in ... More >>

Bates: Fishy

If only it were a smile contest... I thought the Transportation Corridor Agencies were getting desperate when I saw their ads on cable. But now it looks like they're going so far as to cobble together campaign mailers for supporters. I say this because Pat Bate's latest mailer, which uses TCA endor ... More >>

Thursday's Headlines & Surprises

Speed Eating: Would you eat 42 peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches in 10 minutes for $1,500? Patrick “P-Rock” Beroletti, a twentysomething-year-old Chicago cook, won the Drum Corps International World Peanut Butter and Jelly Eating Championship this week at Knott's Berry Farm in Buena Park. (Ear ... More >>

Thirteen OC Bridges Deemed Structurally Deficient

According to the California State Bridge Inventory released by Caltrans last week, 13 bridges in Orange County have been classified as "structurally deficient." But, according to Caltrans, this doesn't mean that bridges are going to start collapsing all over the place. On the inventory, Caltrans sp ... More >>

Janet Nguyen Begins Campaigning Early, Litters the 22 Freeway

In a couple of months, Orange County Supervisor Janet Nguyen will seek reelection in the First Supervisorial District. The race will be brutal, as Nguyen will have to fend off Trung "Don't Call me Tan" Nguyen (whom she beat earlier this year in a special election by a scant three votes) and whomever ... More >>

What you missed over the weekend: Part V

OC's lamesauce Saturday night lineup forced music editor Dave Segal and photographer/Le Receptionist Leslie Agan to fly to The Prospector in Long Beach to catch The Vandelles, LSD and the Search for God and the Stevenson Ranch Davidians. The Vandelles were pretty awesome, the other acts. . .not so m ... More >>

Cheap Date

UPDATE: Photos are up. By Amanda Parsons and Erin DeWitt When the press release for a Newport Beach bachelor auction came across our desks, we were all over that shit. And when we heard there was going to be an open bar? The deal got even sweeter. You would think that a room full of eligible men ... More >>

Thanks For Nothing

The Transportation Corridor Agencies, whose Foothill-South (241) toll road extension was recently vetoed by the California Coastal Commission, sent out the following letter to its supporters. My edits are in italicized bold. Dear Supporter: Thank you for your ongoing support for the completion of ... More >>

Minutemen-Mexican Fundraiser!

The Transportation Corridor Agencies, whose Foothill-South (241) toll road extension was recently vetoed by the California Coastal Commission, sent out the following letter to its supporters. My edits are in italicized bold. Dear Supporter: Thank you for your ongoing support for the completion of ... More >>

A Blast from SanTana's Gentrification Past

An antiquarian source recently rewarded us with a 1995 Orange County Register clip that is instrumental in understanding SanTana's current gentrification wars. Seems city planners wanted to build a pedestrian bridge over Interstate 5 connecting 20th Street in the mid-1990s so that kiddies could have ... More >>

San Diego Minutemen Get Back Their San Clemente Adopt-a-Highway Sign

Mere hours after the Weekly's story regarding the tale of two Minuteman Project Adopt-a-Highway signs hit the streets, a federal judge ordered Caltrans to restore the one on Interstate 5 near the San Onofre immigration checkpoint sponsored by the San Diego Minutemen. In a misleading email sent out l ... More >>

This Week in the OC Weekly

Mere hours after the Weekly's story regarding the tale of two Minuteman Project Adopt-a-Highway signs hit the streets, a federal judge ordered Caltrans to restore the one on Interstate 5 near the San Onofre immigration checkpoint sponsored by the San Diego Minutemen. In a misleading email sent out l ... More >>

Toll Road Warriors

Mere hours after the Weekly's story regarding the tale of two Minuteman Project Adopt-a-Highway signs hit the streets, a federal judge ordered Caltrans to restore the one on Interstate 5 near the San Onofre immigration checkpoint sponsored by the San Diego Minutemen. In a misleading email sent out l ... More >>

A River Runs Beneath It

Santa Ana River toll road elevates eco-fears

Toll Road "Bailout" Request Blasted

Groups that have banded together to fight the 241 toll road extension through San Onofre State Park today accused the private agencies that operate Orange County's financially troubled network of toll roads of seeking a $1.1 billion federal bailout. The Transportation Corridor Systems (TCS) -- a jo ... More >>

Return of the Native?

Wish they all could be California plants

Say You Will Build It, and They Will Come . . . If the 'It' Is a Toll Road Over Trestles Parkland

Wish they all could be California plants

Do the Differing Fates of Two Minutemen Freeway Signs Show a Double Standard at Caltrans?

Wish they all could be California plants

News

Wish they all could be California plants

Hell on Wheels

Driving in OC, in your own words

Frat Brat Going to Jail for Hate Crimes

WEB EXCLUSIVE! Gaston Gastelum avoids prison with plea and apology

Road to Nowhere Fast

Foothill-South delayed until 2011, possibly forever

Diary of a Mad County

Foothill-South delayed until 2011, possibly forever

A Map of Misreading

Foothill-South delayed until 2011, possibly forever

Caravana Chicken

Foothill-South delayed until 2011, possibly forever

Next Stop: Immobility

An A to Z Guide to Surviving the Death/Pause/Sunshine of the CenterLine

Diary of a Mad County

An A to Z Guide to Surviving the Death/Pause/Sunshine of the CenterLine

A Road Runs Through It

Ride the Santa Ana River trail while you still can

T

Ride the Santa Ana River trail while you still can

Diary of a Mad County

Ride the Santa Ana River trail while you still can

Diary of a mad county

Ride the Santa Ana River trail while you still can

Diary of a Mad County

Ride the Santa Ana River trail while you still can

IMAXed Out

Ride the Santa Ana River trail while you still can

Tim the Soldier and Nixons Coming

Ride the Santa Ana River trail while you still can

Golden Smog

Ride the Santa Ana River trail while you still can

Excerpts: Part 3

Ride the Santa Ana River trail while you still can

Man Merges Successfully

Ride the Santa Ana River trail while you still can

Highway Robbery - Toll Roads

OCs toll roads were supposed to be the model for our transportation future. Now they look like road kill

Nice Wheels!

Tibetan mandalas are as nice as Fullerton itself

Detour of the Damned

Tibetan mandalas are as nice as Fullerton itself

Ass Fault

County officials pave over the true source of toll-road funding: You

Is OCTA Sacrificing Transit Service for Executive Pay?

Courtesy of OCTAWill Kempton moves to OCTA from Caltrans, where he has served for five years.The hiring of Caltrans director Will Kempton for the Orange County Transportation Authority's vacant executive director position would seem like a step down. After all, the Schwarzenegger appointee oversees ... More >>

The Five Best Parodies of the Illegal Immigrant Crossing Sign

​You know the sign at right, created in the 1980s by a Caltrans worker after a rash of illegal immigrant deaths on freeways, committing the very act the black-on-bright-yellow icon depicts. It's legendary enough nowadays--especially in the borderlands--to have inspired many parodies, not all of th ... More >>

Rossmoor War on Coyotes Ugly

​So, the residents of Rossmoor, Seal Beach, Los Alamitos and East Long Beach are perturbed because coyotes are apparently attacking defenseless Fidos and Garfields with ever more frequency, and the response from officialdom is to leave the American jackals be. But close readers of this space shoul ... More >>

Long-Stalled In-N-Out Opens Friday in Costa Mesa

Edwin Goei​You may have not realized it, but there was a long hard slog to get the In-N-Out that replaces Kaplan's Deli off the Harbor exit of the 405 approved through the proper authorities.  It opens on Friday.As the Daily Pilot reports, "The approval process was lengthy, requiring both the ... More >>

[UPDATED/CLARIFIED] OCTA's Will Kempton and Irvine Ranch Water's Paul D. Jones II (and Santa Margarita Water's John J. Schatz) Top Special-District Executive Salaries List

OCTAKempton​UPDATE/CLARIFICATION, FEB. 4, 9:23 A.M.: The Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA) clarified for the Weekly why its CEO Will Kempton lands at the No. 2 spot on a state-compiled list of top executive salaries from California special districts.It's not Kempton's salary, the OCTA ... More >>

'OSAMA FOREVER!' Graffiti Surfaces on the 405 in Westminster

Sam Gangwer, The Orange County Register​Putting a thorn of shock and bafflement into this decidedly "good day for America," some party-foulin' mystery tagger decided to blast a local freeway wall with a seemingly pro-terrorist declaration.  "OSAMA FOREVER!" was scribed in black spray paint th ... More >>

11 UCI Students and Supporters Guilty of Being Disorderly for Rowdy Protest Near Chancellor's Office

​Eleven UC Irvine students and sympathizers were convicted today of being disorderly on campus, and if you think your intrepid reporter has been conked on the head and is re-reporting the outcome of the "Irvine 11" case, you are wrong.Well, you are this time.These 11 with freshly minted rap sheet ... More >>

Will Floral Park NIMBYers Stop the Santiago Creek Bike Trail Extension?

Courtesy of Santiago Creek Greenway AllianceClick for a larger image.​See that map? It represents the new Santiago Creek Trail, which runs from the Orange County Water District Ponds near Cannon St. in Orange, all the way to the Santa Ana River--with one quarter-mile exception through Jack Fisher ... More >>