California Department of Transportation

How to Stop Worrying and Love Lexus Lanes

Remember that dust-up several years ago when it was discovered Caltrans was not filling potholes or performing other routine maintenance on the 91 freeway linking Orange and Riverside counties? Seems that few other than Caltrans and the Orange County Transportation Authority knew about a non-compete ... More >>

Will Filming The Hangover Part III Leave Orange County with a Splitting Headache?

In the summer of 2013, movie fans will likely be rolling in the aisles to The Hangover Part III, which is to reunite "The Wolfpack" (a.k.a. Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Justin Bartha and our bearded opener page boy, Zack Galifianakis).But the road to boffo box office pisses off some locals who reported ... More >>

[UPDATED with Dumper Caught?] Dirty Diapers Raise Stink in Corona del Mar

See Update No. 2 at the end of this post about police possibly apprehending the dirty diaper dumper. See Update No. 1 about East Coast Highway's dirty diaper pile rising.ORIGINAL POST, SEPT. 6, 6:06 A.M.: You may think living in Corona del Mar is the shit, but a serial dirty diaper dumper has litera ... More >>

Not In My Front Yard

[Hey, You!] Rolling up the welcome mat for tourists in Old Towne Orange

Jaime Robert Galvez, Sheriff's Community Service Officer, Cops to Threats to Jailed Ex-

An Orange County Sheriff's community service officer pleaded guilty today to violating a domestic violence protective order by making negative and threatening comments over the phone to a female inmate with whom he'd had a romantic relationship. Since she was in jail, all the threatening calls wer ... 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 >>

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 >>

'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 >>

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 >>

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 >>

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 >>

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

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 >>

Toll Road Warriors

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

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

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

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 >>

Minutemen-Mexican Fundraiser!

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 >>

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 >>

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 >>

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 >>

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 >>

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 >>

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

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 >>

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 >>

Diary of a Mad County

A Map of Misreading

Caravana Chicken

Next Stop: Immobility

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

Diary of a Mad County

A Road Runs Through It

Ride the Santa Ana River trail while you still can

Construction Cuisine

Navigating the asphalt jungle

Return of the Native?

Wish they all could be California plants

T

Diary of a Mad County

Diary of a mad county

IMAXed Out

Tim the Soldier and Nixons Coming

Excerpts: Part 3

Hell on Wheels

Driving in OC, in your own words

Man Merges Successfully

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

Ass Fault

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