Transportation

Save San Onofre Coalition Files 2 Lawsuits to Stop Foothill/Eastern (241) Toll Road Extension

The Save San Onofre coalition filed two lawsuits in San Diego Superior Court Wednesday aimed at stopping what it considers the first five-mile segment of a 16-mile toll road that would ultimately cut through a south Orange County park and up against a northern San Diego County beach.The complaints a ... More >>

Burning Man Festival Comes to Anaheim

Anaheim Police are investigating the case of a man's body found inside a burning car early this morning as a homicide.But residents of the 100 block of South Westchester Drive suspect the tragedy was an accident.Or was it a suicide?

Laguna Niguel and Costa Mesa DUI Checkpoints Tonight, Garden Grove on Saturday Night

Anyone taking that weird Laguna Niguel to Costa Mesa route this evening, with an overnight stop before heading on to Garden Grove Saturday night, will want to take extra care as three law enforcement agencies are running sobriety checkpoints in those towns those nights. Tonight's locations are undis ... More >>

Jody Agius Vallejo, USC Sociology Professor

[Best Of 2012] The author of 'Barrios to Burbs: The Making of the Mexican-American Middle Class' on her favorite things about Orange County

[UPDATED with Fairview Checkpoint:] Beach Blvd. & Stanton Ave. DUI Stop Tonight

​UPDATE, FEB. 10, 2:10 P.M.: The Santa Ana Police Department is also holding a DUI/unlicensed driver checkpoint near the 400 block of North Fairview Street from 7:30 p.m. Saturday through 1:30 a.m. Sunday.ORIGINAL POST, FEB. 10, 7:09 A.M.: Citing research that shows sobriety checkpoints are effect ... More >>

Drunken Driving Deaths Way Down in California

​It will either bolster the argument that sobriety checkpoints are working or prop up the side that claims such enforcement operations are unnecessary, but in either event drunken-driving fatalities are down dramatically in California, according to state data. A record low 791 people were killed i ... More >>

American Airlines' Parent Company Files For Bankruptcy, No Immediate Implications For John Wayne Airport

​This morning, American Airlines' parent company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, but, for now at least, it won't impact passengers.AMR Corpororation, the company over American Airlines and American Eagle, voluntarily filed for Chapter 11, saying it was the next logical step in ensuring ... More >>

Keith Edward Froman and Martin Esquibel Aguilar Busted Separately for Bothering Teens on OCTA Buses

​Two men have been arrested for separate incidents where teens were preyed upon on Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA) buses, according to authorities.The Orange County Sheriff's Department and Transit Police Services participated in the investigations that led to the busts.

If You Get Lost and Land in Rancho Santa Margarita Tonight, Look Out for the Sobriety Checkpoint

​Legend has it that at the end of a toll road that stretches far off over the horizon, there is a magical land the pixies who live there refer to as "Rancho Santa Margarita." And somewhere in this Smurfy berg there is a busy street, inhabited by pixies in pixie-mobiles. At times they get whiffs of ... More >>

Musician and 'The L Word' Actress Kicked Off a Southwest Airlines Flight for Kissing Her Girlfriend Issues Statement

​The L Word actress and member of electro pop band Uh Huh Her Leisha Hailey says she was kicked off a Southwest Airlines flight for kissing her girlfriend. She announced the incident in a series of tweets yesterday, which sparked an Internet outcry. Hailey wrote that she and her longtime girlfrien ... More >>

[UPDATED with Conviction:] John Hines, Long Beach Fire Captain, Guilty of DUI Hit and Run of Cyclist

​UPDATE, SEPT. 6, 2:59 P.M.: Long Beach Fire Department Capt. John Hines pleaded guilty today to severely injuring a cyclist in a mid-day hit-and-run crash while driving with a blood alcohol level of .24 percent, three times the legal limit. The 38-year-old Huntington Beach resident accepted a co ... More >>

[UPDATED with Orange Ordinance Set To Pass] Orange, Westminster Consider Ban on Red Light Cameras

​UPDATED, JULY 27, 11:59 A.M.: The ordinance that would ban red-light cameras in Orange passed yesterday with a preliminary 5-0 vote. A second reading will take place at the Aug. 9 City Council meeting.ORIGINAL POST, JULY 26, 8:00 A.M.: Those paranoia-inducing red light cameras may be sh ... More >>

[UPDATED with Memorial Service Details:] Brian Hayes, Veteran Anaheim Police Officer, Dies in Plane Crash

​UPDATE, JULY 20, 5:25 P.M.: A memorial service for veteran Anaheim Police Officer Brian Hayes, who died in a plane crash with his girlfriend Sunday in Arizona, will be noon Saturday at Calvary Church East Anaheim, 5605 E. La Palma Ave., Anaheim.Hayes is survived by his father, Judge W. Michael Ha ... More >>

5 Ways the Airline Industry Has Given Up on Us

​It's no secret airline travel has gotten worse in recent years, even before the 9/11 gut check. Normally, businesses facing that perception from customers would change their ways.Recent developments suggest the airline industry is doing just that: by totally giving up on the flying public. Five w ... More >>

Pilot of Airbus That Nearly Collided with Plane Sees Dark Days Ahead in Skies Above John Wayne Airport

​A cockpit alarm prevented a collision between a small aircraft and an Airbus 319 jetliner in the skies above John Wayne Airport (JWA) this past September.Later, on the FAA's Aviation Safety Reporting System log, the Airbus 319 pilot predicted that the mix of large jets and light aircraft at JWA " ... More >>

The Funniest Food-Related Traffic Accident Report Of The Week

http://www.sxc.hu​Traffic accidents are rarely funny. But if no one is hurt and it involves 39,000 pounds of cheese and a truck fire, you bet it is. Add to that mix a newspaper reporter with a penchant for puns and what results is comedy gold! In his report, Sean Dugas, writer for News Herald ... More >>

Finally! 5 Freeway From Beach to LA County Line Called Out for Being Shitty

OCTA.net​The 5 freeway from Beach Boulevard in Garden Grove to the Los Angeles County line in Buena Park is one of the roughest roads in the nation, states a report released today by two highway advocacy groups. "Future Mobility in California: The Condition, Use and Funding of California's Roads, ... More >>

Drivers Ridicule Toll Road Photo Contest

Photo by Steve OngAliso Viejo resident Steve Ong's winning shot.​An amateur photo contest aimed at promoting Orange County's quasi-private toll roads gave new meaning to drive-by shooting.Folks who left comments on the Transportation Corridor Agencies--or The Toll Roads--Facebook page had other de ... More >>

Settlement Would Have Toll Roads Forgiving $40 Million in Fines, Doling Out $1.4 Million to Drivers

Facebook.com/TheTollRoads"Thank you, please come again."​Were it not for being stuck in traffic, this Time Winder would have had this yesterday like the Los Angeles Times did, but Orange County's toll road agencies would forgive $40 million in fines and pay $1.4 million to drivers who claim they w ... More >>

Proposed LA to San Diego High Speed Train Would Avoid OC

​A Los Angeles to San Diego high-speed train proposal that's picking up steam (sorry) would bypass the traditional Amtrak Surfliner route down the coast through Orange County and instead head eastward from LA through the Inland Empire.The state plans new tracks for 220 mile-per-hour trains from Lo ... More >>

Interesting Op-Ed Pieces on FBI Informant, Toll Roads

In "Breach of Trust: FBI Wants It Both Ways," the editorial board of UC Irvine's New University student newspaper takes issue with the indictment of a Muslim resident of Tustin and the use of a controversial government informant. (Background is here and here.) The case is bound to have a chilling ef ... More >>

Toll Road Warriors

Saving Trestles: Game On!

The on-again, off-again hearing on the 241 Foothill South toll road extension by the U.S. Secretary of Commerce is back on, from 10:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. Sept. 22, and in an old/new home, O'Brien Hall at the Del Mar Fairgrounds, or the same place the California Coastal Commission met, took testimony ... More >>

The Fix is In (Santa Ana Edition)

Remember my post yesterday, where I theorized out loud about how SanTana councilmember Carlos Bustamante could greatly benefit if Cordoba Corporation (headed by major contributor and fellow Santa Ana Business Bank director George Pla) ever got a contract with the city to develop a mass transit syste ... More >>

Moonnites

The 28th Annual Mooning of Amtrak

Toll Road to Ruin

OC agency wants to borrow $4.7 billion more

Road to Nowhere Fast

Foothill-South delayed until 2011, possibly forever

On a Road to Nowhere

For those who have followed the twisting path of the proposed Foothills South toll road-- ably plotted on this blog and in the pages of the Weekly by Alex Brant-Zawadzki and others-- the latest report in the Times will come as no surprise. For more than a year, transportation planners have said that ... More >>

That Good-For-Nothing Toll Road

Last week the LA Times wrote a piece about OCTA's South Orange County Major Investment Study. Its results directly contradict the Transportation Corridor Agencies' claims that its planned Foothill South (241) Toll Road extension would relieve traffic in south Orange County. Steve Lowery cites the ne ... More >>

Cocaine Airways

A former CIA pilot says secret flights to El Toro could explain a Marine officers suicide

Toll Road Rage

Hey, Porter! New firm cashes in on bad toll-road PR

Can't Have Your Speed And Eat It Too

Okay Register; I know we've had our differences. You write editorials suggesting people who oppose the toll roads are NIMBYs and BANANAs; I criticize you for poorly informing people on the toll road. Your acronym-happy propaganda-fests were goofy if a bit irresponsible. But now...now you're being si ... More >>

Alternative Answers

Please forgive the over-generalization, but to over-generalize the Democrats are the party of expensive mass transit boondoggles, the Republicans are the party of lung cancer, freeways to nowhere and terror-enabling dependence on foreign oil, and in Orange County members of both parties are against ... More >>

The Car Crash Set

Five more musicians who put the pedal through the metal

Lite Rail

Plough Boy Bunnies

Bleccccccccccch!

A peoples environmental impact report on El Toro International Airport

Flack Attack

El Toro Airport Watch No. 151

If You Build It, 24 Million Will Come

El Toro Airport Watch No. 150

Spooks

Airport? Terminal!

El Toro Airport Watch No. 144

Strippers and Children

18 reasons why the countys proposed El Toro International Airport is cool

A Too-Modest Proposal

El Toro Airport Watch No. 118

Off Again

El Toro Airport Watch No. 112

The Demand Game

El Toro Airport Watch No. 110

Ass Fault

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

Singing to the Chorus

El Toro Airport Watch No. 96

Mythic Propaganda

El Toro Watch No. 92

Toll Road Warrior

William Woollett Jr.'s long reign of shame