For One Day, Rush Hour Turns Into Rush Minutes

Visions of mass gridlock turned into versions of mobile grandeur Monday as commuters found themselves coping just fine with immigrant protests that closed major streets in Los Angeles.

It had been billed as the motorists’ day from hell. But automobile flow through most of the city turned into a traffic triumph, the likes of which Los Angeles hasn’t seen since it managed to keep freeways and streets flowing during the 1984 Olympics.

Surface streets around downtown were holiday-light for the morning commute.

Many workers decided to stay home, work from other locations or take public transportation. Those who left home early to drive to work found themselves settling in at their desks in record time.

“It was wonderful. No traffic at all,” marveled Lucinda Leider, a legal secretary from Altadena who works in an office tower in the center of downtown’s high-rise district. Her normal morning commute “portal to parking lot” of 50 minutes was cut nearly in half.

“It seems like a Saturday,” said paralegal Charlie Dimas. He left his Glendora home more than two hours early but arrived in downtown Los Angeles at 6:45 a.m., instead of his usual 9 a.m., because of the light traffic.

The afternoon commute was more congested in some areas -- especially on streets like La Brea Avenue and Vermont Avenue near where Wilshire Boulevard was closed off. But the freeways were by and large still a breeze.

Because the protest march routes and times were publicized in advance, Angelenos were able to adjust their schedules to avoid trips near closed-street zones.

City transportation engineers and traffic officers kept streets open until the last minute as protesters marched their way.

Authorities have learned from traffic-snarling events such as the yearly L.A. Marathon, said John Fisher, traffic operations manager of the city’s Department of Transportation.

“It’s like the Olympics. Back then we had warned of severe congestion and that served to discourage people from making unnecessary trips,” he said of the international sports competition that 22 years ago surprised everyone when freeways and surface streets didn’t come to a complete standstill.

Freeways were moving at maximum speeds most of the day, with green symbols depicted on SigAlert maps and California Department of Transportation video cameras showing light traffic at points being photographed.

“We weren’t sure what to expect,” said Caltrans spokeswoman Jeanne Bonfilio. “But traffic was noticeably lighter.”

Even the heavily traveled Harbor Freeway was a breeze, said a delighted Cal State Long Beach student, Christian Lopez, 21, of South Gate.

“I didn’t see many trucks going to the ports. It’s kind of like a holiday.”

He was right. Only 3,000 of the normal 30,000 shipping container-toting trucks were pulling in and out of Long Beach and Los Angeles harbors Monday, said Theresa Adams Lopez, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles port.

The city’s buses, light rails and subways were busy, however.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s new Orange Line across the San Fernando Valley was jammed. Workers heading downtown crowded on at the Warner Center, Pierce College and Reseda stops.

White-shirted Latinos who were heading for protests at the Civic Center and at MacArthur Park piled aboard at Van Nuys. Everyone then transferred to the Red Line subway in North Hollywood.

The MTA boosted the number of subway cars in use on the Red Line and ran the system on its “peak hour service” schedule most of the day, the agency’s Dave Sotero said.

Buses that normally travel along Broadway and Hill Street downtown and on Wilshire were rerouted, he said. Special detour service allowed passengers to cross the Wilshire march route on foot and catch another bus on the other side to complete their trips.

Bus riders also helped one another out.

When the bus that Andrea Watson was waiting for at the corner of Wilshire and La Brea didn’t show up, another rider said that it had been rerouted and pointed her in the right direction to catch it.

“I’m missing my Spanish class at Long Beach State. Maybe they’ll understand it’s because of the protest,” said Watson, 28.

On the Westside, some took advantage of the light traffic to run errands they might otherwise have delayed.

Niki Nazebi of Beverly Hills set out to get her car cleaned, only to find that most carwashes were closed because their immigrant workers had taken the day off to protest.

“I’ve been to three. Two were closed and another said it would be a one-hour wait. I’ll just wash it myself,” she said.

At an automotive garage at 8th Street and La Brea, mechanic Juan Renteria marveled at the light traffic.

“It’s 100% better than normal. But we have no business, no cars,” he shrugged as his shop closed for the day about 3:30 p.m.

Though most commuters sailed around, some were stalled Monday in places they never thought they’d be.

When stock brokerage employee Norma Santos of Eagle Rock arrived for work at downtown’s US Bank tower, her regular parking lot was closed because of the protest.

So she parked in the tower’s basement structure -- at an unanticipated cost of $40.

But when it was time Monday afternoon to leave, the street outside the tower garage was closed.

“I may be stuck for a while. A lot of us here are not happy,” Santos said.

Office worker Araceli Rojas spent 75 minutes trying to get home to walk her dog before giving up, parking on a side street three blocks from her residence and filling the parking meter with coins.

Then she noticed: “It’s only 30-minute parking.”