The Papal Visit : Pope’s Ride Downtown : Gates Dismisses Fears of Massive Traffic Tie-up

Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates, dismissing dire forecasts of traffic congestion, predicted a relatively trouble-free time for the masses who come downtown today to greet the motorcade of Pope John Paul II.

“I want to hype this,” Gates said at a Monday news conference. “There’s been too much gloom and doom.”

The police chief said he hoped more than 1 million people line the 7.2-mile route of the motorcade, which starts at 10:30 a.m., and added, “I think that might well happen.” Archbishop Roger M. Mahony has said he hopes the crowd tops 2 million, a figure that traffic planners say would spell trouble.

Gates’ optimism followed complaints by papal planners who blamed police predictions of traffic snarls and uncomfortable crowding for lighter than expected turnouts at papal events in each of the five cities John Paul has already visited on his nine-city U.S. tour. Apparently anxious not to be blamed for scaring people away in Los Angeles, Gates dismissed earlier warnings of massive traffic jams and emphasized the positive.

Recalling the smoothly flowing traffic on Los Angeles highways during the 1984 Olympics, Gates said of today’s motorcade, “You’ll get in in a reasonable period of time and you’ll get out in a reasonable period of time.” The streets will be congested, but it will be manageable, he said.

Officials have asked workers to be downtown no later than 7 a.m. to avoid the crunch of spectators along the route. Nine freeway ramps near the procession were to be closed, beginning as early as 6 a.m.

In preparation for John Paul’s arrival, police rousted nearly two dozen transients and arrested an activist for the homeless in pre-dawn sweeps Monday outside St. Vibiana’s Cathedral, where the Pope will stay. Seven downtown blocks around the cathedral were cordoned off with red, white and blue water-filled barricades and yellow police tape, causing some congestion in adjacent streets, particularly during the evening rush hour.

Gates called the removal of the transients “simply one of those difficult security issues. We have no way of making sure who’s a terrorist and who’s not,” he said. “People can blend into any group.”

Breakfast First

At the Union Rescue Mission next door to St. Vibiana’s, 385 men ate a breakfast of eggs, bread and coffee before they were told to leave at 7 a.m. so the Secret Service could cordon off the streets. Carrying knapsacks and paper bags, the men left through a back door to an alley, many of them headed to a warehouse nine blocks away where they will be housed until the Pope leaves Los Angeles.

“For some of us, it doesn’t make much difference,” said a burly, middle-aged man named Dennis. “We move around a lot.”

But Fred Knox, 31, complained: “I don’t think it’s fair. They want all these changes for him. What about all the people that’s here?”

Mission workers, who moved 425 chairs and food, hymnals, a television and other supplies to the warehouse, spent much of the day stuck on 3rd Street in stop-and-go traffic, a product of the street closing. Officials had arranged the move at the request of the Secret Service, which is protecting the Pope.

Secret Service agents arrested homeless activist Ted Hayes, 36, who had been holding a hunger strike outside St. Vibiana’s as a protest against the relocation of the transients. Dressed in a hooded white robe, Hayes said he would continue his fast, which he began last Tuesday, until the Pope leaves or the mission is reopened.

“We advised him to move,” said Garry Jenkins, special agent in charge of the Los Angeles office of the Secret Service. “He was right in front of the cathedral. We gave him an hour to think about it. Everybody else left without grumbling. He wanted to make a statement and he wouldn’t move.”

A federal magistrate set bail at $1,000 and ordered Hayes to remain at least one block away from the cathedral when he was released.

Along the papal motorcade route on Broadway, merchants began posting welcome signs for the Pope. At the Midas Muffler shop at Olympic Boulevard and Serrano Avenue, a “Welcome Pope” message in Spanish and English covered the sign normally reserved for prices, and a car leasing firm at Pico Boulevard and Western Avenue posted a “Welcome to Los Angeles Pope John Paul II” sign. On Western, a hair salon put up a welcome message in Spanish and signed it “Guatemala and Mexico.”

The Roxie Theater on Broadway was getting its customers in the appropriate mood with the film “El Nino y el Papa (The Boy and the Pope),” which was double-billed with “Two Tough Guys Who Bark but Don’t Bite.”

Meanwhile, in one of what is expected to be a series of protests, about 150 Holocaust survivors and their supporters marched through the Fairfax District on Monday night and held a rally. Many carried signs protesting the Pope’s recent meeting with Austrian President Kurt Waldheim, who has been accused of complicity in Nazi war crimes, and some dismissed the Pope’s meeting with Jewish leaders last week in Miami.

“What happened? Nothing, just words. . . . He opened the door for Waldeim to be respectable,” said Abraham Rothstein, 64, a retired machinist who came from Fontana for the rally.

Protesters also posted photographs of Waldheim next to photographs of the Pope along the motorcade route. The posters carried the message, “Gesture of Friendship to Jews.”

Police reported few incidents along the motorcade route. Late in the afternoon, a woman driving a sports car plowed into police rope, knocking over two water-filled barricades when she tried to leave the parking lot of a mini-market at Olympic Boulevard and Alvarado Street that had been cordoned off.

Officer Dean Cain, in charge of the Koreatown substation of the Los Angeles Police Department, said he heard of no early sidewalk gatherings of motorcade spectators.

“The only phone calls we’ve had today are, ‘Where’s my car?’ ” from people who didn’t see (or believe) the no-parking, tow-away signs that have been up since last week. “A lot of people are waking up surprised,” he said.

After the motorcade, the Pope will hold a prayer service at St. Vibiana’s for invited guests and have lunch with California bishops. In the afternoon, he will travel to the Universal Amphitheater for a meeting with young Catholics and then will address leaders in the communications industry at the nearby Registry Hotel. He will celebrate Mass at 6:15 p.m. at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

Scaffolding Erected

Coliseum workers hurriedly assembled steel scaffolding that will be covered with white carpet for the papal platform. A canopy, an open-air “space frame” designed to express the “very modern, futuristic” vision of Los Angeles, was held aloft by two yellow cranes that workers were painting black. The cranes will be surrounded by yellow and white chrysanthemums.

“The black paint will come off with a hose,” said Father Rod Stephens, who designed the canopy and supervised the work Monday. “As a matter of fact, if it rains, it will all turn yellow.” He added in a singsong voice, “We don’t want it to rain.”

The weather so far appeared to be cooperating. Forecasters predicted hazy sunshine for today, with low clouds in the early morning and temperatures rising to the upper 70s later in the day.

Times staff writers Penelope McMillan, Patt Morrison and Ted Vollmer contributed to this article.