Leave it to the City Council to...

Leave it to the City Council to honor champion sled dog racer Susan Butcher on a smoggy, scorching day in which the city’s traffic flow was plunged into chaos by the nightmarish Metro Rail fire.

Butcher, in town for a pet supply trade show, is four-time winner of the 1,158-mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, held in the snowy, subzero climes of Alaska.

Like many commuters Friday, Butcher, who received a commendation from the council, took a circuitous route downtown. It began early Thursday night, she said, when, after having mushed her dogs, she boarded a single-engine plane at her home 150 miles north of Fairbanks.

The flight was the difficult part, according to the champ, since her 9 a.m. drive from LAX to City Hall proved a breeze.

“Because of the traffic reports on the radio,” Butcher theorized, “people must have been staying away from downtown. We buzzed in in about 30 minutes.

“But now I’m boiling from the heat,” she said.

The council’s impeccable sense of timing was even more apparent when, after hearing a dizzying half-hour report from top fire officials about the potentially staggering impact of the Metro Rail blaze, council members proceeded to welcome Mickey Mouse into their meeting room.

The silent, smiling rodent had made the trip downtown to accept a proclamation from Council President John Ferraro in honor of Disneyland’s 35th anniversary.

“This is a terrible time to be presenting a resolution to Disneyland,” noted Ferraro. “But Mickey, we love to have you here because you don’t talk and that’s an unusual thing in this council chamber.”

Bugs Bunny, along with pioneer animator Friz Freleng, were also due to be honored by the council Friday morning. But the pair postponed their appearance due to the Metro Rail conflagration.

Explained Councilman Joel Wachs: “They didn’t think there’d be enough carrots down here because of the congestion.”

Actually, Bugs and Friz were probably following the advice of the KFWB traffic reporter who warned listeners at 8:15 a.m.: “The best alternate route is to stay home.”

Today’s kickoff of the new Long Beach-to-Los Angeles Blue Line light-rail service brings back wistful memories of the old Red Cars that sped passengers along 1,000 miles of track through Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino and Riverside counties.

Construction costs for the original trolley line were roughly $1 million, compared to $877 million for the new service. Yet, these days it will take five minutes longer than it did in 1902 to traverse the route--55 minutes.

County transit planners can only hope that the Blue Line will draw a similar reception to that of the Red Cars. Here is a portion of The Times account of the July 4, 1902, Red Car opening:

“Every car that left in the morning was weighted to the roof with passengers. They were wedged into the seats and aisles as tightly as matches in a box; some clung to the stanchions and others piled onto the roofs.”

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L.A.’s most recent Doomsday prophets have predicted that the Freeway (and Metro Rail) City would fall into the sea on May 10, 1988, (based on the writings of the French astrologer Nostradamus); April 10, 1981, at 5:31 a.m. (according to financial prognosticator Joseph Granville) and Feb. 12, 1969, (inspired by the book, “The Last Days of the Late, Great State of California”).