The truck determines bypass lanes theatre defines where Friday's accident occurred are intended to separate the slower-moving trucks from cars heading up or down the Newhall grade. But even with the truck diversion, traffic along the vital stretch of pavement is getting so heavy that Caltrans officials fear it could become the region's worst bottleneck in the next 20 years, particularly if several large residential development projects now being planned are built. Up to now, nature has been the freeway's biggest enemy. Twice in the last 36 years, major earthquakes have brought down I-5 overpasses in the same general area as Friday's accident. The Northridge quake in January 1994 caused two 80-foot-high bridges at Gavin Canyon to collapse, about two miles from the 14 Freeway. It took four months to reopen the freeway that time. And the Sylmar quake in February 1971 brought down connector ramps and buckled the interchange of I-5 and the 14 Freeway, an event that caused Caltrans to embark on a massive earthquake-retrofitting program on the state's freeways. In January 2005, snow and ice from a severe Pacific storm closed a 40-mile stretch of Interstate 5, including Tejon Pass, for two days. Castaic, a small town at the southern end of the Grapevine, became a temporary home for hundreds of stranded truckers. When delays occur, truckers pass the time watching movies in their cabs, listening to music, talking on their CB radios or sleeping -- if they are fortunate enough to have a rig with a bunk. "Being in a solitary job, we get used to spending time alone and entertaining ourselves," said Johnny Harris of Los Angeles, who has been a trucker for 26 years. "You just have to ride it through when the freeway shuts down. Sometimes you have no option but to sit there. "The closure underscores the vulnerability of the region's highway network. The only other major north-south routes out of the Los Angeles area are U. S 101 to the west or a combination of Interstate 15 and U. S.

395 far to the east. Neither is a good alternative, Ikhrata said. "The 395 is one of the most unsafe highways in the state and the 101 takes far longer to travel north," he said "This is a lesson for planners . You can't put all of your eggs in one basket. "--jeffrey Julie Rogers Theatre - beaumont-tx-complex . rabindan. weikel theatre shows . In "The Descent," a low-budget horror movie full of tough women and creepy thrills, six adventurous girlfriends from Britain, on a cave-exploring expedition in the American Appalachians, get lost in the caverns and run into a race of flesh-eating mutant cave-dwellers who look like monster cousins of Gollum from "The Lord of the Rings" movies. You either go for a movie like this or you don't theatre tickets . But though I didn't like it much, I've got to concede that "The Descent" is a nerve-jangler playhouse theatre . Writer-director Neil Marshall (who made the 2002 new-wave werewolf movie "Dog Soldiers") keeps sending his spelunkers through dark tunnels, trapping them in rock slides, suspending them over vast chasms and finally flinging those ravenous, mostly male little monsters at them -- a series of bad trips that plays like a feminist "Cave of the Living Dead" nightmare. Marshall also tries for some psychological depth and human drama -- and that's where the movie falls short. One of the movie's daring explorers, Sarah (Shauna Macdonald), is recovering from a breakdown after a tragedy that occurred during the gang's last outing. Her overachieving, bossy friend Juno (Natalie Mendoza) has planned this rock-scaling holiday partly to help Sarah regain confidence. The other adventurers include Sarah's English teacher friend Beth (Alex Reid), punkish parachutist/base jumper Holly (Nora-Jane Noone) and Swedish half-sisters Rebecca (Saskia Mulder) and Sam (MyAnna Buring). Marshall describes "Descent" as " 'Deliverance' goes underground" -- and that comparison to John Boorman's 1972 classic is a delusion of grandeur. "Deliverance," adapted from James Dickey's novel, was a masterpiece of realistic horror; "The Descent" is simply a shock-'em, shake-'em genre piece with scare scenes that, however effective, suggest cheap-shop versions of a lot we've seen before. In fact, "The Descent" might have been a better movie if Marshall had dispensed with those subterranean crawlers altogether and turned it into a more realistic story about six friends getting trapped underground and trying to fight their way back up.

Watching those gray, slithering beings chasing and biting the women makes it hard to maintain any suspension of disbelief -- much less summon up any memories of "Deliverance. "The actresses are good, especially Mendoza and Reid, but, beyond screamfests and laughing jags, Marshall's script doesn't give them much challenge and hardly any interesting dialogue . Noone, who was great as Bernadette in "The Magdalene Sisters," is particularly wasted. "The Descent" was primarily shot in Scotland and at Pinewood Studios, west of London theatre productions Julie Rogers Theatre . It's a clever fake, but after a while, the caves begin to look set-bound children theatre . (Those crawlers don't help matters. ) It should be mentioned, though, that "The Descent" won best director and best technical achievement prizes from the British Independent Film Awards. Whether it could have scared us more, as I think, by concentrating on realistic people and terror and forgetting those creepy little crawlers -- well, that's open to debate. *`The Descent'MPAA rating: R for strong violence/gore and languageA Lionsgate release Writer-director Neil Marshall Producer Christian Colson Director of photography Sam McCurdy Editor Jon Harris Running time: 1 hour, 39 minutes. In general release. childrens theatre . You might guess that a 2,500-square-foot, three-bathroom unit, with private elevator and a price tag of $4. 9 million, was in Bel-Air or Holmby Hills. But not this one. Would you believe it's beyond the eastern edge of downtown L. A. 's skid row, surrounded by warehouses and not far from the railroad tracks?Stop shaking your head. This is the new Los Angeles, in which bored denizens are abandoning the once-hip Hollywood Hills in favor of 20-foot ceilings in converted factories that sit next door to cold-storage facilities. They're not coming in droves, maybe. In fact, the $4. 9-million pad has been on the market for several months, with lookers but no takers. But two units in the same building have gone for roughly $2 million each, and you don't have to look too hard anymore to find neo-urbanistas who've tumbled out of the hills and landed in the Arts District. I'll get to them in a minute, but let's begin with Brady Westwater. If you move downtown, Westwater will be your neighbor Try though you might, you will not be able to shake him.

At every turn, you'll see Westwater wearing a cowboy hat and a wrestling T-shirt and jawing about:A) The numskulls at City Hall B) The obvious solutions to every problem known to man C) What a moron Steve Lopez is . or D) The endless magical wonder of downtown Los Angeles. I knew the author of the L. A theatre comedy . Cowboy blog ( lacowboy) would have something to say about a $4. 9-million loft, but what?There goes the neighborhood?Onward and upward?In general, he said by phone, the bustling loft scene is all good the theatre . Julie Rogers Theatre tickets This is how Los Angeles should be remaking itself, he says, putting people closer to their jobs and giving them an opportunity, with warehouse-style spaces, to build offices and workshops in their own homes . Yeah, although I hear that some people move in and check out the buzz for a while, but then go running back where they came from when they realize that downtown is still pretty rough around the edges. Nonsense, Westwater said musical theatre . The population is growing even through the real estate slump. On my way to the Biscuit Co. Lofts, I picked up Westwater at his 5th and Spring headquarters, where his computer and wrestling mat are side by side. Anybody who wants to challenge him should be advised that he claims to have recently gone mano a mano with a Mongolian national wrestling champ. The former Ross Shockley, who changed his name to Brady Westwater many years ago because it "test-marketed extremely well with women," was wearing a Strikers Wrestling Club T-shirt.

He'd squeezed me in despite serving voluntarily on two dozen civic boards and commissions and writing several books and screenplays. Downtown developer Tom Gilmore says Westwater is the kind of guy who can drive you mad with his diatribes about downtown politics and planning . "But every time I decide I'll never talk to him again, he comes up with another great idea. "Like the recent Fashion Week event at the former St theatre performances . Vibiana's Cathedral, which Westwater told me he'd conceived of and promoted. I attended a runway show Thursday night to see if indeed he had anything to do with it, and not only was he front and center as the models strutted their stuff, but he knew everyone in attendance, was included in photo-ops with the emcee and claimed that Los Angeles could one day rival Paris in the fashion world if people would just listen to him Julie Rogers Theatre - beaumont-tx-complex . "You should set this guy up in the penthouse loft as a selling point," I told sales rep Matthew Zion when we walked into the Biscuit Co sales office "He's Mr musicals theatre . Downtown. "Artsy loft-hunters would see a stubbled Runyonesque character and realize they definitely had left Sherman Oaks . Before you know it, wrestling outfits would be high fashion and the New York Times would send out a cross-eyed hack to proclaim L. A. 's Arts District the new Tribeca. I don't think the concept was working for Zion, who wondered what my relationship to Westwater was. "This is the guy who once called me the worst columnist in America," I told Zion. "I did not," Westwater said. "I called you the worst columnist in history. "Zion put up with us long enough to lead a full tour of the building, starting with lofts that go for $395,000, $610,000 and $1. 34 million. The tenants so far include a firefighter, garment industry designers, young artists and retirees.