The Brief

Freeways aren’t that cool — but the 10 gets kind of close because of its curious past.

It’s been in the news after the pallet fire and speedy recovery (although it's still undergoing repairs), but now, let’s look at some of its pivotal growth spurts.

A brief history of the 10 Freeway

While it wasn’t always called the 10, the route has been around for a long time.

In the early 20th century, Los Angeles was experiencing rapid growth. More and more people were buying cars, and there was a hodgepodge of different types of roads, ranging from dirt roads to flashier paved routes where you could drive faster than on other streets.

Travelers could use these roads to get from point A to point B in L.A. a little faster, but it was still slightly chaotic. So by the 1930s, the city began planning for a more organized network of roadways, especially between commerce and urbanized areas.

Today the route of Interstate 10 stretches thousands of miles from Santa Monica all the way to Florida, but before all that concrete was laid out, what would become the 10 Freeway was a much smaller system of highways with different names and destinations.

Is it LA’s first freeway?

The Ramona Freeway was the earlier name for Interstate 10 and went from downtown Los Angeles to the San Bernardino County line. The Macy Street Bridge, shown here in 1943, went above the route.

(

Security Pacific National Bank Collection/Los Angles Public Library

)

One of those upgraded routes was Ramona Boulevard, which opened in April 1935. It ran for four miles downtown under where the 10 is now, between Aliso Street and Garvey Avenue (ironically likely near where the pallets caught fire).

It created buzz because of its physical innovations — many of which would become central to the definition of a freeway.

Author Paul Haddad wrote that it was a roadway “with all the hallmarks of a freeway: separate grades, sloped embankments, and bridges replacing cross-traffic.”

(The person who coined the term 'freeway' — h/t Edward Bassett — saw it as different from other types of thoroughfares. A freeway wasn't about scenic routes or open access, it was about controlled and quick movement, leading to a free flow of traffic.)

Whether or not it’s the first freeway isn’t an easy answer because Ramona Boulevard started with new nomenclature.

The L.A. Department of Transportation says the state called it an “airline route” because “motorists could ‘fly’ without intersectional conflict at 50 miles per hour.”

But then in 1943, eight years after opening, the county’s regional planning commission referred to this stretch as a freeway “conversion of an existing highway.”

It’s not all semantics, though. The commission did define a freeway as a route:

• exclusively for the movement of motor vehicles
• separated from other properties by barriers
• that prohibits going in and out
• with reasonably spaced out entries and exits
• with uninterrupted traffic flow that’s divided into two sides

The thing is, Ramona Boulevard had all the above except that last one — the dividing section between the two sides. So, it didn’t pass the “freeway” name test.

But ironically it proved how important a dividing section could be because of the number of accidents that happened without one: during its first 40 months, there were 77 injuries (including deaths) on Ramona Boulevard, according to LADOT history, mostly from head-on and sideswipe collisions.

To make it safer, a city traffic engineer asked the state to approve a “narrow guard rail design with lights atop” that would go in the middle. The interim measure worked, and since then all high-speed state highways use a raised median or barrier in the center.

While Ramona can’t technically claim the “first freeway” title because it didn’t have a divider between sides, we wouldn’t have sussed out what a freeway needs to be without it. A real chicken or the egg situation.

The upshot is that the title of L.A.’s first freeway officially goes to its neighbor, the 110, the Arroyo Seco Parkway which mostly opened in 1940 — Ramona was L.A.’s scrappy trial run.

A growing freeway system

The interchange of the Harbor, San Bernardino, Santa Ana and Hollywood freeways in May 1957.

(

Clinton H. Betz

/

Los Angeles Photographers Collection/Clinton H. Betz Collection/Los Angles Public Library

)

Through the 1940s, '50s, and '60s, coordinated state plans emerged to develop these routes and other thoroughfares, into a network of fast-paced freeways.

There was much back and forth between leaders about what freeway routes would exist, where they’d lead and how they’d be named. But eventually, crews broke ground on the newly named Santa Monica Freeway portion over the L.A. River in 1957. The eastern side near Alhambra, which used to be called Ramona Freeway, was already open and was renamed the San Bernardino Freeway in 1954.

A portion of the freeway was included in the interstate highway system in 1957, earning that recognizable I-10 number. Other sections were included under the 10 moniker later, in an honestly way too confusing way.

Growth came at a cost for those in the freeway’s path. The routes were put close to schools and residences, which Angelenos complained would impact people’s health over time. A west side section of the 10 also displaced thousands of residents, including folks who lived in the now bisected Sugar Hill neighborhood.

Innovations on the 10

Newly installed traffic condition information sign on the Santa Monica Freeway in 1973. This was a test message.

(

Security Pacific National Bank Collection/Los Angles Public Library

)

The 10 Freeway brought other big innovations to L.A., such as electronic message boards.

Citizens Against the diamond lane picket Gov. Brown's presidential campaign headquarters at 4055 Wilshire Blvd. demanding he review the experiment with an eye toward ending it on May 16, 1976.

(

Mike Mullen

/

Herald Examiner Collection/Los Angles Public Library

)

According to Haddad, the new boards pointed drivers to another innovation: the diamond lane. Essentially a carpool lane, it ended up a flop. Drivers hated it because it took over an existing freeway lane and you could only use it if you had three or more people in your car. The dislike was so strong that the woman behind the lane received “sexist taunts and death threats,” according to Haddad.

Sexism in engineering would have to take another back seat, though. Marilyn Reece, designer of the 10 and 405 interchange, was the first woman engineer registered in California, and Caltrans dedicated this junction to her in 2008.

According to Haddad, the 10 is also the first to use white letters on green signs and turnouts for the California Highway Patrol to clear accidents.

Updated November 14, 2026 at 13:52 PM ET

WASHINGTON— Friday's nationwide ground stop started when a contractor updated old Federal Aviation Administration telecommunication lines, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Saturday.

Tens of thousands of passengers across the U.S. are still stranded Saturday after the rare ground stop. Bryan Bedford, the FAA administrator who joined Duffy at Saturday's media briefing, said schedule problems should be resolved by Sunday evening.

Nearly 25,000 flights were delayed, and over 9,000 were cancelled on Friday, according to FlightAware, a flight tracking site. The disruption seeped into Saturday morning with more than 4,000 cancellations recorded, which is 18% of flights departing the U.S., according to data from Cirium, an aviation analytics company.

L3Harris, a long time contractor for the FAA, was doing routine maintenance in at least one remote location changing copper wire to fiber optics, Duffy said. "When I tell you that we're using old equipment, we're using old equipment," he said.

He said the FAA is still investigating the exact error that started flooding other routers in the air traffic control system, and if L3Harris was at all responsible.

"It's pretty straightforward work that we were doing yesterday at, again, a very remote location. So what we're working to determine was whether we had incompetence, meaning was it user error, installator error from L3Harris, or did they install a faulty router?"

L3Harris did not immediately respond to NPR's request for comment.

These updates have been happening in American institutions for decades, Duffy said.

"Virtually every single institution in America has gone from copper to fiber, from analog to digital," Duffy said. "Just maybe the FAA is the last one to be doing this work because the investments haven't been made, but this is not complicated."

Bedford said there was no evidence of anything nefarious happening or any AI-related issues.

Since his time in office, Duffy said he's been asking Congress for money to make more upgrades. In July 2025, Congress approved $12.5 billion to modernize the nation's aging air traffic control system.

With that money, 70% of copper communications have been replaced to high-speed fiber, Bedford said. Duffy called the innovations and the need for more a "bipartisan moment."

"This is the moment, if we don't start to switch out our systems, when, how long are we going to wait, America, and Congress?" Duffy asked.

Thousands of passengers miss flights

Passengers wait at boarding gates at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Washington, DC on November 13, 2026.

(

Zina Desmazes

/

AFP via Getty Images

)

For about four hours on Friday, thousands of flights at U.S. airports were grounded in one of the biggest disruptions of the nation's air travel system since the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

The aviation system is back online and slowly returning to normal Saturday morning, but delays and cancellations will continue, Duffy said. Bedford said all passengers will be put on new flights or they'll get a full refund, but that people should reach out to their airlines directly.

Flight boards at airports across the country Saturday morning continued to be riddled with red cancelled marks. At Tampa International Airport in Florida, people in the main terminal area before security curled up in chairs to grab a wink of sleep.

On Friday night, a flight board at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in D.C. showed dozens of flights delayed into the early morning hours or cancelled.

Passengers Erin and Jake Britt spent half the day at the airport in D.C. on Friday. Their plane to Fort Lauderdale, Fla. boarded at 3 p.m. By 5:30 p.m., they were getting off the plane — but they were still in D.C.

"Overall, our plane was definitely annoyed, but reasonable," Erin Britt said, as the couple left the airport at 8 p.m. "People being upset and asking like, 'Well, how are you not prepared for this?' And it was like, 'Well, no one was prepared.'"

She said neither the pilot nor flight attendants had any more information than passengers."They seem just as in the dark," she said.

The pair decided to cancel their weekend trip, but the night didn't end there. They spent over nine hours overnight waiting on the JetBlue customer service call line to be reimbursed. "I was setting alarms in 20 minute intervals in case I fell asleep," Erin Britt said.

For people who had events or plans over the weekend – the delay added an extra layer of stress. Joe Romano and Maddie Cabana had a cruise leaving Orlando, Fla. Saturday afternoon.

"It was a big eye roll. I mean, I travel a lot for work already, so I'm constantly dealing with flight delays," Romano said. "When this happened, I was just like, 'Of course, it always happens to me.'"

"Just rather inconvenient and frustrating," Cabana added, as the pair contemplated checking their bags or going home. They even thought about driving to Florida. "Hopefully, everything will be fine. It'll all work out. It always does."

And it did— eventually. After their JetBlue flight was ultimately cancelled, they quickly booked another one on Southwest Airlines and made it early Saturday morning.

Others, like Suze DiPietro decided flying wasn't worth it anymore. Her husband drove about four hours down from Ocean City, New Jersey to pick her up in D.C. Luckily, they had friends in the area where they spent the night.

"My husband, my hero, is driving down from New Jersey to come get me," DiPietro said.

Other alternatives included people switching to Amtrak trains as they struggled to get to their destination. Although, even Amtrak's system had a brief outage Friday night.

This was only the second nationwide ground stop since September 11, 2001. The U.S. last issued a ground stop of this scale in 2023, when all U.S. airports were shut down due to an outage in the NOTAM (Notice to Air Missions) system, which alerts pilots and airports of real-time hazards.

That outage prompted fears of a cyberattack, but the FAA later determined the issue was caused when contract workers inadvertently deleted critical files.

The FAA has recently begun rolling out an AI-enhanced software tool known as the SMART system as part of its ambitious overhaul of the nation's air traffic control system. But Air Space Intelligence, the company that makes the tool, quickly dismissed speculation that its product could be connected to the flight disruptions.

"The current ground stop is not based on or a result of the SMART system, any product of ASI or our integration with FAA and ATC," the company said on social media.

Ava Pukatch contributed to reporting.

Copyright 2026 NPR

Eggs from the first confirmed sea turtle nests found on the U.S. West Coast have hatched.

"We are excited to share that some of the olive ridley sea turtle eggs from Seal Beach successfully hatched after a 58-day incubation period," said the Aquarium of the Pacific in a social media post.

The Long Beach-based aquarium has been keeping watch over 204 olive ridley sea turtle eggs, laid on Seal Beach and Huntington Beach in September. A second set of eggs found on Huntington Beach is still incubating

The aquarium said the hatchlings were released early Saturday morning in a coastal area with little light and human disturbances.

Baby turtles, the aquarium said, go through a “frenzy period” after hatching, where they swim nonstop for up to two days

The eggs came from the first confirmed sea turtle nests found on the U.S. West Coast. Scientists say unusually warming water tied to El Niño likely drew the rare turtles to the Southern California coast.

A couple of decades ago, a friend in New York told me about something happening that was kinda underground and just getting traction. It was called “The Moth.” People took turns telling a true, personal story, with no notes, named after the Southern tradition of sitting on front porches and sharing spellbinding tales — with moths flying mesmerized around the porchlight.

It sounded amazing. And terrifying. I filed it under the same list as bungee jumping — no doubt exhilarating but something I’d never do — and got on with my life. Over the years, as it grew bigger and bigger, I went to several Moth events in different cities, and was always so impressed with the storytellers — and equally adamant I’d never do it.

Cut to this September, when a message went out to all the staff at LAist. We’re a media sponsor of The Moth, and an event, a open mike StorySLAM, was coming up in Silver Lake. There were a few tickets available. Did anyone want one? The theme was "Divas." Sure, I thought. I’d go watch. It's always fun.

Nagging thought

As the days went by, the same thought kept nagging at me. How about getting on stage yourself? No, I thought. Too risky. But this time there was another thought, even more vehement. Why are you being held hostage by fear? Life is too short. If you want to do something, you just have to do it. And this opportunity has just fallen into your lap.

So when the day came, I went to the event, and put my name in the hat. Would I be picked? I sat there with sweaty palms as the show started and people came up tell their own funny, moving, poignant stories.

Finally, near the end of the show, my name was called out. Gulp. I walked on stage to the mic, and began telling my story.

“Some years ago I was a BBC radio producer. A show host and I were at Albuquerque airport, on our way to Los Alamos to do interviews about the Manhattan project. But when we got to the gate, it was closed. They’d boarded the plane 15 minutes early. We couldn't believe it. There was only one plane per day and we'd flown in from London and were on a tight schedule. What should we do?”

Holding their breath

It was a strange experience, simultaneously storytelling while looking at the audience and scanning for their reactions. They seemed to be enjoying themselves.... and were holding their breath, waiting to see what came next.

“I could see the plane on the tarmac, one of those regional planes with propellers, on the other side of an alarmed emergency exit door. So I decided, in the heat of the moment, to push it open, and started dashing across the tarmac, yelling for the host to follow me. Security men began running towards me from every direction as the alarm blared loudly.”

The audience was laughing with delight and disbelief, and I was laughing, too, at the recollection. What on earth had made me do that? Ah, my young, impulsive, determined self. Just as well it wasn’t today, post 9/11. I’d be dead.

“As I reached the plane, the security men were shouting 'What are you doing? You can’t run onto the tarmac!' That’s when the diva part came in. I drew myself up to my full 5’ 2” and said, determinedly, 'No, YOU were the ones who boarded the plane early. We did everything right! We have our tickets, we have interviews to do and we are going to get on this plane.'"

The security men looked at each other, unsure what to do. Maybe it was the British accent, or not being used to a woman giving them a dressing down. But one of them shrugged, moved out of the way, and they let us get on the plane. "Hurray! And we made it to Los Alamos, in time to do our interviews. Thank you.”

The audience went crazy, clapping and whooping. I was standing there grinning stupidly. I couldn’t believe I’d done it.

Yes, the story went down well. And the audience hadn't eaten me alive. But there was something bigger, something even more satisfying in my reaction. I’d had made myself do something I was scared of. I'd faced my demons.... and survived.

A lesson for us all.

If you happen to see 600 people snaking down 14.3 miles of Santa Monica Boulevard (and then some) on Saturday, Nov. 21 — their sole purpose is just to … walk.

“For years people were asking us, ‘What are you doing?’” said Michael Schneider, founder of the Great Los Angeles Walk.

These strolls are maximalist in nature, usually covering the entire length of a given thoroughfare. Sunset Boulevard. Melrose Avenue. Ventura Boulevard.

The inaugural Great L.A. Walk in 2006 along Wilshire Boulevard.

(

Courtesy Great Los Angeles Walk

)

How the walk began 

The pre-Thanksgiving tradition started in 2006 with Wilshire Boulevard. Schneider, who had reached the milestone of living in L.A. for a decade, was inspired by a book about the street’s history to walk its entire 15.8 miles on foot. He asked others to join on his blog Franklin Avenue.

About two dozen people showed up. That day, they popped into storefronts, stopped by restaurants, sneaked into the Park Plaza Hotel near MacArthur Park and shot up to the roof. “That kind of unearthed a whole new side of Los Angeles as we walked down Wilshire,” he said.

By the time the trek reached the ocean, folks were asking Schneider about next year. Now, it's always on the Saturday before Thanksgiving.

“I inadvertently turned it into an annual tradition,” he said.

The 2016 edition of Great L.A. Walk along Pico Boulevard.

(

Courtesy Great Los Angeles Walk

)

The 2007 installment was Pico Boulevard — with restaurant recommendations along the route handpicked by the late Pulitzer-winning food critic Jonathan Gold.

Eventually, Schneider included themed walks. March of Los Pobladores — which retraces the final leg of the 1781 journey taken by the original founders of L.A. — from the San Gabriel Mission to downtown. And USC to UCLA when the rivals faced off on game day.

This year’s route: Route 66 

This year's theme is Route 66.

(

Google map screengrab

)

This year’s focus is Route 66, marking the centennial of the iconic road. Saturday's walk will start in Echo Park, then go the whole way down Santa Monica Boulevard and end at the pier, totaling about 16 miles.

“You see so many different versions of Los Angeles,” he said.

Michael Schneider, founder of the Great L.A. Walk, at last year's trot along Wilshire Boulevard.

(

Courtesy Great Los Angeles Walk

)

Celebrity sightings and a marquee shout-out 

One year, he said, the group walked by Magic Johnson.

“He waved at us," Schneider said. "Probably was wondering why [there were] hundreds of people walking past where he was."

As many as 600 people now join the walk, he said. As the number grows, so too has its legend.

“Now we find a lot of people who know who we are,” he said. “You hear people say, ‘Hey, it's the Great L.A. Walk.”