Glendale's got a whole lot of new housing going up these days—an estimated 3,800 units in 21 projects either in the works or slated to go up—and the Glendale News-Press says the unchecked apartmentification has Caltrans officials worried that all those new residents will make the already hellish 5 and 2 Freeways even worse at peak times. The city already requires prospective projects to report how they'll affect highway traffic, but those reviews only consider the impact of that one project. And that's the trouble: "That one project, by itself, the traffic impact seems to be minimal, but when you add up what's planned, then it might be significant, then it might be different," says a project coordinator for Caltrans. But maybe the city knew that the sum of all this might add up to gridlock. In 2006, right before rezoning designed to create a downtown development explosion, the city did a traffic study that anticipated that, by 2030, most parts of the freeways and streets in the downtown area would experience "jammed conditions" during the evening rush hours (4 pm to 6 pm). Fun.

· Glendale's building boom troubles Caltrans [GNP]