Trafficking in special events

In the obscurity of a warehouse just east of downtown Los Angeles, a tight-knit cadre of nine city workers toils many days nearly around the clock. Beth Barrett in the Daily News.

On a worn, gray couch in a backroom, the workers take turns catching catnaps as they work into the wee hours of the morning choreographing some of the most detailed traffic plans in the world.

Created by the late Mayor Tom Bradley after an Oscar winner arrived late to the 1986 awards show and blamed L.A. traffic, the specialized division handled about 45 events a year for a while.

Today, however, the Special Traffic Operations Division gets about 3,000 requests a year and handles about 10 percent that are the most complex - or nearly o