Traditional San Fernando Valley Street names might include explorers and founders (Sepulveda, DeSoto, Van Nuys, Lankershim, Whitsett) trees (Magnolia) or California cities (Burbank, Ventura, Oxnard).

Today, our great city also names streets for those heroic big box stores that bring bulk and $200 checkout receipts to shoppers.

Costco Drive at Sepulveda is halfway between Oxnard and Erwin and is the future intersection of a grand new plan to develop the Sepulveda Orange Line Busway into a dense apartment village where joyful bus riders of the future may live. Today was the first day that the green, yellow and red lights became operational.

Tragically, Wickes Furniture whose half mile long, blank white walls have graced this district since the 1970s, will be torn down. Gone forever are those purple and gold Barcaloungers and turquoise Ostrich feathered beaded oil lamps.