EDITORIAL FOLLOWING THE RULES BANNING RUSH-HOUR ROADWORK MUST ONLY BE THE BEGINNING.

IF Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's pledge to stop rush-hour road construction in Los Angeles sounds familiar, that's because it is. City officials have talked for years about enacting this simple, common-sense reform. In fact, on paper, such work is already against the law. But like many laws in Los Angeles, this one goes ignored, and so we're all left sitting in needless traffic jams.

Fortunately, that looks like it will soon change.

With Villaraigosa's election, the serious people are back in charge. And so far, Villaraigosa seems serious about easing L.A. traffic and dealing with other problems that have been neglected for too long.

Last week, the mayor issued a directive ordering all department heads to prohibit roadwork on major streets from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. He's also demanding that they assign staffers to make sure the ban is enforced.

Villaraigosa's leadership marks a welcome departure from the bad old days of Los Angeles, when city government functioned for the benefit of its cronies and its unionized workers, not the public that actually pays the bills. In the past, city crews simply ignored the ban, and managers made no effort to enforce it.

After all, the reasoning went, why should the nation's highest-paid municipal employees have to work off-hours just so millions of people can get to and from work at a reasonable speed?

But with Villaraigosa's efforts to give the ban on rush-hour roadwork some teeth, the thinking at City Hall seems to have shifted toward the real question that should govern such matters: What's best for the people of Los Angeles?

City Councilwoman Wendy Greuel has proposed - and Villaraigosa has backed - a measure that would extend the rush-hour roadwork ban to private firms such as the gas, cable or telephone companies that conduct about two-thirds of the underground utility work in city streets. If passed, Greuel's proposal would create escalating fines of up to $1,000 for violators.

It would also spell out how city crews are to enforce the ban. Currently, private workers simply ignore rules requiring them to notify the city about where and when they intend to work. On the off chance they're caught, they're let off with a slap on the wrist - few, if any, are even prosecuted. Greuel's measure would at last give the city the necessary authority to ensure that at least this law is enforced.

All of this raises the question about what other laws, codes and directives are already on the books or could be enacted that would improve the quality of life in Los Angeles at little or no cost.

Surely the rush-hour roadwork ban is not the only city edict that's regularly flouted.

L.A. residents have long complained that housing laws in the city seldom go enforced, resulting in dangerous firetraps and the slumming of neighborhoods

Or how about rules governing street vendors, municipal bureaucrats' job performance or the city's bidding and contracting systems?

There's no shortage of ``broken windows'' in the edifice of Los Angeles city government, and many of them come at a steep price in terms of inferior public services, higher taxes and community demoralization.

Villaraigosa and the City Council ought to follow up their good work on traffic relief by pursuing other simple and inexpensive reforms that could yield a high return. City Controller Laura Chick could give them a hand by setting her auditors to the task of determining what other rules are ignored.

It's good to see that the serious people are back in charge in City Hall. They have plenty of serious work cut out for them.