The Los Angeles Times has done a great job of keeping us Los Angelenos up to date on the dreaded "Carmageddon" (also referred to at Carpocalypse and Autopalypse) with photos and updates by many of their staff members.
above: work begins late friday night on the Mullholland Bridge
The 10-mile, 53 hour freeway closure is so the south end of Mullholland bridge overpass can be torn down for later reconstruction and for the addition of a new carpool lane.
The foreboding warnings flashed along several freeways starting about a week ago:
So far -at least at the time of this post- the alternates routes and side streets have never been clearer. Based on up to date Tweets, people are begging for Carmageddon every weekend. Obviously CalTrans and Los Angeles City Officials succeeded in putting the fear of God into LA drivers and most have stayed off the roads, making driving conditions better than they've been in Los Angeles in years. At least up until now.
Commemorative T-shirts being sold:
even David Caruso (Horatio Caine on CSI) bought some:
Below is an article about Carmageddon reprinted from the Los Angeles Times:
Carmageddon in Los Angeles: The closure of the 405
Interstate 405, the freeway known simply as the 405, was built as a bypass of Interstate 5 and is one of the busiest thoroughfares in the nation.
It begins in Irvine at the El Toro Y, where the two freeways divide, with the 405 following a more southerly route through Orange County and into Los Angeles County, generally paralleling the Pacific coastline. After slicing through West L.A., it enters the Sepulveda Pass in the Santa Monica Mountains, crossing over to the San Fernando Valley to rejoin Interstate 5 near Mission Hills.
The 405 has been undergoing a widening project for several years with comparatively little disruption to traffic since much of the work has been done after dark. This weekend that all changes. A 10-mile stretch of the freeway between the 10 and the 101 is being shut down at midnight Friday to allow for demolition of the south half of the Mulholland Drive bridge for later reconstruction to accommodate a widened freeway beneath. Work crews will have about 53 hours to complete this mammoth task, or risk facing a fine of $6,000 for every 10 minutes the freeway remains closed after the deadline.
For Los Angeles, a sprawling city defined in many measures by its car culture, this could turn a sunny, summer weekend into a gridlocked nightmare, since the north-south alternatives can’t come close to the 405′s capacity and convenience.
And now, some great photos:
above: Bel Air resident Noreen Shortway has her picture taken by a friend on the Sunset Boulevard bridge with the deserted 405 freeway behind her.
See many more wonderful photos from the Los Anegeles Times here.
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