I Just Heard Today About Something Called Carmegeddon In CA...

I know, I'm STUPID, but what is it all about?

Anyway, thanks for the info.

But a BIG part of L.A. The Jet Blue flights you're hearing about are for people who need to get from, e.g., the Valley to Long Beach. They will suddenly have a giant hole in their commute path. I heard Jet Blue was completely sold out for those flights, DAYS ago.

Because that chunk of the 405 is a major artery to Get Just About Anywhere around West L.A., it's going to snarl traffic all over that area. Everyone will be looking for alternate routes. But there ain't that many alternates, and everybody knows about them.

It made the Yahoo front page:

http://news.yahoo.com/surreal-ghost-405-freeway-awaits-la-205012798.html

In a nutshell, a 10-mile stretch of the 405 freeway will be closed between West L.A. and the San Fernando Valley. Reason: repairs to the Mulholland Bridge.

I live in the Valley, and have plans in Orange County on Sunday. So I'll be up half-bright and early, hoping I can take the 101-S to Interstate 5 without too much hassle.

do with smog or something. Silly me.

I live in the San Fernando Valley too. We also had plans to go to Orange County on Sunday, but we canceled.
I am wondering if we were going to same event - LAOCAS?

In Buena Park. Related to my Weird Hobby - I build scale models.

:hi:

to monday morning. millions of people use that road every day. carmageddon.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/07/carmageddon-could-result-in-20-mile-back-up-on-405.html

i'm from LA though i've lived in NC for almost 4 years now. my personal theory is that people will just stay home and the traffic jams they're projecting just won't happen, but i'll be paying attention to see if i'm right.

this article is funny: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0712-lopez-4oh5-20110711,0,7959536.column

it's basically like several million people having the rug pulled out from under them. at once.

visit there. Can't afford to live there, but almost ANYWHERE is better than Florida these days.

Went to San Fran and would love to see a lot more of CA, but perhaps not when you're having THIS type of thing going on.

I wonder what people going to work will do? I know WE don't have ANY mass transit here, but I don't know much about LA.

Good Luck to all of you... wouldn't want to be "stuck" in traffic this week-end. I have heard about the traffic there and I KNOW I probably wouldn't survive it.

Still, I live in Florida and it's NOT traffic I worry about.

And just possibly staying home for one weekend.

Like the ones who work at Los Angeles International Airport, the U.S. govt. center in Westwood, the many big hospitals in West L.A., etc. etc. Lots of those people live in the San Fernando Valley or other outlying areas. So this closure is a giant dead end for them.

Then we have the Non-Working Class cluttering up Beverly Hills, Brentwood, Bel Air, etc. For them I wish gridlock and overheated Maybachs.

Especially in the summer tourist season, like now.

Used to be, if I got asked for directions by a bunch of hicks with bumper stickers saying "Rush Is Right!" or "I Hate My Govt.," I would send them to the Secret Elvis House. Located near the intersection of Florence & Normandie. (Epicenter of the 1992 Rodney King Riots. In Watts.)

Anti-gay bumper stickers? They'd end up in West Hollywood.

Anti-immigrant sentiments? Welcome to East L.A.! (Or Pacoima, if they really annoyed me.) Or maybe Little Tokyo/Chinatown.

Standard Tourist Warning: if you see a well-dressed, well-groomed streetwalker in Hollywood, she's probably not a hard-working hooker. She's most likely a hard-working policewoman. So Mr. Tourist will certainly get screwed, just not in the way he thought. Every summer a few of these cases make the local media. Highly entertaining. Especially when the perps belong to the clergy...but I speak as a devout atheist.

There was pure terror around how screwed up traffic was going to be.

The result was that everyone took their vacation, left town, and it was the easiest two weeks of driving that I've ever had in that city.

that's how dead it was

that's the reason i'm thinking this will be a non-event.

i remember one christmas morning too - on my way from Manhattan beach to huntington beach with my kids. i got on the 405 at inglewood ave and there was no one else on the road with me. i drove alllll the way to the left lane and swerved allll the way back to the right lane just for the sheer joy of it. this was the late 80s.

freeways on the planet for 53 hours. Well, 10 miles of it.

The more people they can scare off of LA roads this weekend the better the traffic situation will be.

Can't L.A. residents just spend 48 hours waiting patiently in their cars for traffic to start moving again, the way they normally do?