Carmageddon not what is was cracked up to be
There’s Armageddon, and then there’s Carmageddon.
No, it’s not the time when all your past deeds come back to haunt you in a karmic tsunami. It’s the temporary closing this weekend (to make repairs) of that part of LA Freeway 405 that goes through the Sepulveda Pass.
Why was the event approached with such dread and foreboding? If you know LA, you know the city’s residents love their cars. And if you know 405, you know how incredibly heavy the traffic ordinarily is there.
I’m one of those people who happen to know 405, because I lived in LA for a year and have spent even more time there than that, a great deal of it traveling that exact stretch of that exact freeway. Like much of Los Angeles, it has its own surprising beauty—the pass, that is, not 405 itself. The brown hills dotted with cacti, the vistas of the valleys beyond the pass, the feeder roads that twist through the high surrounding terrain, and the distant mountain ranges snow-capped in winter (easier to see them then, when the air tends to be clearer), are awe-inspiring, if a person takes the time to notice—and time is often taken whether one wishes to or not, because heavy traffic forces a slowdown and/or stasis there with great regularity.
Knowing the freeway as I do, I didn’t think Carmageddon was going to be all that impressive. People adjust if they’re given advance warning. A freeway closing on a weekend means that most people can stay relatively put and avoid that stretch of road. It’s possible to do a great deal in LA and in the San Fernando Valley without going from one to the other, which is what the Sepulveda pass accomplishes. And then there are the surface streets, if one must do it (for example, to go to LAX airport from the Valley—although the Valley has its own busy airport, Burbank).
With fewer people going very far and more people postponing elective trips, it stands to reason that even the surface streets were going to be easier to traverse. And apparently this is exactly what has happened so far:
“It was a breeze,” Coleman said of her 30-minute drive [to LAX].
Speaking of breezes, that was one of the magical things about that particular stretch of 405 in the summer. Magical? you ask. Are you delusional?
No. I’m referring to a moment that occurs when coming from the Valley towards the city through the pass. The San Fernando Valley is notorious for summer heat, a pancake-flat expanse of what used to be desert, housing close to two million people. If a person travels on 405 through the Sepulveda Pass in the summer in a car with challenged air conditioning, as I used to regularly do, and has the windows open, there’s a sharp line of demarcation where the winds from the much cooler Los Angeles Basin meet the baking Valley air, a sudden wall of refreshment that provides instant relief. It’s one of those literal “Ahhh!’ moments in life.
What if they gave a Carmageddon and not enough cars came?
There aren’t many possibilities for surface streets going through the pass…the width of the pass limits access.
I remember when they put that freeway through…it was a _major_ deal. Before(getting through the pass) during, and after (amazingly fast for many years). It’s hard to believe now…I remember how small the bulldozers looked in the landscape. I was attending summer school at UCLA that year (for microbiology…such fun!) and commuted from Pasadena to the school daily. No air conditioning in the car – a soft-top Jeepster.
Ah…memories!
They did a good job of publicizing the closing. I’m a little surprised that people have responded so well, but I’m glad I don’t have to wend my way to the airport this weekend – I’ll bet the alternative routes are pretty packed.
Out there in La-La Land, don’t they call it “The 405?”
My very short impression of Southern California freeway drivers is that they are rather courteous- certainly a lot more courteous than those found on and inside the 128 in Boss-town, home of the most discourteous- drivers in the country.
I read that there was a similar situation during the Olympics in LA. Because of the warning, a lot of people stayed off the freeways, making the freeways less congested than usual during the Olympics.
I experienced the heat of the San Fernando Valley summers growing up there, and as a meteorologist can explain why they are so hot. In general the coastal areas are cooled during the day by the sea breeze, but the two such breezes enter the Valley, one from Oxnard and one from the pass along which the Los Angeles River, such that it is, and Interstate 10 go. By the time the air in each of the breezes reaches the Valley it has been warmed for many hours of the day. Also, the breezes run up against each other, reducing the wind speed to nil.
I’m skeptical of Coleman’s reported travel time. That’s very close to the time given by Google Maps, which don’t take account of traffic. As she approached the airport she should have run into some.
suek: yes, there aren’t many alternatives if you must go through that particular pass for some reason. But there are many other ways to get from the Valley to LA (a bunch of canyon roads, for example).
Gringo: my memories of what happened during the Olympics are exactly why I didn’t think Carmageddon was going to be bad. I remember the big hype about Olympics gridlock, and it just didn’t occur (I was in LA at the time).
I live in the Washington Dee Cee area (condolences gratefully acknowledged), and I do remember when the powers that be decided it was time to renovate the Whitehurst Freeway (that’s at Georgetown, Dee Cee)*. Yes, it was due, if not overdue.
*Suffice it to say it was pretty major. Commuters could not imagine a Whitehurst Freeway sans bumper-to-bumper cars during commuting time.
It was to take something like 1+1/2 years (just plain do not remember; my commute went nowhere near Georgetown)!
It was bothersome, but people coped, people managed to get creative, people managed to be a little more flexible, employers managed to be a little more flexible, and voila! — the commuting public found a way to survive.
Carmaggeddon ^not^.
I grew up on the far fringes of the San Fernando Valley, in a remote rural suburb (then!) backed up against the Angeles National Forest, and my Dad commuted to … well, it varied over the years, depending upon what project his lab was working on – but usually about an hour. Dad prided himself on avoiding the freeways in his deft and speedy use of surface roads and obscure short-cuts.
We’ll miss carmageddon here in LA, it was so nice and quiet and those of us who went out on the roads (sure we stayed away from Sepulveda) – who needs the westside, Downtown and the eastside are so much more hip these days!
Now it is declared over and all those who hid under a rock (yes even some of my friends bought the over hype of the media) will joyfully hop in their cars and off to the beach they will go.
I can understand the concerns of many Los Angelenos. I lived near “The” 405 as a kid and for ten years commuting downtown, and have spent innumerable hours grinding up and down its evermore-congested path. The 405 can come to a standstill even on Saturday midnights for no clear reason; and I distinctly remember a megajam one weekday night in the late 1980’s where the usual 30 minute drive from Westwood to the Valley took some people four or five hours. It is true that there are many tiny roads between the Valley and the Basin, but their capacity is very limited.