Carmageddon? So what
What the beach cities’ attitude about the 405’s closure says about our relationship with the freeway (hint: it’s not love-hate, just hate)
The 405, which will close north of the I-10 this weekend for 53 hours. Photo by Olivia Kestin
By Mark McDermott, Robb Fulcher, and Alene Tchekmedyian
The end is nigh.
Or, at the very least, hell on Earth could arrive somewhere in the middle of the historically epic traffic jam expected to clog the Interstate 405 Freeway and its environs when a 10-mile stretch of the road closes for 53 hours beginning midnight Friday.
The project is technically called the I-405 Sepulveda Pass Improvements Project. It will close the 405 from its intersection with the 10 Freeway stretching north to the San Fernando Valley. The road construction entails the demolition of the Mulholland Drive Bridge in order to accommodate the widening of the freeway and the addition of a northbound commuter lane.
The closure has more commonly been called “Carmageddon” or “Carpocalypse.” The $1 billion project is intended to relieve congestion on what some traffic experts consider the busiest road in America, but in the short run – or, more to the point, crawl – some officials project a 30-to-50-mile traffic backup.
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has done little to dispel fears. In fact, at a press conference in June, he did quite the opposite.
“There’s gridlock on the 405 virtually any time of the day, but particularly during the rush hour, and if you think it’s bad now, let me just make something absolutely clear: on July 16 and 17, it will be an absolute nightmare,” Villaraigosa said. “And that is why we are asking the public to plan ahead, to avoid the area, and not go on the 405 or anywhere close during that period of time.”
“Go on vacation,” the mayor suggested.
L.A. County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky was even blunter.
“Stay the heck out of here,” he said.
The 405, which will close north of the I-10 this weekend for 53 hours. Photo by Olivia Kestin
The 405 is an uneasy fact of life for anyone who lives in the west of L.A. County. And though many South Bay residents commute on the freeway, many others have constructed what is known locally as the “South Bay bubble” – that is, they don’t leave.
“We down here in the south rarely get out of our little bubble – who would want to go to the dark side, the 818, right?” said Fox 11 meteorologist Rick Dickert, a Redondo resident who travels to the Valley (the 818 area code) early every morning to climb aboard the “SkyFox” helicopter and report on traffic.
As comedian Bill Mahrer said at an appearance at Hermosa Beach’s Comedy and Magic Club a few years ago, “You live at the beach. Isn’t that the point of life?”
And so Carmageddon has left much of the South Bay decidedly unworried. In fact, it’s pretty far from anyone’s mind around here.
“You kind of get stuck in the bubble (during) summer weekends,” said Gerry Martel, manager of Rock and Fish restaurant in downtown Manhattan Beach.
Tourists lodge in the area, so Martel predicted his business won’t be affected much. “A lot of our tourists come to the South Bay and stay in the South Bay,” he said. “I think we’ll be fine. If people want to get to beach, they’re going to get to the beach regardless.”
Helen Duncan, president of the Manhattan Beach Chamber of Commerce, predicts residents will stay local to avoid cramped highways. “I think that some people that would leave Manhattan Beach will stay here,” she said.
Marna Smeltzer, president of the Redondo Beach Chamber of Commerce, said local businesses haven’t expressed much concern about the 405 closure.
“A lot of people here really don’t use the freeways,” Smeltzer said. “I have board members who do – one lives in Orange County and another towards Inland Empire – but we really haven’t discussed it as a group. I don’t want to say it doesn’t affect us, but I just don’t think it’s been much of a concern.”
Getting the finger
To some residents of the beach cities, the problems of the 405 might as well be those of Saturn or Mars. Those folks rarely or never brave a freeway onramp. They might even see the territory east of Pacific Coast Highway as the hinterlands.
“I hate it. I hate the 405,” said Robi Hutas, 75, a quintessential Hermosa Beach townie who forces himself onto the dread freeway only to get shots of mountain scenery, or to visit the Veterans Administration hospital in West Los Angeles. He said his last visit to downtown Los Angeles was two decades ago.
When he must pilot his slow, 1968 Volkswagen van along the 405, he routinely gets the finger from rat-race drivers.
“I’m a right lane guy. You know when you have to pass a big truck, because they go so slow? Man, it takes me a long time to pass a truck,” Hutas said.
He has lived in the beach cities for 50 years, the last 47 of them in the same Hermosa apartment building two blocks from the beach. His photography studio is packed into his apartment, and he pedals a bicycle to play volleyball on the beach at 16th Street and eat lunch at Amigos Tacos, or weekend breakfast at the Mermaid.
“I ride my bicycle every place I go, man. I don’t like to get in the car to go anywhere,” Hutas said.
“I haven’t been to downtown L.A. in 15 or 20 years. I don’t go to see the Dodgers. I’m not a basketball fan. I don’t go to San Diego. You have to get on the 405 to go to San Diego,” he said.
He thought a little more and added, “I don’t go up to Pacific Coast Highway.”
Yet, Hutas owns two automobiles, the VW van and a 1963 Ford van. Mostly the vans travel a block or so at a time, to avoid parking tickets on street sweeping days.
Hutas fretted momentarily over the upcoming 405 closure, because he knew he had to get to the VA hospital some time relatively soon. Consulting a piece of paper, he was relieved to find that his appointment is in August, giving him a good long month before he will once more get the finger.
Foot traffic
On Hermosa’s newly remade Pier Avenue, merchants seemed little fazed by the prospect of two weekend days with no Los Angelenos coming from north of the 405 closure to the beach, via the merchants’ sparkling main drag.
Some said business might be down a little, and others predicted that the freeway closure will have no discernable effect.
Bryce Toney, owner of the funky, eclectic Curious store on Pier Avenue, said foot traffic could slow down a bit on the fateful weekend.
“It certainly could affect business,” he said, pausing as he created a front-window treatment centering on a 1950s lawn chair.
“I’ve been saying this – sexy people have sexy furniture,” he mused.
“Most of our people are ‘local local,’ he said, returning to the freeway theme. “But we do get people from up there – Hollywood, Silver Lake – especially on weekend days when it’s hot, and they come down to the beach. I think there’s kind of a buzz around Hermosa.”
At the Anthology boutique, Yolanda Reyes stood among the dresses and jewelry and predicted little impact from the freeway work. She said most of her customers are locals, along with international tourists who might be staying in the beach cities.
Valory Carter of the Luna boutique also said her customers are locals.
At the Oliovera olive oil boutique, Milena Bogdanova did not foresee a business drop-off. She said most of her patrons are locals, and more seem to come from inland than from due north.
She added that her sympathies go out to people who rely on the 405.
“I imagine it’s going to be hell on earth,” she said, smiling and shaking her head.
Normal congestion will be nothing compared to "the nightmare" described by LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa this weekend. Photo by Olivia Kestin
405ology
Few people know the 405 quite the way Rick Dickert does.
He rises well before dawn every morning and drives all the way up the 405 to the Van Nuys airport. Then he gets in the SkyFox helicopter and flies back down the length of 405, checking traffic conditions and reporting to Fox Morning News and Good Day LA.
The traffic jams, Dickert said, begin almost every day at about 5:45 a.m.
“It jams up coming out the Valley, through the Sepulveda Pass, towards Westwood and West L.A.,” Dickert said. “That is sort of the witching hour. Then, from 6 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. it’s solid, all the way over the hill, until it loosens a little around 9:30 a.m. or 10 a.m.”
Dickert said parts of the freeway remain largely jammed throughout the day, particularly the northbound section from the LAX airport to the 10 Freeway and the southbound lanes from the 10 to Manhattan Beach’s Rosecrans exit.
“You know, we call it the Possessed Freeway…because it truly is one of the busiest freeways not only in America but in the world,” Dickert said. “Most of the day, there is heavy traffic, and a good part of the day swelling, in both directions – with the exception of overnight, early morning hours.”
According to a California Department of Transportation study, traffic on the 405 ranges from 137,000 to 310,000 vehicles per day – the lowest number coming from where the 405 joins the I-5 Freeway north of the Valley, and the highest north of the I-105 Freeway interchange near LAX. The 10 mile stretch closing this weekend from the I-10 to Highway 101 in the Valley carries 500,000 vehicles every weekend.
“It is the most congested freeway in the United States,” said Professor Genevieve Giuliano of the University of Southern California’s School of Policy, Planning, and Development.
There are reasons for this, Giuliano said, largely having to do with demographics. First of all, the areas served by the 405 have seen dramatic population growth. The San Fernando Valley has doubled from 1 million to 2 million people since the 405 was opened in 1961; L.A. County itself has grown from 6 million to almost 10 million in the same period.
But there is another, less obvious reason, for the freeway’s traffic that has to do with the socioeconomics of the 405.
Giuliano noted that these is a lingering misperception about traffic – that it is largely generated by work, when in fact more than three-fourths of all trips are not work-related.
“One of the things people don’t really know is that nationally, only 23 percent of all travel is going to work,” Giuliano said. “So that means that close to 75 percent of all travel is not going to work. So much of the travel that we do is what we call discretionary travel – that is, you don’t have to do it, but you are doing it by choice. You figure everyone has to go to work, or has to go to school, but beyond that you pretty much only have to buy groceries once or twice a week, or whatever. Yet we travel two to three times as much as we absolutely would have to do.”
The 405 corridor, meanwhile, goes through many relatively affluent areas, including West L.A., the beach cities, and Orange County. Wealthier people drive more than poorer people; hence, the 405 receives even more discretionary travel than most freeways and heavier traffic than many similar roads through less affluent areas.
“I always tell my students, if you want less traffic, go to Detroit, you know?” Giuliano said.
Of course, the 405 does carry large numbers of commuters – who else would be up at 5:45 a.m.? – and Giuliano pointed to the essential role the freeway played in the growth of the aerospace industry in the South Bay. Without the 405, she said, the explosion of business here in the 1970s and 1980s would not have been possible.
“I don’t know how people would have gotten there,” Giuliano said.
Another striking characteristic is its relative lack of freight traffic. According to Caltrans, less than 5 percent of all 405 traffic is freight.
Professor James Moore, also from USC’s School of Policy, Planning, and Development, stopped short of describing the 405 as the most congested freeway in the United States but instead called it “one of the most heavily trafficked facilities in the region.” He suggested that Bangkok, Thailand, is probably home to the most congested traffic in the world.
Moore, a congestion expert, described traffic jams as moving shock waves.
“As a general rule of thumb, 50 percent of congestion is associated with time of day demand, and about 50 percent is related to accidents,” Moore said. “Accidents that occur in peak hours form a long region of congestion and take a long time to dissipate, so even after the accident is removed, there is a zone of congestion moving through traffic – although it seems mysterious to people trapped in that congestion zone….Shock waves exist in traffic streams.”
Some travelers are considerably less scientific about traffic.
One local reporter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity lest his objectivity (and sanity) come under question, has a theory about the 405. He believes it is alive, conscious, and malicious.
“Everybody has had the experience – you are driving up the 405 and traffic is surprisingly sparse,” he said. “You are making good time, and then you say something – ‘Wow, traffic isn’t bad today’ – or sometimes just think it. Boom, within thirty seconds traffic comes to a crawl.”
“It hears you,” he added. “The 405 is a conscious entity. And it’s evil.”
Predictions
The last time a traffic apocalypse was predicted was during the 1984 Olympics. It famously did not come to pass. In fact, many people enjoyed the best traffic flow they’d ever experienced on the 405 Freeway.
Giuliani expects a similarly understated weekend this time around. Never underestimate people’s ability to adapt, she said.
“I foresee a really pleasant and quiet weekend,” Giuliani said. “I think most people will stay home or will choose to travel close to home….I think we will self-regulate ourselves, and traffic will end up on the 5, basically.”
She said that the beach cities could see a few more visitors from people seeking a beach and unwilling to brave Santa Monica or Malibu.
The mid-summer weekend was chosen to cause the least impact as possible, said Dave Sotero, MTA spokesperson. “People can decide not to go somewhere on the weekend as opposed to weekdays when they have to go to work,” he said, adding that mid-July is prime vacation season for Angelenos.
It’s also prime time for out-of-towners. Los Angeles County accounts for almost a quarter of California’s multi-billion dollar travel industry earnings, according to data from the California Travel and Tourism Commission.
The Los Angeles Convention and Visitors Bureau is lending a helping hand to LA visitors. Yesterday at 4:05 p.m., the department began a series of 405 tweets (@discover_LA, #405things) about deals around town.
JoAnn Turk, president of the King Harbor Association in Redondo Beach, noted that an LA Times story last week said tourists arriving at LAX would be advised to “take a FlyAway bus to Union Station and explore such destination as downtown Los Angeles, Universal Studios or Redondo Beach.”
Deborah Shepard, marketing director of the Crowne Plaza Hotel and head of the Redondo Beach Visitor’s Bureau, said most local hotels are already expecting near 100 percent occupancy rates. She said that the L.A. Visitor’s Bureau sent out e-blasts that directed visitors to Redondo, as well.
“I think because it’s summer and we do get business from the driving community all around us, they are making plans no matter what,” she said.
Dickert, meanwhile, has special plans. He’ll be delivering special reports from SkyFox above the 405 Saturday morning from 7 to 9 a.m. and Sunday from 6 to 7 a.m. and again from 9 to 10 a.m. But typical of his South Bay roots, the part of the closure that interests him most is the completely empty 10-mile stretch that he’ll be only a quick landing away from.
“I had this idea,” he said. “The only real activity is around the Mulholland Bridge…There could be like a mean skate downhill on the 405 – that is what I’m talking about.” ER
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