Archive: 405

This seems like a twist in the long saga of the 405 freeway improvement project through Sepulveda Pass. Kiewit, the project's main contractor, is suing Metro — not the other way around.

The northbound carpool lane that was the nominal reason for work on the 405 opened Friday morning. Time to look at what five years of work and $1.1 billion bought.

Westside, Valley side or up in the canyons — doesn't matter. Metro officials are urging everyone to avoid driving on the northbound 405 freeway or nearby over this holiday weekend.

Officer Don Thompson, a 26-year veteran assigned to the bomb squad, spotted the wreck, jumped over the center divider and cut the unconscious driver out of a burning Mercedes. Both savior and saved suffered burns requiring treatment.

The rebuilt Mulholland Drive bridge opened this morning across the 405 freeway in Sepulveda Pass.

When the eastbound Wilshire Boulevard onramp to the northbound 405 opens, the transformation will be essentially complete at one of the city's most painful traffic choke points. The ramp project is done 13 days early.

The Westside is starting to slowly wake up from its long traffic nightmare around the 405 freeway construction, known officially as the I-405 Sepulveda Pass Improvements Project.

Soon after work wraps up in January on the new freeway ramps where the 405 crosses over Wilshire Boulevard, crews will begin tearing up Wilshire all over again — this time to add a dedicated bus rapid transit lane west of the freeway.

Just when you thought the endless 405 freeway upgrade project was becoming manageable and some of the quote unquote upgrades were opening for use, the freeway gods play a little joke.

While the 405 widening project slogs along late and over budget, one nugget of good news if you drive that stretch of freeway. As of Friday, a northbound lane will open for 1.7 miles between the 10 Freeway and Santa Monica Boulevard.

Metro, the agency in charge of the massive 405 freeway upgrade and widening project, announced that the weekend work was completed 29 hours early. It went to so well that no full shutdown of the northbound freeway was required, as originally threatened.

The 405 freeway widening and upgrade project on the Westside and in Sepulveda Pass is about a year behind schedule. But if you haven't been through there in awhile, you might be surprised at the visuals. The skyline at the Wilshire Boulevard interchange is starting to look very different.

Cindy Whitehead, a former pro skateboarder from Hermosa Beach, had the phone numbers of a bail bondsman, a lawyer and a friend written on her arm — just in case.

Removal of the north side of the original Mulholland Drive bridge over the 405 freeway has gone about as well as expected. Mayor Villarigosa and Metro officials said Sunday evening that the lanes through Sepulveda Pass will open as promised by 5 a.m. on Monday.

Traffic has been a bit heavier than usual for a Saturday in a few spots, especially near the immediate detours around the closed 405 freeway. But for the most part,...

UCLA researchers say in a study today that the benefits began as soon as the freeway closed, and extended for miles around. Since traffic fell everywhere in Southern California, the whole region felt an effect — for a couple of days.

Staffers at the Auto Club Archives on South Figueroa had a little fun with a 1929 picture from their files — and remind people to avoid driving near the 405 this weekend.

"Harper" starring Paul Newman aired tonight on Turner Classic Movies. Here's a screen grab circa-1966 of the Mulholland Drive bridge in Sepulveda Pass, spanning what was then called by everybody the San Diego Freeway.

No, Carmageddon II is still coming this weekend. But the people behind Carmageddon had a ceremony out along the 405 freeway this morning to reopen the rebuilt Sunset Boulevard bridge.

Metro explains what will happen to the 405 freeway over the weekend of Sept. 29-30, and how it's basically the same exercise as in July a year ago.

Metro has decided when to drop the other shoe on the necessary weekend closure of the entire 405 Freeway through the Sepulveda Pass. The follow-up to last summer's disruptive but successful closure will begin about 7 p.m. on Friday, September 28. The freeway will be scheduled to reopen at 5 a.m. on Monday, October 1

The overall project is now four to six months behind schedule. This means that the plans to close the freeway over a weekend to finish tearing down the Muholland Drive bridge in Sepulveda Pass are now delayed at least until late summer. Plus: Wilshire Rampture by the numbers.

in June, the rebuilding of the Wilshire Boulevard on- and off-ramps will begin a year-long traffic disruption in one of the nation's congested spots that will be so majorly disruptive it's being called The Rampture. We've been warning you this was coming. In case you were hoping it would just go away, it didn't.

Midnight freeway closures this week and, as of Monday night, one direction or another of Wilshire Boulevard is subject to complete closure over the next week, starting each night at 8 p.m.

Metro says it has no cause yet for the failure of a retaining wall section on the 405 freeway improvement project in Sepulveda Pass.

On- and off-ramps serving Sunset Boulevard at the 405 freeway will start closing Friday for 14-day periods of rebuilding. It's the other shoe falling from the earlier demolition of half...

Twitter user @veisandrew posted a cellphone picture of an NBC truck burning up just now on the 405 freeway in Sepulveda Pass.

"The feeling is that this could be much worse" than Carmageddon, says the president of the Westwood Homeowners Association.

Supervisor Yaroslavsky's website team has pulled together some insightful data points from the weekend closure of the 405 freeway.

Amanda Corrigan, her husband Matt and their friend Barry Neely set up early Sunday morning on the closed southbound side of the 405 freeway in Sherman Oaks.

A press release from Time Warner Cable says these were the movies its On Demand customers in Los Angeles demanded the most this past weekend: 1. The Lincoln Lawyer 2....

Now that the big media event is over, it's back to the routine closures that users of the 405 freeway have experienced over the past several months. Here's tonight's partial list.

Carmageddon weekend is taking on the same image of freedom from traffic as the 1984 Olympics has in Los Angeles lore.

It's been real quiet across the Westside with no 405 freeway spewing white noise for miles around. Villaraigosa thanks "the people of Los Angeles for doing their part."

As the traffic experts say, it doesn't take many drivers to change their ways for congestion to go away.

So far? Best traffic on the 405 through the Sepulveda Pass in years. Free flow in both direction under the Mulholland Bridge — at 7 p.m. on a Friday. Funny...

It's not bad out there. I came over Sepulveda Pass about 2 o'clock, and except for what seemed to be a bit of lookie-loo slowdown on both sides approaching the...

Until the tunnel under Mulholland Highway opened in 1930, there wasn't much "pass" to Sepulveda Pass. There was a dirt road and trails, but most of the traffic between...

Traffic along the 405 has been good today. People are self-correcting: good sign. Now this from cartoonist Donna Barstow.

A roundup of news and observations on the biggest story in Southern California: this weekend's closure of the 405 freeway in Sepulveda Pass, potentially affecting a million or more people — but probably only a little bit.

"They have to do this every two years to sweep up the shell casings," Jay says in tonight's monologue.

The city Department of Transportation is slapping up new No Stopping any Time signs for Carmageddon weekend on these streets, mostly in the Valley.

I'm the reporter-narrator on a UCLA-produced program on the 405 closure that's airing as a special edition of "SoCal Connected" on KCET, Wednesday at 8 p.m. and Friday at 9:30 p.m. Here's the trailer.

The Automobile Club of Southern California Archives have some stunning photos from the years in which the L.A. area was discovering its relationship with the car. Like this one.

I'm pretty sure I swore off the Hitler spoofs awhile back. but this one is worth it — and just very smart about the city's culture.

Carmageddon in the New York Times, from Los Angeles bureau chief Adam Nagourney. You would think that Los Angeles, of all places, would know how to handle a catastrophe. But...

As part of the official choreography of publicity for the 405 freeway shutdown next month, the LAPD asked Ashton Kutcher and other celebrities — Lady Gaga among them — to...

The latest news and gimmicks on the coming 405 shutdown, including the LAPD asks a favor of Lady Gaga.

Here's one minute of Sunday afternoon traffic looks and sounds like on the 405 freeway in Sepulveda Pass. No wonder there's talk of carmageddon.

In the 1964 comedy Sex and the Single Girl, Tony Curtis (a womanizing tabloid reporter) and Natalie Wood (who plays Helen Gurley Brown) gallivant around Los Angeles — including on the new 405 freeway and its Mulholland Drive bridge.

How LAX is planning for the worst weekend ever. Isn't it weird how the best job of covering the 405 freeway construction disruption so far hasn't been by any traditional media at all, but by the websites of Metro and of Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky?

Janice Min's THR makeover, Farrah Fawcett's death, Sheriff Baca's special recruit, how L.A. County cities fit together plus some quotables.

When was the last time you saw a news release issued jointly by Caltrans, Metro, the California Highway Patrol, the Los Angeles Police Department and the L.A. Fire Department?

It's going to get a lot worse before it gets better — and be prepared for two years of disruption near the busiest intersection in Los Angeles.

Tonight's KCRW column, airing at 6:44 p.m. talks about the massive I-405 freeway makeover and the plans to close the freeway for a weekend in July.

All lanes of the freeway will close in Sepulveda Pass for an enitre weekend in July. You've been warned, but you will be warned again.

Westwood architect Jamie B. Myer has designed an innovative solution to the bottleneck that forms along Santa Monica Boulevard where it crosses under the 405 freeway.

This might be the biggest thing to help Westside traffic congestion that is in the works.

Tonight the giant concrete muncher begins taking down the northern side of the Skirball Center Drive bridge over the 405 freeway deep in Sepulveda Pass.

he Sunset Boulevard bridge over the 405 freeway in Brentwood is being torn down, piece by piece, for replacement. When it was completed in 1956, the road was still being called the Sepulveda Freeway.

That $1 billion project to mess up traffic across the Westside and Sepulveda Pass for years — oops, I mean add a carpool lane to the 405 freeway and modernize...

Lane closures after 10 a.m. at Sunset Boulevard.

Mike Barbour, the project manager on the big 405 freeway rehab and widening project from the Westside through Sepulveda Pass to the Valley, will take questions on the Metro website from noon to 1 p.m. on Wednesday.

My KCRW column airing this evening at 6:44 p.m. talks about the San Diego's place in the delicate organism of Westside traffic and more broadly how it has shaped Los Angeles.

Expect a busy night of work and traffic disruption on the San Diego Freeway below Sepulveda Pass (on the Westwood side, not the Valley side.) Here are the scheduled closures.

The 405 freeway widening project begins a new phase this week, and you're not going to like it. Got to be done, but still — beware if you can. There will be full freeway closures at night this week and next heading up into Sepulveda Pass from the Westside, for restriping of lanes. That's because this month a giant "hoe ram" — a crane equipped with a massive jackhammer — will begin smashing the Sunset Boulevard bridge over the freeway.

We're locked in pre-June gloom on the Westside these days, but Katie Keating had a ray of virtual sunshine find her on the freeway this morning.

You'll start to see K-rails brought onto the San Diego Freeway tonight as part of the carpool lane and bridge repair project in and around Sepulveda Pass.

Metro just tweeted that restriping of the northbound lanes has been completed for now. Southbound restriping won't begin until March 3 at the earliest.

When work begins Wednesday night on the Sepulveda Pass Widening Project — the first full closure of the northbound freeway is after midnight — Metro's man in charge will be an Iraq veteran.

Think the new construction project only affects the freeway? Ho ho ho.