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We told you a couple of weeks ago that the I-405 freeway upgrade project is about to get serious — leading with a complete shutdown in Sepulveda Pass for the weekend of July 16-17. Now come the details, and if you don't think it's serious, 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?
The regional scale of the disruption is simply impressive. I love this sentence:
Motorists who must travel through the Los Angeles metropolitan area are advised to use alternate freeways within the region, including the 5, 15, 23, 55, 57, 101, 118, 126, 210, 605 and 710 freeways to bypass the impacted area.[skip]
Traffic conditions on local streets and freeways within the region of Los Angeles County and beyond are expected to be severe, with significant, multi-hour delays.
On the map above, you can see they contemplate using the single-lane roads through Topanga Canyon and Malibu Canyon to relieve pressure. In its simplest form, the problem is that the northbound San Diego will be closed to all but local traffic for ten miles — from the 10 to the 101. Southbound, it's a four-mile stretch from the 101 to Getty Center Drive. The closure will basically extend from Friday night to Monday morning that weekend, to begin destruction of the tall Mulholland Drive bridge over the freeway. It will also have to be done again a year later to demolish the rest of the bridge. Sepulveda Boulevard will be local only during the shutdown.
More to come on all this, but here's the release and here are some detour maps.
Map from the release