Carmageddon: L.A.'s Biggest Nothing Since Tom Bradley
As was predicted twice by me, the traffic meltdown that politicians and the destination media were predicting would be caused by the closing of a stretch of Interstate 405 in Los Angeles has utterly failed to happen.
U.S. Highway 101 is wide open:
So is the normally densely packed Interstate 110:
So is Interstate 10, where Los Angeles County did not even do drivers the courtesy of actually covering up its 405-North Exit sign over the weekend:
So is Los Angeles International Airport:
So is Interstate 105:
So remains Sepulveda Blvd., where the headquarters of Reason waits with quiet dignity for the return of building-side advertising:
Have I missed any of the Ground Zeros?
Yes! The northern closing of the 405. Perhaps it's only up in the San Fernando Valley that the mindless hordes of drivers, momentarily deprived of quality government road service, have turned to cannibalism, revolution, and unsightly tatouage.
Not so much. Here's the grisly scene on Ventura Blvd. just off the 405, Ground Zero North for total societal breakdown:
I'd doubt I'm the first joker to point out that Carmageddon turned out instead to be the Rapture, mystically depopulating the city. Here's the closest thing to that joke I've found. In any event, you read it here first and you're reading it here again: Carmageddon was a big nothing.
I spend a lot of time mocking the pretensions of mainstream journalism, but Carmageddon has reminded me of one point on which reporters really have some authority: You have to work in the news to understand how stupid the news is.
In this case, the vacating of L.A.'s streets in the middle of summer will be seen as a success, and while everybody's breathing a sigh of relief, nobody will remember what a pain in the ass it was to make way for the addition of a carpool lane that will do little to relieve the actual day-to-day congestion on the 405.
Or actually, they'll remember it next year, when the second half of this project is slated to be done, and we will all have to go through this charade again.
In addition to the failures of disclosure I noted in earlier posts, and the exit-sign snafu I noted above, the DOT also missed another chance to keep traffic flowing. At both the south and north closing sites, cops have just put up a dead-end roadblock and diverted stragglers onto either another freeway or surface streets:
So the few knuckleheads who remain unaware of the closing don't get to make easy u-turns on a closed freeway, which would be the best way to sort out their traffic problem. Instead, they are forced onto a different route.
Fortunately there aren't too many such numbskulls because people are not stupid. They adapted to this government-created problem and will do the same next year. And for their efforts they'll be expected to show appreciation for a government that provides road service at a massive cost in taxes, inconvenience and poor road conditions.
And that's not even counting the cost to the economy. Los Angeles is effectively closed for business this weekend, and while it has created a pleasant snowstorm feeling, it's not exactly a recession-slayer. The only tourists I spoke with were a nice German family and a nice French family. (Both families were aware of the closing of some major freeway, but seemed puzzled by the hysteria. No doubt they will return to their native lands of clogging and bocce with tales of how car-crazed Americans are.) Local retailers and restaurateurs, not yet schooled in the broken-window fallacy, are doing their best to take advantage of the business they hope this hyperpocalyptic catastrogeddon will generate:
These efforts appear to be unavailing:
But don't worry. Large complements of police and meter maids are deployed at both ends of the closed section of the 405. Because you never know when somebody might panic:
