Below is the announcement from Unified Command, the officials overseeing the closure this weekend of the 405 freeway. As with Carmageddon I, the freeway is being reopened early. Metro had been targeting a 5 a.m. Monday opening.
Kiewit, the contractor, has finished the clean up process and the re-opening process of the I-405 Freeway has begun. This process started at the I-10 connector ramps and will work north to open off-ramps at 8 p.m. and all lanes of the northbound I-405 freeway are anticipated to be open by 8:45 p.m.. Once the freeway lanes are officially open, the contractor will start to open northbound on-ramps. Once the northbound lanes are open, the process will be repeated on the southbound lanes. The entire process of re-opening the I-405 Freeway will take approximately three hours.
The Unified Command would like to thank Los Angeles residents for heeding the warning to avoid the Sepulveda Pass area and making Carmageddon II a success.
Categories: Transportation News
Mr. Thomas, All Sunday long the news media repeated the fact that more than just the demolition operations were going on and that ALL the various maintenance and construction operations (crack repair, storm drain cleaning and welding of cover grates, graffitti removal and cleaning, etc.) needed to be completed before the roadway could be re-opened. In addition, after the crack sealing was completed, there was a curing time for the sealing compound that needed to be waited for to prevent cars from pulling the compound right out of the cracks and into their wheels. The curing process is temperature dependent and can speed up or slow down depending upon ambient temperatures. This is why Metro & Cal-Trans staff repeated downplayed the potential for an early opening. Things came together to open the NB five hours early, which is great for the public, but was not something that could be counted on.
One can only hope this is the last of this sort of thing. From a total lack of information to the media (and, thus to us) about the large chunk of concrete that fell today, temporarily slowing down the demolition, to the “No the freeway is not opening early” (along with the puzzling simultaneous announcement that demolition is complete and all that’s left is cleanup) followed by “Woops! We goofed and it’s now about to reopen” a few hours later, this was a great case study on how not to disseminate information accurately or quickly, despite having more than a year to prepare.