![]() ![]() Officials delivered print, radio, online ads, and email blasts to over 6,000 organizations. Caltrans established a state-of-the-art command center near downtown Los Angeles to monitor regional traffic conditions and to direct traffic management teams toward hotspots. The California Highway Patrol used aircraft to monitor roadways so that crews could respond quickly to stalls and accidents. To expand street capacity, the Los Angeles City Department of Transportation (LADOT) extended no-parking zones along major arterials near each closure. It also increased service on closure-adjacent bus routes including one running parallel to the closure. Metro operated higher levels of service and free fares on its Red, Purple, and Orange Lines. During the 2011 closure, Metrolink, the regional commuter rail authority, expanded commuter rail service and promoted a $10 weekend pass that allowed unlimited rides and free transfers to any bus or rail service in the region. Plans included temporarily adding transit service and an aggressive outreach campaign, asking people to stay away, far away, from the closure. The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro), California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), and City of Los Angeles began planning well in advance to mitigate the effects of the closures. Reconstruction was followed by the second weekend closure a little over a year later for the demolition and subsequent reconstruction of the northern half of the bridge. The Freeway Closures and Plans to Address Themĭuring the first freeway closure, contractors demolished the southern half of the Mulholland Drive Bridge over the 405 freeway. Most people chose to cancel trips rather than to reschedule them, but the reductions in travel diminished over the course of the weekend closure as people learned that congestion levels were far below the dire forecasts. How did the public respond to the freeway closures and to the warnings of traffic chaos? Rather than creating chaos, the first closure greatly reduced traffic congestion. Rather than creating chaos, the first closure greatly reduced traffic congestion. To do so, we compared traffic volume and transit ridership from each of the closure weekends to baseline control dates before and after each event. We studied how the roughly 300,000 travelers who traverse the affected stretch of the San Diego Freeway per typical summer weekend day responded to the two closures. Media coverage was especially intense for the first closure, often gleefully focusing on a likely traffic disaster. Others threatened nightmarish gridlock throughout the region. ![]() Some of their messages appealed to civic pride and encouraged responsible voluntary cooperation. Public officials tried to avert the expected traffic jams by warning drivers to stay away. Traffic from the closures was predicted to back up for miles and spill onto local streets, severely congesting some parts of Los Angeles. The closed freeway through the Sepulveda Pass between West Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley is one of the most heavily traveled arteries in the world, with more than half a million vehicles passing through on a typical summer weekend. “Carmageddon” refers to the horrific traffic jams predicted when a bridge reconstruction project in Los Angeles required closing 10 miles of the Interstate 405 freeway on two weekends. Cities “crying wolf” may erode their messaging efficacy over time. ![]()
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