Can’t every week be Carmageddon?
That was the most stress-free, relaxing two days on the byways of Los Angeles that I can remember. A pleasure.
I loved Carmageddon.
Everybody stayed home. The weather was glorious. The streets were empty. Less smog. Less crowding. Less global warming.
And great, grand Los Angeles’s Interstate 405 was E.M.P.T.Y. And funny enough, by extension, so were all the other avenues – the 10, Wilshire Boulevard, Olympic, Pico, Sepulveda, Mulholland, Sunset. All the roads that cause us nightmares most of the time.
Dirty little secret: a family member stole up to Santa Barbara along the coast in record time this morning.
Millions of people decided that they didn’t need to get that bookcase at Ikea, or visit their aunt in Long Beach. I saw people walking to the beach. Everybody else took the sun in their backyards, splashed in a neighborhood pool.
What a concept.
Meanwhile, the contractors blowing up bridges up on Mulholland (see video below) finished early, motivated by a $300,000 incentive. The whole thing passed in about 24 hours. The 405 actually opened by noon on Sunday, as Mayor Antonio Villairagosa (finally doing something that we actually noticed) congratulated everybody.
Most of us didn’t notice because we were so busy gardening and riding bikes.
My family member drove back from Santa Barbara, stealth-like, on an empty 405.
