LA, DC Confront Congestageddon Calamaties

The 405 on a good day

Two of the nation's biggest metro areas are facing traffic crises. In Los Angeles, the massive 405 freeway will close – totally – for the weekend at midnight tonight while in the Washington, D.C., area motorists have been dealing with two concurrent colossal construction projects that at times shut down the busy I-495 Capital Beltway through Virginia.

The Los Angeles Carmageddon is the result of much-needed repairs to the Mulholland Drive bridge over the freeway. Actually, repairs is too mild a word. A large portion of the overpass will be demolished using cutting saws, torches and jackhammers.

The demolition will loosen about 4,000 tons of concrete that will fall onto the 405 before it's collected and trucked away. The overpass has needed repairs for years and there's no way to loosen that much concrete safely while cars are passing by beneath.

Similar problems confront highway engineers in Virginia. They have two huge projects underway simultaneously – the addition of high-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes to the Beltway and the extension of the Metro subway system to Dulles Airport, creating what the locals are calling Constructageddon.

HOT damn!

Metro slithers towards Dulles

The HOT construction involves not only adding lanes but also requires rejiggering overpasses and interchanges from the Maryland border southward towards the intersection of I-495 and I-95. The Metro expansion involves building a railway bridge over the Beltway.

Most of the Virginia work gets done as traffic swerves through temporary lanes and detours but starting last week, the Beltway has been completely closed for 15 minutes or so during the overnight hours. That doesn't sound like much but it has created some pretty fierce back-ups that take hours to clear out.

While Los Angelenos face a long weekend of what's likely to be gridlock on steroids, D.C.'s long-suffering commuters can look forward to another year or so of HOT construction, while the Metro project staggers along on an ever-changing timetable seemingly influenced by sun spots, the tides and the ever-changing political winds that afflict the 2 1/2-state Washington area.

Why the “the?”

None of this, of course, answers the question frequently posed by visitors to each area: Why is it “the 405” and “the 101” in California while most other places in the nation call their freeways “I-95” or “I-66,” without the “the.”

Extensive research by your well-traveled reporter has found only one other area that routinely puts a “the” in front of freeway names.

Hang around Kansas City (Missouri or Kansas, take your pick) very long and you'll hear something along the lines of, “That was some mess when those pigs got loose on the I-270, huh?”

Why the difference?  Ours not to reason why.  Or, as our friends across town might put it, "We report.  You decide."