Traffic was moving again on the 405 Freeway late Sunday night, as the weekend closure came to an early end. Janet Kwak reports for the NBC4 News at 11pm on Sunday, September 30, 2012
The 53-hour shutdown of a 10-mile stretch of one of the country’s busiest highways for a bridge widening project ended with a whimper and a handful of detentions for trespassing onto a closed freeway.
After initial fears when a big chunk of a bridge connected to a pillar fell on Saturday threatened to put the schedule off, Carmageddon II was called a success on Sunday.
Whenever there’s a big construction project there are lots of numbers to take into consideration -- how much money is on the line if construction goes past deadlines, how much more money are taxpayers shelling out?
Here are a few statistics that did come to pass during Carmageddon II:
$1 billion: The cost of the total 405 Freeway widening project
500,000: The number of motorists who travel on the 405 Freeway through the Sepulveda Pass each day on a typical weekend.
$150,000: The amount of money taxpayers saved on seven weeks of work tree trimming and lane striping that maintenance crews could complete due to the freeway closure in a 48-hour period.
Local
2,700 cubic yards of concrete.
608 feet: The length of the Mulholland Drive bridge.
300 tons of steel.
270: Number of restaurants, retail stores, museums, bike tours and art galleries offering discounts during the freeway closure.
53: Hours the freeway was closed.
50: The age of the section of the 405 Freeway between the Ventura and Santa Monica freeways.
7: The number of people detained by the California Highway Patrol for trespassing onto the closed freeway.
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