Live West of the 405? Don't bother to come to UCLA

From LA County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky:

Sometime this fall, two Wilshire on- and off-ramps to the 405 Freeway will be closed for 90 days. That work will be followed by a series of closures of the other Wilshire ramps, each expected to last from 14 to 90 days. (There are eight ramps in all, and they will be worked on two at a time.) The end result should be sweet: modern, swooping flyover ramps that will make it easier to navigate the notoriously jammed intersection. But getting to that point may be considerably less so, in the view of residents of neighborhoods around the construction.

“That’s going to be the next shoe to drop,” said Steve Resnick, president of the Westwood Homeowners Association. “The 405 closure, as it turned out, was just the opposite of what was expected. It was terrific. The feeling is that this could be much worse.”

The tentative schedule for the project says the ramps are set to close in October, but project officials say the work is actually likely to begin in November. The ramps that will be closing first are the westbound Wilshire on-ramp to the northbound 405 and the northbound 405 off-ramp to westbound Wilshire.

It’s all part of a massive, $1.034 billion project, set to finish in 2013, that will add a 10-mile northbound carpool lane to the 405 along with other improvements such as the flyover ramps at Wilshire.

There are also concerns at UCLA. The closures will have a “significant impact on traffic congestion and commute patterns in and around Westwood,” Renée A. Fortier, Executive Director, UCLA Events & Transportation, said in a statement. She said the university is working with project officials to minimize “cut-through” traffic on the campus, particularly around Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. It also plans to take steps to publicize the closures in advance and to encourage students and employees who live north of the Sepulveda Pass to to join existing rideshare programs…

Read more, if you really want to, at http://zev.lacounty.gov/405-report/a-really-long-goodbye-to-wilshire-ramps

Cheer up: