Carmageddon: Drivers Heed Warnings, Stayed Off the Roads

Southern California motorist sacrificed venturing out on Saturday to avoid the dreaded Carmageddon and stayed off the roads.

The evening rush hour traffic was evidently light as people were forced off the road by the much-hyped fear of carmageddon. Those rare motorists who dared grim predictions in fact got to enjoy riding on the ghost roads.

Authorities closed the segment of Interstate 405 near the Mulholland Drive Bridge before midnight, trapping some drivers on the Freeway between Skirball Center and the Bridge, LA times reported.

We hope they still listen to what we're saying and not go out and try to drive through this area, because it is going to be congested if people do that, said Mike Miles, a district director of the California Department of Transportation.

Marking the countdown to the feared ‘Carmageddon’, or the weekend closure of a nearly 10-mile stretch of the Interstate 405, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa attempted to brush aside a 'car apocalypse', saying the chaos will do well in future.

“We have orders to arrest anyone trying to enter the closed freeway and we arrested a 74-year-old man for jogging on the closed freeway and some bicyclists were also intercepted on the route,” California Highway Patrol Officer Charmaine Fajardo said.

We've made great progress on the demolition of the half-century-old Mulholland Bridge, Villaraigosa told reporters at the city’s emergency operations center.
Powerful machines with long booms hammered away at the south side of the span, which is being removed to allow the interstate's widening, LA times reported

Authorities spent months giving public the dreadful warnings after looking at the impacts of the $1-billion interstate project.

The project got its name from Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky when he said in a news conference in June that this doesn't need to be a Carmageddon if people start avoiding driving.