Planning and communication took L.A.’s “Carmageddon” from a potentially disastrous main event to a successful non-event. The security industry does the same thing every day.
“Carmageddon” — It sounded so ominous the first time I heard about it. Out here in California, that topic has been on every news broadcast, publicized on signs along the freeways and roads and a prominent topic on websites and social media outlets for several weeks now. And it even made national news. “Carmageddon” is the name given to the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s decision to shut down a 10-mile stretch of the nation’s busiest highway, Interstate 405, for a projected 53 hours in order to demolish an overpass bridge as part of a $1 billion reconstruction project. That area handles a half-million vehicles on a typical day and is already a constant traffic bottleneck. There were a lot of variables to manage for success, but, in the end, the predicted epic chaos and traffic jams didn’t materialize and the highway opened ahead of schedule. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa credited project contractor Kiewit Infrastructure West for its planning and hard work, and also credited the news outlets for spreading word about the closure.