405 Freeway Widening Nears Completion

Los Angeles - It took 25 years to plan, and five years to build, but barricades began to come down today on the San Diego (405) Freeway widening project across the west side of Los Angeles.

Caltrans workers removed barricades Saturday on the southbound 405's carpool lanes from the Santa Monica (10) Freeway interchange south to the Marina (90) Freeway. The northbound lanes carpool lanes will open later this month, Caltrans spokeswoman Judy Gish said.

The $167 million widening project took five year to complete, and adds carpool lanes and exit lanes on the freeway. The five main traffic lanes in each direction were widened from 10 feet wide to 12 feet, and the often-uneven asphalt surface next to the center divider was replaced with concrete.

As a result of the new project, the 405 will have carpool lanes from the interchange at the Santa Monica Freeway all the way to the El Toro Y, 56 miles away, Caltrans' Gish said.

Completion of the project across the Westside, Culver City and Palms is coming just as work starts on the 10-mile northbound carpool lane addition through Sepulveda Pass to the San Fernando Valley, which will cost $950 million and require major bridge work and earthmoving.

The southbound 405 already has its carpool lane from the Valley to the Westside. The new project is the last link in continuous carpool lanes for the entire 405 across Los Angeles and Orange counties.

The 405 is nearly 50 years old, and in 1984 was the first freeway in the state to have a pair of lanes added by squeezing the four through lanes in each direction, and wedging in fifth lanes on the asphalt center median. That cheap expansion was supposed to be temporary for the 1984 Olympics.

But the experiment was deemed a success because it did not cause a major upswing in collisions. Freeways across the state were squeeze-widened as a result of the test on the San Diego Freeway, but the narrow lanes and uneven asphalt pavement in the 405's left lanes made the drive across West L.A. exciting for 25 years.

Several houses in Palms had to be condemned for the widening project, but most of it was built on the freeway's already-existing right of way, which was carved through existing subdivisions across the Westside in the late 1950s.

A new interchange was built at Culver Boulevard, which was widened as it crosses under the 405 in Culver City. Palms Boulevard's overpass had to be replaced, and the freeway bridges were significantly widened at Washington and Venice boulevards, and Washington Place in Culver City.