Nation's Most Traveled Stretch of Freeway to Close for 20 Hours

Queue up Netflix, tune up the bike, or hit the beach ― just don’t plan on hitting the road next weekend.

Remember Carmaggedon? Well, forget it ― the most heavily traveled stretch of highway in the nation is in Seal Beach, and it will be closed for 20 hours Aug. 17-18.

The San Diego (405) Freeway will be closed for 20 hours starting at 9 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 17, to reopen at about 5 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 18. The closure is necessary to accommodate the demolition of the old southbound 405 / eastbound SR-22 connector bridge.

The Seal Beach segment of the San Diego (405) Freeway sees close to 400,000 daily drivers who traverse the border between Orange and Los Angeles counties.

The closure will likely have a major impact on side streets in Long Beach, Seal Beach, Garden Grove, Los Alamitos and Westminster. For example, the last time this stretch of freeway closed in the middle of the night for construction work, it took midnight commuters the better part of an hour to travel about a mile down Westminster Avenue between Seal Beach and Westminster.

The closure is part of the $277 million West County Connector Project, and to prepare drivers, the Orange County Transportation Authority reached out to 67,000 homes and businesses in the area and posted 130 signs along the freeways in Orange, Los Angeles, San Bernardino and Riverside counties. 

The closure includes:

• Northbound I-405 freeway at Valley View Street
• Southbound I-405 freeway from the I-605 freeway to the eastbound SR-22 connector (near Valley View Street)
• 7th Street / Eastbound SR-22 at the southbound I-405  freeway junction (near Studebaker Road)