First Day of Coldwater Canyon Closure Goes Smoothly

There were not too many people trying to take short cuts, and many people seemed to know the road was closed. Some reports say that the closed road caused some snarls along the 405 on Saturday afternoon.

After a flood of saturation publicity, Coldwater Canyon Avenue was closed to through daytime traffic Saturday.

Giant backhoes parked in the middle of the street, a tidal wave of news coverage, flashing signs and door-to-door pamphlets had been used to get the word out about the closure of the route, one of the very few direct roadway links between the 818 and 323 area codes.

A ripple effect of displaced cars began to spread out across other routes linking the Westside and central Los Angeles to the San Fernando Valley. Traffic officials predicted extra strain on the Hollywood (101) and San Diego (405) freeways, and the 405 is already constrained with a $1 billion widening project across the same mountains.

As if a harbinger of jams to come, at 9 a.m. today traffic on the 405 north was at a crawl out of the Westside, further snarled by a five car crash where a pickup truck had dropped a chair on the freeway at Wilshire Boulevard.

Back at Studio City, Coldwater Canyon Avenue will remain closed starting at 8:30 a.m. every day except Sunday between Mulholland Drive and Ventura Boulevard. The road will reopen at 7 p.m. every weeknight, and at 6 p.m. on Sundays.

Traffic was also expected to snarl at the southern end of Coldwater Canyon, on Beverly Drive at Sunset Boulevard in Beverly Hills.

The project will close the well-traveled route during daylight hours through April 25.

No work is scheduled on Sundays.

The entire project is spurred by replacement of a 60-inch Department of Water and Power water that is 99 years old and which spectacularly ruptured in 2009, causing a monumental mess that prompted nearly $8 million in legal claims against the city.

Other alternate routes include Cahuenga Boulevard/Highland Avenue, Laurel Canyon Boulevard, Beverly Glen Boulevard, Sepulveda Boulevard, or the already-overloaded freeways.