@mbonsma

I distinctly remember when the 405 freeway in Los Angeles was shut down to build a bridge over it. The newspapers predicted "carmaggaedon", but in practice nothing happened–lots of rerouteing, consolidation of trips, car pooling, and more: traffic evaporation indeed.

"For the City of Angels, Carmageddon — the closure of a 10-mi. segment of major north-south freeway I-405 — was pretty much a non-event in terms of the catastrophic traffic issues and gridlock predicted last weekend."
https://www.fleetowner.com/news/article/21677744/carmageddon-was-stuck-in-the-breakdown-lane

And: "Rather than creating chaos, the first closure greatly reduced traffic congestion. Most people chose to cancel trips rather than to reschedule them, but the reductions in travel diminished over the course of the weekend closure as people learned that congestion levels were far below the dire forecasts."
https://www.accessmagazine.org/spring-2014/carmageddon-los-angeles-sizzle-fizzle/

What it do is reduce air pollution very significantly:

"UCLA also did a study on air quality and air pollution during the 2011 Carmageddon. What they found is an immediate drop in the really really bad particulate matter -- the kind of pollution that is directly attributed to cars"
https://www.kcrw.com/news/shows/greater-la/how-to-alleviate-las-congested-freeways-2019-08-06/remembering-when-the-405-freeway-was-shut-down

#TrafficEvaporation #Carmaggaedon #LosAngeles #Freeway405 #TrafficPollution