Los Angeles’ traffic is already the worst in the nation; Angelenos reportedly spend an extra 59 hours per year in the car. But Angelenos can expect traffic to get even worse over the next year and a half, as the project to build a new carpool lane on the heavily-congested 405 freeway is now expected to take an extra year and $75 million. The announcement came on Thursday, when transportation officials said that the $1 billion project won’t end until at least the middle of 2014, even though the construction was originally supposed to end in May 2013. Then it was supposed to end in December 2013. Construction began all the way back in 2009.
Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said, “This project has been jinxed almost from the beginning,” but admitted, “There’s been bad construction. They should have known about those utility lines.” Homes and vehicles near the construction site have been damaged. More and more Angelenos are either staying home or leaving at odd hours to avoid the heaviest commute times.
Yaroslavsky now says he might have voted no on the project if he knew then what he knows now. “I couldn’t honesty say with a straight face I would do it again,” he stated.