The 101 Slow Jam

February 7, 2016 12:14 AM

Most construction projects are bumpy....but this one, starts out smooth.
posted by vespabelle (12 comments total)

I have spent a disproportionate amount of my life in close proximity to "The 101". I grew up in a Valley suburb just 5 houses south of where The 101 was known as The Ventura Freeway. My father's office was downtown and he took The 101 to-and-from work daily (exiting 3-4 off-ramps before the Sixth Street Viaduct). At one time my own work commute required me to get onto The 101 just before an interchange where I would continue on the less-renowned 134. And now, after moving almost 200 miles up the coast to San Luis Obispo, I am residing close enough to The 101 to sometimes hear the traffic (but with only 2 lanes each way through here, it's nothing compared to the 5 lanes in L.A.).

It was while driving toward downtown L.A. on The 101 through Cahuenga Pass, I witnessed a car go off the edge of the frontage road where that road was about 25 feet higher than the freeway and land with a thud in the slow lane about 100 yards ahead of me, and miraculously a safe distance from every other car in the area (it could only happen between rush hours).

I now have an excuse to drive back down to L.A... in about 4 years when the construction is finished.
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:31 AM on February 7, 2016 [1 favorite]

I guess he figured, "Hey, if it worked for Obama..."
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 6:20 AM on February 7, 2016

I love Garcetti. He's a dork. He's slick. He's ambitious. He also really seems to love LA.
posted by drewbage1847 at 6:58 AM on February 7, 2016 [4 favorites]

"... and remember, Metro is there for you all day and all night."

Which is a good thing, because that's about how long it would take to get anywhere on Metro.
posted by markkraft at 7:28 AM on February 7, 2016 [2 favorites]

The kids from Roosevelt High wrote and played the jam. They were terrific. So was the Mayor. I am a NYer who knows little about Garcetti. But if he is as relaxed and caring about LA as this video and the dancing one on the link shows, LA will thrive under his leadership.
posted by AugustWest at 8:40 AM on February 7, 2016 [1 favorite]

Yikes. What the hell is 'concrete cancer'? Can the whole city get it and then sink into the sea?
posted by sexyrobot at 9:49 AM on February 7, 2016

The specific mix of concrete used doesn't do well with the Oxygen in the atmosphere. Over the long term, it turns into a power and loses it's strength. That's why the bridge is being replaced, verses just repaired.

I don't think it an immediate threat. But we (County of Los Angeles) passed a sales tax hike a few years ago for transportation related stuff, so we are fixing up any infrastructure problems with our new found cash.
posted by sideshow at 10:15 AM on February 7, 2016

Los Angeles has been blessed with rather uninteresting mayors over the last few years (Sam Yorty was colorful enough for a lifetime and I was employed by a company owned by Richard Riordan which severely curtailed my local political involvement for his two terms), but I was sincerely tickled seeing Garcetti described as "slick" AND "a dork". Here's hoping every major city could be ruled by a slick dork.
posted by oneswellfoop at 11:04 AM on February 7, 2016 [1 favorite]

That was pretty funny. The kids were great, great idea to get them involved.
posted by bongo_x at 1:42 PM on February 7, 2016 [1 favorite]

Fun fact: Eric Garcetti was a finalist for The Real World: London, according to show co-creator Jonathan Murray.
posted by SisterHavana at 9:43 PM on February 7, 2016

I was heading south on the 101 just 15 minutes after it opened up today. The sight of the severed bridge span hovering in mid-air, cut off from the historically poor, ethnically diverse, renter-dense Boyle Heights neighborhood was physically painful. I fear the fancy new bridge is going to be L.A.'s Highline, a supercharged gentrification engine that destroys small business and entrenched community at lightning speed. And no cute music video with talented local kids can make that taste like anything but bile.
posted by Scram at 10:14 PM on February 7, 2016

Oneswellfoop - I honestly can't think of any better way to describe Garcetti - even though I no longer live in LA proper (now a Pasadena resident), I really have high hopes for what he can do with our city. Maybe his vanity will get the better of the region, maybe (and probably) he has his sights set on even higher office, but hopefully for now he can do some good.

To Scram's thought about gentrification - what can be done now? The city is voracious and steadily kicking the poor further and further out of the core. Maybe the inconvenience of the missing bridge can spare Boyle Heights for a little while longer, but yeah if real estate keeps moving the way it's moving once the new span is completed, I don't think the Chicano version of BH is long for the world. I don't know where it goes next - South of South Gate?
posted by drewbage1847 at 10:21 PM on February 7, 2016