The infamous Los Angeles Aqueduct opened in 1913, but it finally brought water to Los Angeles in 1915, when the City Trunk Line opened for business--the underground pipe ran "rom Sylmar across the Valley (not yet part Los Angeles) through a tunnel in the Santa Monica Mountains to the Franklin Reservoir above Beverly Hills," as County Supe Zev Yaroslavsky's website tells it. 99 years later, that thing is ooooold. Now the LADWP has to replace a 1.3-mile segment of the line with welded steel (which should last another century)--as a result, a big chunk of Coldwater Canyon, from Mulholland north to Ventura, will be shut down for almost five weeks. (This is not some joke project either: "a section of the trunk line burst sensationally in 2009, sending millions of gallons of water bursting through the pavement and damaging homes and businesses around Coldwater Canyon and Ventura Boulevard.") Coldwater won't close for a few more weeks, but the traffic impacts start tomorrow. Here's what you should know:
Starting March 9
-- No left turns from Coldwater Canyon onto Ventura Boulevard, from either north or southbound lanes.
From March 23 through April 25
-- Coldwater will be completely closed between Ventura Boulevard and Mulholland Drive
-- Monday through Friday from 8:30 am to 7 pm
-- Saturday from 8:30 am to 6 pm
-- At all other times, Coldwater will have one lane open in each direction.
-- At all other times, the no left turns onto Ventura rule will still apply.
-- The actual replacement focuses on the section between Dickens Street and Hacienda Drive, and most of the work will be in that area.
-- LADWP is trying to make sure there'll still be local access to homes, schools, and so on.
-- LAObserved suspects that Laurel Canyon and Beverly Glen will get a little crazy taking the runoff traffic during this time period.
-- LADWP is telling drivers to use the 405, Sepulveda Boulevard, Cahuenga, and Highland.
The overall modernization of the trunk line is about a decade-long project. (And one last fun fact: there's actually a cast iron water pipe dating back to the mid-1880s running under several blocks of Seventh Street in Downtown.)
· Coldwater Canyon's pipe with a past [Zev Yaroslavsky]
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