Carmageddon Countdown: What the 405 Closure Will Look Like, Courtesy of 'Empty L.A.' Photo Project
Updated on Page 3 with video inspired by Matt Logue's "Empty L.A." photos -- a moving illusion of bleak, car-free Los Angeles.
Matt Logue End of the world, indeed.
Here's a good way to save $400 on a helicopter tour of the exotic, breathtaking empty 405 freeway during this weekend's massive carpool-lane construction -- and observe the rest of L.A. in a similarly unnatural state of car-lessness, to boot. (Plus, with all them renegade Ridazz and skateboarders planning a flash mob for the construction site, your hundred-stacks might get you a messy revolution, not a pristine-concrete postcard. We think the former's way cooler, but to each his own.)
Anyway. Turns out artist Matt Logue, who works as an animation supervisor in Los Angeles, was way ahead of CalTrans in 2009, when he released a series of exotic, breathtaking (no sarcasm this time) photos, in which all moving objects were removed. He called it "Empty L.A." To mark Day 3 of the Carmageddon countdown, here are three shots we found of the 405:
They're not within the bounds of the Carmageddon project, but to be honest, the 405 pretty much looks the same anywhere you shoot it. Behold:
Matt Logue 
Matt Logue
Thanks, Matt, for reminding us that the 405, on top of being the busiest roadway in the United States, is also the ugliest.
Matt Logue
But the photographer poked his camera, and worked his removal magic, on many corners of the city beyond the monster eight-laners. (And soon to be even more-laners, thanks to Carmaggedon. Which, as LA Weekly reporter Gene Maddaus recently pointed out, won't even relieve traffic in the long run. Sweet.) A few of our non-405 "Empty L.A." favorites:
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