'Carmaggedon' Not Really That Big a Deal, Actually

Los Angeles has been, collectively, freaking out for weeks now about the two-day closure of a long stretch of the 405 (one of the city's major highways) and now, finally, that day is upon us. And it's not really that big of a deal.

Essentially, everyone was positive that the disappearance of the 405 would lead to massive traffic jams across the city. Which is funny first of all because, hello, how would that be any different from a regular Los Angeles Saturday, and second of all, because basically nothing bad seems to have happened. Hospitals are dealing with it well. Travelers are dealing with it well. Celebrities are dealing with it well. What a surprise! L.A. freaked out about its highways for no reason. Here in New York, they invent a brand-new subway system every weekend, sometimes in the middle of the night, and won't even tell you about it beforehand. (Okay, to be fair, we complain about that constantly.)

But not all was overblown! JetBlue got some nice publicity out of the whole thing by offering a $4 flight from Burbank to Long Beach, and bicycle activists got some too by staging a "race" between a group of cyclists and JetBlue plane—and winning handily. (They reached their destination just when the plane had taken off.) And Los Angeleno Heather Grimmer took this video while driving down an empty 405. It's kind of the Los Angeles equivalent of the opening scene in Vanilla Sky.