Last year it was "carmageddon, schmarmaggedon."

This year, our friends at Southern California Public Radio are asking "carma-what?"

Once again, it seems, car-crazy Los Angelenos coped well with a weekend shutdown of a major freeway so that crews would demolish a no-longer-needed bridge.

As Korva wrote on Friday, a 10-mile stretch of heavily trafficked Interstate 405 in Los Angeles was to be shut down for two days over the weekend to demolish part of the Mulholland Drive bridge. And "officials and residents [were] hoping for a repeat performance of a similar closure last year — known as Carmageddon — when much-hyped traffic woes never materialized."

Well, the word from out west is that Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has declared "Carmageddon II" a "resounding success." It seems, as Southern California Public Radio reports, that folks took authorities' advice and just stayed away from the area. So, nearby roads did not turn into scenes of gridlock and frustration.

Meanwhile, the work went so well that the highway reopened about seven hours ahead of schedule, the Los Angeles Times adds.

The work is part of a massive, $1 billion, four-year project "to add a northbound carpool lane to the freeway," as the Times reminds its readers.

Copyright 2012 National Public Radio. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

Source: NPR