Interstate 405 (California)

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Template:Cleanupcsh Template:Routeboxca2 Interstate 405 (abbreviated I-405; commonly called "the 405", pronounced "the four oh five") is one of the principal north-south highways in Southern California, and the major bypass of I-5 running through Southern California. It is also called the "San Diego Freeway", which confuses many, since the freeway stops more than seventy miles from San Diego. Connecting Los Angeles to the southern part of Orange County, the 405 is heavily traveled by commuters and freight haulers along its entire length and is known as one of the busiest and most congested freeways in the world. It has played a crucial role in the development of dozens of cities and suburbs along its route through the Greater Los Angeles area.

1 Route
2 Communities served
3 Exit list
4 Trivia and References
5 State law
6 External links

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Route

Image:Sandiegofreeway405version032006.jpg

Image:Sandiegofreeway.jpg

The San Diego Freeway splits away from the Golden State Freeway in the Mission Hills district of Los Angeles (Exits 73/158), becoming Interstate 405. From the northern San Fernando Valley it heads straight south toward the Santa Monica Mountains. After crossing over the Sepulveda Pass, its route roughly follows the outline of the Pacific coast, but between five and ten miles inland. It crosses the Los Angeles/Orange county line in Long Beach, then continues southeast through Orange County. It is joined by the Santa Ana Freeway in southeastern Irvine at the massive El Toro Y interchange, below which it merges back into Interstate 5 (at Exit 94).

Image:The 405 south near the 10.jpg

The San Diego Freeway's congestion problems are legendary, leading to the joke that the Interstate was named 405 because traffic moves at "four or five" miles an hour. Indeed, average speeds as low as five miles per hour are routinely recorded during morning and afternoon commutes, and its interchanges with the Ventura Freeway (milepost 63) and with the Santa Monica Freeway (milepost 53) each consistently rank among the five most congested freeway interchanges in the United States. Commuters are known to despise the freeway: Steve Harvey of the Los Angeles Times once featured a personalized license plate with the text HATE405 in his column. While much of this gridlock has to do with the lack of alternate routes between many of the areas it connects (some of which, such as the Pacific Coast and Laurel Canyon freeways, were proposed but abandoned for political reasons), the freeway would likely be busy even with the addition of other roads and mass transit solutions, as it connects so many important locations in the Greater Los Angeles area.

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Transportation

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Commerce/Recreation

Century City high-rise office park
Marina del Rey
More than ten California state beaches, as well as many owned by counties and municipalities, and many tourist-heavy beach cities

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Education and cultural

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Communities served

Communities along Interstate 405 include

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Exit list

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

Postmile<ref name="bridge log">January 1, 2006 California Log of Bridges on State Highways</ref>	Municipality	#<ref>Cal-NExUS Interchange Exit Numbering</ref>	Destinations	Notes
ORA 0.00 ORA 0.02	Irvine	1A	Lake Forest Drive	southbound-only exits accessible via Interstate 5 truck route exit
		1B	Bake Parkway
			Image:Interstate 5.svg Interstate 5 south - San Diego Freeway	continues San Diego Freeway; northbound split and southbound merge; separate truck / local access ramps
ORA 0.95		1C	Irvine Center Drive	exit 1 northbound; northbound accessible via Enterprise
ORA 1.80		2	Image:California 133.svg Image:Interstate 5.svg State Route 133 - Laguna Freeway to Interstate 5 north - Santa Ana Freeway	no northbound exit to northbound SR-133, served by I-5 instead
ORA 2.88		3	Sand Canyon Avenue
ORA 3.95		4	Jeffrey Road; University Drive
ORA 5.62		5	Culver Drive
ORA 6.92		7	Jamboree Road
ORA 7.80		8	MacArthur Boulevard - John Wayne Airport
ORA 8.75	Costa Mesa	9A	Image:California 55.svg State Route 55 - Costa Mesa Freeway	no southbound exit ramp to southbound SR-55
ORA 9.51		9B	Bristol Street	northbound ramp splits off to connect with Park Center Drive
ORA 10.29		10	Image:California 73.svg Image:California 55.svg State Route 73 - San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor to State Route 55 south	southbound exit only
ORA 10.75 ORA 11.45		11	South Coast Drive; Fairview Road; Harbor Boulevard	exits 11B and 11A southbound; no direct access to South Coast Drive southbound
ORA 12.41	Fountain Valley	12	Euclid Avenue
ORA 13.41			Talbert Street	southbound entrance ramp only
ORA 13.78		14	Brookhurst Street

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Trivia and References

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The O.J. Simpson chase

While dangerous high-speed chases along the San Diego Freeway are not uncommon, perhaps the most famous chase in its history was also one of the slowest. On the afternoon of June 17, 1994, former football star O.J. Simpson, suspected in the murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and waiter Ronald Goldman, took to the freeway in a white Ford Bronco (driven by former USC teammate Al Cowlings) pursued by police, commencing a bizarre, widely televised low-speed chase that ended hours later when Simpson returned to his estate in Brentwood via the Sunset Boulevard exit and gave himself up to police.

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Ennis Cosby Murder

Ennis Cosby, the only son of Bill Cosby, was murdered along I-405 in Los Angeles on January 17, 1997, while fixing a flat tire.

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Other References

I-405 was the subject of a 3-minute computer-generated movie called 405 (film), produced in May 2000 by Bruce Branit and Jeremy Hunt. The movie depicted a DC-10 jet making an emergency landing on the freeway behind a driver.
The band Death Cab for Cutie referenced the interstate in their song entitled 405, though the reference is more likely to the Washington interstate of the same name.

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