The I-10 freeway will reopen by Tuesday.
The shockingly shifted timeline (the original one was 3-5 weeks) was announced by Gov. Gavin Newsom during an evening news conference.
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"By Tuesday of next week, trucks, and passenger vehicles in both directions will be moving again... That is not guaranteed. We still have chemical sampling that comes in on a daily basis, but the bridge structure itself seems to be in better shape than we anticipated," he said.
During her remarks at the conference, Mayor Karen Bass said, "This is a good day in Los Angeles." "All of the stars have been aligned on behalf of
Angelenos,'' she said.
Bass thanked commuters who avoid driving through the freeway closure area by staying home, using alternate routes, or relying on mass transit to reach their destinations.
"The last few days have been difficult, but everybody has cooperated
and I want to say thank you, thank you, thank you,'' Bass said.
The announcement confirmed a report published by the L.A. Times Tuesday morning citing an anonymous engineer involved in the construction meetings.
During the Department of Transportation’s morning briefing on Thursday, KNX News’ Craig Fiegener asked Deputy Mayor of Infrastructure Randall Winston if this was true.
“So the timeline that we're tracking is still 3 to 5 weeks from the time the governor made that announcement and that's what we're looking at again,” he said. “We're working with urgency but we have no announcements.”
Ken Young, Caltrans district traffic manager, also weighed in, saying the report was untrue as far as they were concerned.
But after all the speculation, during a Thursday afternoon press conference, Governor Newsom officially stated the freeway will reopen and be fully functional by Tuesday at the latest.
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