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Caltrans Investigates Sunday's Five-Hour Traffic Jam Between Palm Springs and L.A.
Photo by delara-photos via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr
Caltrans is reviewing a series of mistakes and problems that led to a five-hour traffic delay for drivers on their way to Los Angeles from Palm Springs on Sunday. The L.A. Times reports that the back-up on the 10 freeway was caused by routine road work gone terribly awry. What should have been a several-hour project to replace worn concrete turned into an all-night and all-day affair when Caltrans failed to notify their public affairs department about the roadwork on two separate occasions -- once when it started, and again when they realized it wouldn't be finished on time -- then too much road was removed, and finally replacement concrete didn't show up on time.
According to the Times, unsurprisingly, drivers waiting in the clusterfuck of cars got desperate. They talked to one woman who wound up driving into the San Bernardino Mountains just to get out of the traffic, and described another person driving a Camry who just "shot off into the desert."
The engineer who oversaw the project has been transferred, and quite possibly was, or will emulate, that Camry driver.
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