Mulholland Drive bridge reopens, making for happy drivers. Maybe.

Finally, there’s light at the end of the bridge. Both ends, in fact. After two years and two Carmageddon weekends, all four lanes of the Mulholland Drive bridge that spans the 405 Freeway in the Sepulveda Pass are open.

Woo-hoo: No more construction, no more news conferences starring politicians in shirt sleeves and neon-colored safety vests standing in front of the bridge as they declare the start of Carmageddons I and II — the freeway closures that tested Angelenos’ abilities to survive an entire weekend without 10 miles of the 405. But most of all, no more traffic jams up to and on the bridge, right? Hmm….

This all started when Metro decided that the bridge needed to be widened and elongated to accommodate the widening of the 405 Freeway. Officials said they could fix the bridge in two segments — demolish one side, then the other — or tear it down and build a new bridge. Metro officials were keen on the second option, as were people I know who regularly use the bridge to commute and ferry children to school. The work would have been quicker and cheaper and required only one full weekend of freeway closure for bridge demolition. But preservationists were adamant about saving the bridge — built before the freeway — hated the proposed new bridge and threatened to sue, and Metro said, oh, never mind.

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So for the last two years, Westsiders driving on the bridge (and approximately 20,000 cars cross it each day) complained bitterly about slogging up to and across a span that, on most any given day, was reduced to half capacity. They villainized the citizen activists who saved the bridge and made their commuting lives miserable. Even The Times’ editorial board noted that it was much ado about preserving a bridge that is hardly the Golden Gate.

And yet, I must admit, when I drive the freeway and approach the bridge, I’m struck by its towering height and the curving arc of its lines. I’m kind of glad they didn’t tear it down. (Though I didn’t have to use it during construction.)

So back to the multimillion-dollar question: Will traffic flow any better on and off the bridge than it did two years ago? I wouldn’t bet on it. Commuters should be happy if it flows better than it did two weeks ago.

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