LA's Half-A-Billion-Dollar Bridge Shut Down After Just 2 Weeks

Street racing and other hooliganism has plagued the 6th Street Viaduct since the day it opened. Now the city is scrambling to add speed bumps and barriers.

By  Andy Kalmowitz
Mario Tama/Getty Images

The 6th Street Viaduct – Los Angeles's newest bridge, which opened just two weeks ago – is now closed until further notice, largely due to a near constant stream of illegal activity from drivers taking over the brand-new, $588 million bridge in downtown L.A.

Street racing and other automotive sideshows have plagued the bridge since it first opened on July 10th, according to CBS News. The LAPD has shut down the bridge numerous times in an effort to curb these events, but to no avail. Now, speed bumps are being installed and LAPD Chief Michel Moore is nearly out of ideas.

Moore said the department won't be able to arrest their way out of the situation.

"Despite the hundreds of impounds and citations and arrests, we still see the proliferation of this. So I'm asking for the public's help and support and assistance," he said at a police commission meeting.

Along with the new speed bumps, the city is installing a center median divider as well as fencing to discourage people from scaling the archways, which is just one more baffling thing people have been doing on the bridge.

So far, police have given out nearly 60 citations and impounded six vehicles in relation to activity on the 6th Street Viaduct in the past five days alone, according to Moore.

For the most part, it seems like a lot of the goofus behavior is your typical hooliganism in the name of going viral. Videos all over social media show people street racing and doing donuts on the Viaduct, as well as climbing the bridge arches. Less than two weeks ago, the driver of a Dodge Challenger crashed while doing donuts on the bridge, abandoning their car and fleeing on foot.

It's not just muscle-car nonsense, though: CBS reports on videos of a man getting a haircut in the middle of the bridge, or another showing a man shadow boxing in a red cape. Moore says that the majority of the people seeing video glory on the Viaduct are out-of-towners.

The original bridge the Viaduct replaces was an iconic LA landmark, seen in movies like Grease and Terminator 2: Judgement Day. The new bridge wasted no time making a name for itself, clearly.

So far, there's no timeline for when the Viaduct will re-open. When it does, it's anyone's guess as to whether the new medians and barriers will prevent further nonsense from shutting down the bridge all over again.

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