Sepulveda Tunnel to Be Shut for Repairs

The Sepulveda Boulevard tunnel, which provides one of the main links between the Los Angeles Basin and the San Fernando Valley, will be closed for as many as six weeks starting Saturday because of road repairs, Los Angeles officials announced Monday.

The closure of the surface street is expected to cause traffic jams on suggested alternate routes, such as the San Diego Freeway, the officials said.

“It’s going to be a mess, but we have to live with it,” Los Angeles City Councilman Marvin Braude said at a press conference in front of the tunnel.

The tunnel will be shut down while workers reduce the height of the pavement. Repeated repaving inside the tunnel, which runs beneath Mullholland Drive, has raised the roadway’s level to the point where trucks are in danger of scraping the sloping roof, the councilman said. That forces drivers of those vehicles to maneuver dangerously toward the center of the tunnel into the path of oncoming traffic.