Escaping the 405 mess on flights of fancy

Hot air balloons, blimps and human catapults will go into service beginning promptly at 6 a.m. Saturday to transport people over the Sepulveda Pass during the closure of the 405. Reservations can be made online, and all major credit cards will be accepted.

Afraid of flying? Not to worry. Burro pack teams will embark from stations on both Ventura and Sunset boulevards, with discounts for those who travel two per donkey.

Meanwhile, crisis counseling centers will be established by the Los Angeles Department of Transportation, with psychologists, personal transit planners and life coaches on hand. The staff will help travelers come to grips with the trauma of breaking routine, as well as helping them plan activities that don’t require use of the 405.

“We anticipate a number of people suffering from disorientation, rage and general anxiety,” said an LADOT spokesman. “This disruption can be survived if people pull together and, as needed, take advantage of the professional help we’ll be offering.”

Crisis counseling will be offered at the Warner Center Park on Topanga Canyon in Woodland Hills; Galpin Jaguar on Roscoe Boulevard, east of the 405; the John Wooden Center at UCLA; and the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society of North Hollywood (where members will be encouraged to escape traffic problems by time traveling to a different weekend).

For those who absolutely must get quickly from the Valley to the Westside during the 405 closure, L.A. Department of Transportation chief Jaime de la Vega has volunteered to bring his Hummer out of retirement to assist travelers who don’t mind traversing coyote trails. De la Vega plans to give preference to those with large cargo needs.

Southwest Airlines, meanwhile, has announced weekend service from Bob Hope Airport to LAX, with departures every four minutes. Flight time will be 48 seconds, and there will be no drink service on the route.

“Depending on popularity, we will consider offering Burbank-LAX service on a regular basis,” said a Southwest spokesman, who estimated that this weekend’s fares will range from $19 to $499, depending on variables not even the airline understands.

As reported Sunday by Times scribes Ari Bloomekatz and Sam Allen, millions of dollars could have been saved on the 405 project and much of the disruption avoided. But meddling activists who live along the Sepulveda corridor had aesthetic concerns about the plans, among other quibbles. In L.A. transportation planning, it’s never about a greater good. In the end, Caltrans and Metro officials caved in.

Would transportation officials have bowed to residents if this project were in, say, Carson, rather than along Bel-Air and Brentwood?

You be the judge. And if you’re interested, efforts are still underway to stage a dunk tank exhibition on the UCLA football field this weekend, with the Sepulveda activists and Metro officials sitting on the plank.

For those who still have no idea why the 405 needs to be temporarily closed, this is all part of a $1-billion widening project that involves the demolition and rebuilding of the Mulholland Bridge and will add a carpool lane to the northbound side of the highway.

The new carpool lane will make for a series of connecting high-occupancy lanes across the region, and a Metro official says the new lane is expected to cut 10 to 12 minutes off the time it takes to get over the pass.

Surveys, statistics and past experience with readers suggest that fewer than 0.0013% of the people who just read that last paragraph believe that 10 to 12 minutes will be cut off of anything. When it comes to transportation, Los Angeles is unique in that everyone is a transportation expert who just happens to have the solution.

In order, the suggestions include getting rid of illegal immigrants; impeaching all public officials; building a monorail system; more trains and fewer buses; more buses and fewer trains; more bike lanes; more carpooling; more dedicated lanes just for trucks.

People tend to be faithful to a single solution, particularly the monorail people, as opposed to a little of this and a little of that. Nobody wants to hear that any of it will cost anything, or require them to change any of their routines, and they particularly dislike the recently announced plan to put toll roads on sections of the 110 and 10 freeways.

Those critics scream about lanes for haves and lanes for have-nots. It doesn’t matter how many times you explain that “have-nots” benefit from having others voluntarily pay a user fee to ease congestion for everyone and raise money for highway maintenance, if not transit alternatives.

If you don’t drop the conversation there, you’ll be accused of being either a Lexus Lane conservative or a soft-headed liberal who wants to give more money to the government, probably to be spent on illegal immigrants. Or you’ll be asked what part of “FREE-way don’t you understand?”

Whether you’re stuck in traffic this weekend, or you have the good sense to stay home or go for a walk, it’s a lot to contemplate.

At press time, plans were underway to provide Coast Guard shuttles between Ventura and Marina del Rey, and for those who just can’t cope, reserve now for the crisis counseling center nearest you.

steve.lopez@latimes.com