When a 10-mile stretch of L.A.'s interstate 405 is closed this weekend, there will be only one way to get through the gridlock: Fly over it. WSJ's Tammy Audi takes a ride with Briles Wing & Helicopter. 
 
 LOS ANGELES—To help anxious Angelenos survive this weekend's shutdown of a chunk of one of the nation's busiest freeways, Kim Rodgers is offering to photograph their pets—at a discount. 
 
 "You've got to be crazy to try to drive anywhere," says Ms. Rodgers, co-owner of Bark Pet Photography, which takes pet portraits at customers' homes. "So if you're stuck, why not have your cat or dog photographed?" The Santa Monica company is offering 20% off on account of the planned closure of Interstate 405. The "4-0-fido" deal extends to all pets. 
 
 For 53 hours starting Friday night, the 405 will be closed for a 10-mile stretch through the Sepulveda Pass on the western side of Los Angeles so the California Department of Transportation, or Caltrans, can partially demolish a bridge to create a new lane for high-occupancy vehicles. The project won't be complete until 2013. 
 
 The closure of a major artery already notorious for daily gridlock is expected to produce a traffic jam of epic proportions. Locals have dubbed it "Carmageddon" and "Carpocalypse." 
 
 Officials fear it will bring Los Angeles to a standstill. The 250,000 vehicles that normally use that part of the 405 daily are expected to overwhelm smaller highways and surface streets. 
 
 The ensuing snarl will effectively cut off the San Fernando Valley in the north from shoreline communities like Santa Monica and Venice. 
 
 "It will be an absolute nightmare," Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said at a press conference last month. "Avoid the area, or stay home. Go on vacation that weekend." 
 
 City officials enlisted the help of celebrities to spread the word, tapping "CHiPs" star Erik Estrada ("Ponch") to film a public service announcement. "LAPD asked me 2tweet: 405fwy btwn 10 & 101 will be closed July16-17," actor Ashton Kutcher told his seven million followers on Twitter. "In xchange I would like a free pass on that stoplight tickt IT WAS YELLOW." 
 
 Bark Pet Photography Merchants hope to recover traffic-related lost business. 
 
 Amid the pre-emptive panic, a cluster of Carmageddon capitalists is emerging to combat the shutdown's impact on the local economy. 
 
 Fearful that the traffic will slow business, scores of merchants—from hotels and bars to florists and jewelers—are offering deals to lure spenders from their homes. Those located on shutdown-friendly thoroughfares, or neighborhoods with captive residents, see an opportunity to profit. 
 
 "It's the perfect time to get a tattoo. You can say, 'I got a tattoo the weekend they closed the 405.' It'll make it more special," says Howard Teman, owner of T-Man Tattoo on Ventura Boulevard, which is expected to clog during the 405 closure. 
 
 Mr. Teman is offering 15% off "any piercing or tattoo." He's not only hoping to attract people who live in his neighborhood, but also those stuck in the anticipated traffic crawl outside his location. To lure weary drivers out of their cars, Mr. Teman says he's thinking of hiring a man dressed in a chicken suit to stand on the sidewalk. 
 
 On Wednesday, JetBlue Airways Corp. announced a "Fly Over the 405" deal with a $4 one-way flight from Burbank to Long Beach, 40 miles away. For $150, travelers fearing Carmageddon can fly over the snarl in the same luxury helicopters that ferry celebrities like Will Smith and, most recently, England's William and Catherine, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, during their Los Angeles visit. 
 
 "We're trying to make something good out of this," says Lance Strumpf, the chief pilot of Briles Wing & Helicopter Inc. in Van Nuys. The company usually charges at least $5,000 for a minimum two-hour charter flight in an Agusta copter, which features Italian leather seats, sound-proof interiors and subtle lighting. 
 
 The price gets passengers a 15-minute flight (one-way) from the Van Nuys Airport, in the San Fernando Valley, over the 405 to the Los Angeles International Airport or the Santa Monica Airport. For no extra cost, passengers "can look at all those people stuck in traffic down below," Mr. Strumpf says. 
 
 "Brave the 405 closure with a four-course dinner for $40.05," declares the Wilshire Restaurant on Los Angeles' west side. In Santa Monica, Harvelle's bar is offering $5 for an "Irish Car Bomb" or a "Cadillac Margarita." 
 
 The shutdown has spawned Car-mageddon.com, a website that has become the regional clearinghouse for shutdown events, deals and commentary. It sells T-shirts for $20 that read "My gridlock is bigger than yours." 
 
 On the upside, Angelenos can thank the closure for lowering the price they pay for diamonds. 
 
 Fifth Generation Readers Fine Jewelers is offering 20% off all merchandise except single diamonds over half a carat. 
 
 Avo Guerboian, whose family owns the Santa Monica shop, says he has offered discounts for Rose Bowl games and holidays, but never for a road closure. To distract potential customers from the nonromantic side of combining a gift of jewelry with the freeway shutdown, Mr. Guerboian says he will encourage clients to "Think of it not like 'Oh, the highway is closed, and I got this necklace.' But like 'Oh, you're getting 20% off, why don't you get me the matching earrings?'" 
 
 Many businesses privately are worried the deals won't be enough to pry spenders from home. 
 
 "The idea of the 405 being closed for a critical weekend in the summer is unfortunate timing for us," says Jeff Klocke, marketing director for Pacific Park, the amusement park on the Santa Monica Pier. About 60,000 to 80,000 people visit the pier on a summer weekend day, Mr. Klocke said, most of them from outside Santa Monica. 
 
 The park is offering 53 hours of free rides to anyone with a San Fernando Valley zip code on their driver's license. It also ordered special "traffic-cone orange" cotton candy for the weekend—free with a day pass. Hard pressed to find an orange variety, the park got a local novelty food vendor to whip up the shade on short notice, using a banana-flavored base and experimenting with color and heat. 
 
 The cotton-candy color: "Caltrans Orange." 
 
 Write to Tamara Audi at tammy.audi@wsj.com ||||| Story highlights Authorities cite three people who try to enter the freeway 
 
 The feared traffic tie-ups do not materialize 
 
 A 10-mile section of Interstate 405 was closed for the weekend 
 
 A portion of a bridge came down as workers were demolishing another part of it 
 
 Southern California motorists honked their horns cheerfully as authorities reopened 10 miles of the nation's busiest highway ahead of schedule late Sunday night. 
 
 The latest phase in a massive project that led to the weekend closure of a large swath of Interstate 405 ended hours ahead of the Monday morning commute. 
 
 Southern California officials had dubbed the project "Carmageddon II." But the nightmare traffic tie-ups that prompted the fittingly Hollywood-worthy name did not materialize as motorists either stayed home or chose alternate routes. 
 
 California Highway Patrol said it cited three people who tried to enter the closed section of the freeway early Sunday. But overall, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa declared the project a "resounding success." 
 
 "Our hope and expectation was that it would be Carmaheaven 2," Villaraigosa said, noting that a weekend-long highway shutdown last year had proceeded without a hitch, despite dire forecasts. "That hope and expectation came to be realized." 
 
 'Carmageddon,' the sequel: So far, Los Angeles drivers staying home 
 
 The 405, as it's locally called, connects suburban San Fernando Valley with Los Angeles International Airport. It also stretches into the well-to-do neighborhoods of west Los Angeles, such as Bel Air and Brentwood. 
 
 The massive transportation project's main aim is to install what Villaraigosa said would be the "longest ... carpool lane in the nation" on the oft-packed highway. 
 
 The project did see an unscripted moment Saturday, when a section of the famed 50-year-old Mulholland Drive Bridge -- a fixture in the Los Angeles freeway-scape -- narrowly missed workers demolishing another part of it. 
 
 iReport: Photos capture bridge collapse 
 
 Crews had planned to take down part of the bridge to make room for a wider roadway. The bridge will be reconstructed. 
 
 "On an operation of this size, of this magnitude, pieces come down of all different sizes and shapes," Dan Kulka of Kiewit Construction told CNN affiliate KABC. "We did not anticipate this, although it's not unusual for a big piece to come down like that." 
 
 Self-driving cars now legal in California 
 
 Governor signs law to make California home to nation's first truly high-speed rail ||||| LOS ANGELES, Sept 28 Car-crazed Los Angeles is preparing for a weekend of potential traffic gridlock that has earned the nickname "Carmageddon 2" amid fears drivers might not heed warnings to stay off the roads during a massive 53-hour freeway closure. 
 
 Warnings of nightmare jams last year in a phase of the same road-closing construction project kept so many people home that apocalyptic predictions of "Carmageddon" failed to materialize. 
 
 "Carmageddon, Schmarmageddon," Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said last year, after the 42-hour 405 Freeway shutdown was over. 
 
 But there are worries this year's project could result in more traffic, largely because it went so smoothly last year. 
 
 "If people don't think it's a problem, it will be one," Los Angeles City Councilman Paul Koretz told Reuters. 
 
 The shutdown of a 10-mile (16-kilometre) stretch of the 405 Freeway will begin at midnight on Friday, with closures of on-ramps at 7 p.m. Friday (0200 GMT Saturday), Metropolitan Transportation Authority spokesman Marc Littman said. 
 
 Lanes will open again at 5 a.m. on Monday, he said. 
 
 The shutdown is to allow workers to demolish the north side of a bridge that spans the 405 Freeway in the Sepulveda Pass as part of a $1 billion freeway widening project, Littman said. The south side of the bridge was demolished last year and has been rebuilt wider, just as the north side will be, he said. 
 
 A half million cars and trucks traverse the Sepulveda Pass stretch of the 405 Freeway on a typical weekend. 
 
 The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has held a dozen press conferences in recent weeks on the freeway shutdown and is spending $150,000 on advertising to remind the public about it, Littman said. 
 
 The California Department of Transportation has been warning about the closure for over a month on electronic freeway signs, some as far away as Sacramento, 360 miles (579 km) north of Los Angeles. 
 
 Traffic information service INRIX said this week that if Los Angeles drivers do not heed calls to avoid travel, traffic could increase by 45 percent on Sepulveda Boulevard alongside the stretch of the 405 Freeway being shut down. (Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Vicki Allen)
– LA residents are planning to flee or hunker down this weekend as a 10-mile stretch of the 405, one of the nation's busiest freeways, shuts down for 53 hours. For non-Angelenos: This is a big deal, hence the nicknames "Carmageddon" and "Carpocalypse." Some of the most amusing developments: Some businesses are offering discounts to woo customers tempted to stay home, the Wall Street Journal reports. A pet photog who makes house calls will give you 20% off with her "4-0-fido" deal. A tattoo shop on a sure-to-be-clogged thoroughfare is offering 15% off. One restaurant will serve a $40.05 four-course meal; a bar is offering $5 Irish Car Bombs and Cadillac Margaritas. JetBlue ran a "Fly Over the 405" special—$4 one-way tickets between Burbank and Long Beach, a 40-mile, 20-minute trip. That sold out in less than four hours, the Los Angeles Times notes, but you can still snag a $150 luxury helicopter ride over the traffic snarl, the WSJ adds. Best tweet? @latimestot quotes Jay Leno: "2 days til Carmageddon closes the 405 freeway & u wont be able to go anywhere. As opposed to when the 405 is open & u cant go anywhere." In truth, the Los Angeles Times notes, the 405 has been under construction for centuries, and it traces its evolution dating back to a Spanish explorer who rode through in 1769. Is there mayhem in the works? The LA Weekly seems to think so. One "after-hours bicycle mob" may be planning a "4PACOLYPSE" ride on the empty freeway, while officials are also worried about skateboarders. And one group says it's filming a "top secret" flash mob publicity stunt. That's not all: Watch two of the best viral videos, in the gallery.