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California-GAF: CalTrans reports 15 of the 20 most congested CA freeways are in SoCal

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XiaNaphryz

LATIN, MATRIPEDICABUS, DO YOU SPEAK IT
Big surprise, I know!

http://www.sfgate.com/news/us/article/What-California-freeway-has-the-most-gridlock-5230493.php

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Those who like to argue — or brag — about the worst commute in this traffic-tangled state have a new measure of their misery.

What is the most congested stretch of California freeway? It has more reconstructive surgery than a Hollywood has-been and, if you make it through the madness, you can head to the border (Mexico or Canada).

The dubious honor goes to ... Interstate 5 in Los Angeles County.

In 2012 alone, vehicles spent a cumulative 6.6 million extra hours on that road due to heavy traffic. And those 753 years only count the hours when the traffic was going less than 35 mph.

The numbers come from data analyzed by the California Department of Transportation, which calculates time wasted in "heavy congestion" using sensors under the pavement that track vehicle speed. Caltrans did the math and then ranked freeways on a county level. The agency collects the data to identify which freeways most need traffic relief.

It was the second year in a row that "the 5," as locals call it, topped Caltrans' most-congested-freeways list. The reigning champion had been the stretch of Interstate 405 that cuts across the western part of Los Angeles County.
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CalTrans report: http://www.dot.ca.gov/ctjournal/2014-1/TheMileMarker_Jan2014.pdf

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If we can get everyone down in SoCal switched over to hydrogen power cars, maybe their traffic can contribute to their water supply!

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LA native. This is the #1 reason I moved and am never going back. Day after day, hour after hour, it eventually just wears you down to a ball of stress being stuck in a car when all you want to do is go down the street or get groceries or go to a friend's house.
 
Phthisis said:
LA native. This is the #1 reason I moved and am never going back. Day after day, hour after hour, it eventually just wears you down to a ball of stress being stuck in a car when all you want to do is go down the street or get groceries or go to a friend's house.
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Now when you say "down the street" I'm thinking about 1/2-3/4 mile tops, which is totally walkable.
 
I remember a while back some guy had the license plate "IH8405". Got a chuckle outta that.

But yeah, moving from LA to the bay area, I laugh at what people call bad traffic here. The BART closure wasn't even close to a regular day of my OC-LA commute.
 
Basically matches my experience. 101 can be annoying, but 5 is terrible. Anything in LA is terrible, really.
 
Best part? 110, 91 (at a certain part), and 10 have 'Fasttrak' bullshit where you have to pay a toll to ride in it. Instead of opening up 3-4 new huge lanes to relieve traffic, those lanes can be totally empty or with minimal traffic while the lanes next to them are crawling.

Fuck Southern California and the morons at CalTrans and whoever is in charge of these freeways. I think I'm moving to San Diego, lol
 
NoLoveForFailWheelDrive said:
Best part? 110, 91 (at a certain part), and 10 have 'Fasttrak' bullshit where you have to pay a toll to ride in it. Instead of opening up 3-4 new huge lanes to relieve traffic, those lanes can be totally empty or with minimal traffic while the lanes next to them are crawling.

Fuck Southern California and the morons at CalTrans and whoever is in charge of these freeways. I think I'm moving to San Diego, lol
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Doesn't San Diego also have toll roads?
 
NoLoveForFailWheelDrive said:
Best part? 110, 91 (at a certain part), and 10 have 'Fasttrak' bullshit where you have to pay a toll to ride in it. Instead of opening up 3-4 new huge lanes to relieve traffic, those lanes can be totally empty or with minimal traffic while the lanes next to them are crawling.

Fuck Southern California and the morons at CalTrans and whoever is in charge of these freeways. I think I'm moving to San Diego, lol
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In addition to being one of the highest taxed states in the country, they're also woefully broke (good job legislature!), so they have to resort to pulling income from wherever they can municipally.

I moved to Washington state last year, and I cannot even begin to tell you how much better the quality of life in a city that isn't LA is. The infrastructure here works, it's cleverly designed, and everything is clean and the state has the money to keep things in shape. It felt like moving to a new country, honestly.
 
I am considering moving to LA. Near Century City, Hollywood, West Hollywood, etc. nowhere near ready to pick out a neighborhood yet. Besides never leaving my house, how do I avoid or minimize the world's worst traffic?
 
Not surprised, traffic here blows. Too many people, spread out, and nobody knows how to drive. It is at the point where instead of getting mad, I can't help but laugh at the asshole in the truck cutting in and out of lanes trying to get through traffic.
 
Stumpokapow said:
I am considering moving to LA. Near Century City, Hollywood, West Hollywood, etc. nowhere near ready to pick out a neighborhood yet. Besides never leaving my house, how do I avoid or minimize the world's worst traffic?
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You literally just listed three of the worst parts of LA for traffic.

I used to live in West Hollywood. Going to the supermarket, just over a mile from home, was a 2 hour mission. Going to the supermarket AND Home Depot (which meant traversing Sunset and Hollywood Blvds through swarms of tourists on the weekends) meant a 3 hour mission.
 
Stumpokapow said:
I am considering moving to LA. Near Century City, Hollywood, West Hollywood, etc. nowhere near ready to pick out a neighborhood yet. Besides never leaving my house, how do I avoid or minimize the world's worst traffic?
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Don't move to those areas. They're fucking horrible.

Live in Long Beach, way nicer. Where are you commuting to?
 
Stumpokapow said:
I am considering moving to LA. Near Century City, Hollywood, West Hollywood, etc. nowhere near ready to pick out a neighborhood yet. Besides never leaving my house, how do I avoid or minimize the world's worst traffic?
Click to expand...

The Century City/Hollywood/West Hollywood triangle is probably the worst sector for street traffic on the west side, mostly because there's no freeway that goes through there. So either get a bike (lots of bike lanes) or walk everywhere. Unless you plan to go anywhere that isn't one of those places, because then you will hit traffic when you drive. Just the nature of the beast.

I lived in Culver City for a long time. It's its own municipality (own school district, own city hall, etc.), so it's a lot nicer than most places in LA County. Central to most of the west side, some nice living options.
 
XiaNaphryz said:
Doesn't San Diego also have toll roads?
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Only one I can think of is the 15, and that one doubles as the HOV lane.

Surprised San Diego even made the list. There are times when traffic is a bitch, but it's strictly only during those hours. And I'm surprised it's the 5, when the 163 is the real pain.
 
Not that LA isn't the traffic infested shithole we all know it to be, measuring the relative traffic in two different cities based on the amount of hours spent in traffic mostly just measures the size of the city/number of cars on the road.

Average time per driver is a much more relevant statistic.
 
Mass transit can't come soon enough it seems.

I wonder how it will pan out. LA seems to be a car city through and through.
 
the 5 is the worst freeway on the planet. You waste your life away on it 99% of the time you try to take it. I've had bumper to bumper traffic on the 5 at hours like 3am several times.
 
Stumpokapow said:
I am considering moving to LA. Near Century City, Hollywood, West Hollywood, etc. nowhere near ready to pick out a neighborhood yet. Besides never leaving my house, how do I avoid or minimize the world's worst traffic?
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Go to work early and sleep.

Learn a surface street route. (The Westside is kind-of grid plan.)

Accept that you have no control over your life, there is no meaning to existence, and that god is dead.
 
Karakand said:
Accept that you have no control over your life, there is no meaning to existence, and that god is dead.
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This is how I always feel when I head down to San Diego from NorCal to visit family and have to go through LA and Orange County.
 
Stumpokapow said:
I am considering moving to LA. Near Century City, Hollywood, West Hollywood, etc. nowhere near ready to pick out a neighborhood yet. Besides never leaving my house, how do I avoid or minimize the world's worst traffic?
Click to expand...

There's no traffic here in SoCal... these reports are lies! Also we have the most respectful drivers in the country. Mercedes and Lexus owners always use their turn signals. Life is great. I can make it from the OC to Northridge in like 15 minutes doing the speed limit. It's also the safest place to be a pedestrian or a none driver with centrally located metro systems and cheap mass transit and private transportation services. The only bad thing I'll say about this is that home and rentals are so cheap here that you'll have a hard time picking which beach-side community you want! Wow what a city awaits you. Caltrans is essentially using hyperbole to make their existence and over-budget work seem justifiable. Would you really buy fire insurance from an arsonist?
 
Stumpokapow said:
I am considering moving to LA. Near Century City, Hollywood, West Hollywood, etc. nowhere near ready to pick out a neighborhood yet. Besides never leaving my house, how do I avoid or minimize the world's worst traffic?
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Do you know where you'd be working? Really as long as you pick a place to live that's simpático with your work location, traffic wise, then you can save a lot of headaches with traffic.
 
The Real TimersVerified account
‏@RealTimers
"Grand Theft Auto V...set in a mythical Los Angeles, where cars move." @billmaher #RealTime
 
AMUSIX said:
Only one I can think of is the 15, and that one doubles as the HOV lane.

Surprised San Diego even made the list. There are times when traffic is a bitch, but it's strictly only during those hours. And I'm surprised it's the 5, when the 163 is the real pain.
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The 125 has a toll south of Spring Valley. The 805 should be on that list. My once 30 minute commute from the South Bay to La Jolla has turned into an hour commute in the past year. It's horrible in the morning.
 
There's an enlightening episode of PBS's America Revealed about this.

http://video.pbs.org/video/2223774770/

The Orange County highway section is at the very, very end (around 46 min. or the next to last advert mark), but it explained LA's problems pretty clearly: the originally proposed freeway systems would have cut threw communities, and activist weren't having it. Now the freeway system is about half of what it should be and some neighborhoods were still devastated.

And the only way to seemingly solve them is to get people off the roads and on to other modes of transit. And earlier segments showcase good road transit systems.
 
Stumpokapow said:
I am considering moving to LA. Near Century City, Hollywood, West Hollywood, etc. nowhere near ready to pick out a neighborhood yet. Besides never leaving my house, how do I avoid or minimize the world's worst traffic?
Click to expand...

Avoid having to take the freeway, learn the surface routes. The freeways are for people commuting in from Santa Clarita or Orange County. If you live in Los Angeles itself there are always a number of faster ways to get somewhere outside of a few choke points like Hollywood/Highland and Laurel Canyon. If you memorize which side streets have lights to cross the main roads rather than stop signs, you can cut an hour long trip down to 15 minutes in some places.
 
Every time I've tried driving in LA, traffic's actually been okay (at least compared to Seattle). Even rush hour wasn't so bad. But then, I might have gotten lucky...
 
It was never too bad for me in my limited time here, until yesterday. Took well over three fucking hours to drive from the Santa Monica Pier to Pasadena (typically a 30 minute drive). The 10 moved up my shit list after that


jb1234 said:
Every time I've tried driving in LA, traffic's actually been okay (at least compared to Seattle). Even rush hour wasn't so bad. But then, I might have gotten lucky...
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Yeah, LA has bad traffic, but it seems like if you just use some sense (and sigalert) you'll be fine. I still think some areas in DFW are worse than some on the list, but that may just be because of the construction all the time
 
I commute from North Hollywood to Torrance every day right now for a job I recently got. Looking into moving closer as soon as possible.

The drive there takes around 40 minutes and is smooth enough, but the drive back averages anywhere from an hour and 20 minutes to 2 hours.. pure, soul crushing, back aching agony all the way home.

The only options are all horrible: 110 to 101 or 405 or the 110 to the 5 to the 134 to the 170.... Seriously?
 
105 is surprisingly low on the list, strange.

It was hell going on the 105 then the 405. I hate to think of summer when I have to work again. :(
 
jb1234 said:
Every time I've tried driving in LA, traffic's actually been okay (at least compared to Seattle). Even rush hour wasn't so bad. But then, I might have gotten lucky...
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You're crazy. I live in Seattle now, and I laugh every time I hear a native complain about traffic. Sure it can be packed, but most of the traffic goes through the city north-south, and then only at periods of rush hour commute. The difference is that in LA, traffic is stop-go-stop-go-stop-go gridlock. In Seattle it's a constant pace of 10-20 mph with very little braking. Makes a huge difference.
 
Phthisis said:
You're crazy. I live in Seattle now, and I laugh every time I hear a native complain about traffic. Sure it can be packed, but most of the traffic goes through the city north-south, and then only at periods of rush hour commute. The difference is that in LA, traffic is stop-go-stop-go-stop-go gridlock. In Seattle it's a constant pace of 10-20 mph with very little braking. Makes a huge difference.
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It's gotten worse in Seattle over the years, especially after the 520 toll (for 90 traffic). I've only driven in LA a couple of times and both were going east to west, from the beach cities to downtown.
 
youngplaya21 said:
It was never too bad for me in my limited time here, until yesterday. Took well over three fucking hours to drive from the Santa Monica Pier to Pasadena (typically a 30 minute drive). The 10 moved up my shit list after that
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10 east after about 3:30pm till about 7:30pm - 8pm is a thing to avoid at all costs. Probably Would have gotten there much quicker 405 -> 101 -> 134
 
People in LA, do you guys have any form of mass transit? I know here in the Bay Area, traffic can get really shitty at times; especially 101 and I-580. But there's BART, Caltrain, and several other local transits that helps alleviate traffic
 
the 5 is my most feared because that stretch from downtown to the Orange County line is nasty. That said, I also think that stretch of the 5 is relatively easy to navigate around with the 710 and 91 and others (at least on the weekend).

I live near the 101/405 interchange. The 405 sucks ass if your commute into Santa Monica. The 101 sucks period.

Fortunately I can take surface streets to the office or freeways against traffic
 
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