The Worst Day and Time to Drive on Every Los Angeles Freeway

If the stereotypes of Saturday Night Live's mock soap opera The Californians are real, Angelenos are obsessed with discussing in detail the best ways to get around town. To do that, it's probably important to know the worst ones too, so they can be avoided like the plague. For that, there's new data from traffic-watching firm Inrix, which found that LA was home to 11 of the top 25 worst segments of freeway in the country, says the LA Times, including the top three on the list. The top spot goes to the southbound 101 Freeway between Woodland Hills and the area around Downtown's Union Station. At worst day (Wednesdays), during the worst time (8 am to 9 am), that 26-mile trip can take 90 minutes.

Number two was also on the 101: the nearly 22-mile stretch from the 60 Freeway/Soto to Haskell Avenue in Encino. That one is its most heinous at night, on Wednesdays from 6 pm to 7 pm, when it'll take 70 minutes to get from one point to the other. Not to be left out, the 110, 405, and 5 Freeways all make an appearance in the line-up of 25 worst freeway sections:

Overall, greater Los Angeles only had the second worst traffic in the US, following Washington, DC. Angelenos spend about 80 extra hours in traffic every year. But LA did have the biggest difference between normal travel times and rush hour travel times—rush hour is an insane 43 percent slower than non-peak hours.
· Worst Corridors [Inrix]