best way to drive north through (or around) LA tomorrow, December 21st?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Title says it all, mostly. We are traveling from North San Diego County all the way up past Sacramento, California, tomorrow afternoon. We will begin at about 2 pm. We were gonna take the train, but now my husband has to come back and work on the 24th, so we need the freedom of the car. The Wednesday before Thanksgiving, we spent about 4 hours, 45 minutes getting through LA. Got there at 3 pm, left there at 8 pm. We took the 5 the whole way. So. New plan is desired.

Suggestions, LA/Southern CA dopers? PCH? If so, from where to where? Something else? Thanks in advance for your time and help!

2

Oh, so that was you tailgating me in Irvine? :slight_smile:

Seriously, we went the opposite direction, Bay Area south to San Diego, same day. We took 5 over the grapevine, then east onto 210. Turned south somewhere near San Dimas, I think (spouse was navigating… 57?), eventually onto 15 and on to SD.

That was the plan, anyway. We ran into a humongous jam on east 210, there was some accident. 3+ hours to go 11 miles, what a nightmare. Total trip time, 9 1/2 hours.

3

[QUOTE=squeegee]
Oh, so that was you tailgating me in Irvine? :slight_smile:

Yeah, that was me. :slight_smile: Argh, yeah, a total nightmare, probably anywhere. I am hoping against hope that tomorrow won’t be as bad. So…I wonder what anyone else thinks of your route, even though it was messed up because of the accident/s.

4

O.K. from north county take the 15 up over the Cajon pass to the 395. 395 North to the 58. 58 West over Tehachapi to Bakersfield. Then either turn North on 99 or continue west to the 5 and go north.

This avoids L.A. traffic and you wind up on the north side of the grapevine. The downside is weather in Cajon and Tehachapi.

5

Hmm, now that’s an interesting idea. This is very tempting.

6

First, big mistake going anywhere near LA around Thanksgiving - day of, or day before. Easily the worst time for travel that direction. Christmas isn’t as bad, so you’re already in for a better time.

When I head north to go to the bay area, I always take I-15 to the 210. The 210 hugs the base of the mountains all the way around the LA basin, and then hooks into the I-5 just as it is climbing the hills. WAY better than staying on I-5 all the way, and significantly better than taking the 405 around the south/west side.
The other added benefit is that I-15 is 70 mph most of the way (up until Corona).

Leaving in the afternoon, you may hit some traffic on I-15 getting out of town (from Mira Mesa all the way up to Escondido). But from then on, it should be relatively smooth sailing. Even when you get near Corona/Norco (you’ll be going against all the commuter traffic leaving the city).

You can either stay on I-15 all the way to the 210 (north of the I-10/I-15 interchange). But I prefer to take the 60 west to the 57 (over the hills from Chino). You need to get off the freeway and go through a light to get from the 60 west to the 57 north, but not a big deal. Just pay attention to the signs as you descend down the hill from Chino Hills.

Looking at a map, you may be tempted to either:
A. take the 91 west, to the 71 north, to the 210
B. take the 60 west to the 71 north
C. take the I-10 west to the 57
or
D. stay on the I-15 all the way to the intersection with the 210

I have tried each of these options, and each has drawbacks:
A and B rely on the 71, and you hit a (very) slow, non-freeway section outside Pomona. Costs you time.
C puts you on a crappy (old, narrow) section of the I-10 from Ontario to Pomona, and this section is always slow.
D is the simplest, but you will notice that the I-15 veers east before hitting the 210. So you actually add some distance for the “simplicity”. Again, you will be going against traffic on the 210, so it won’t be too bad. But I hate adding any extra miles to a trip.

Especially since they added some lanes, the 60 is now the preferred way to get to the 57. The only annoying part is the little side-street detour you need to take to get to the 57 north. (Coming back, there is a similar detour to get from the 57 south to the 60 east).
If you miss this, you can stay on the 60 to the 605, and take that north to the 210 as well. But the section of the 60 from the 57 to the 605 generally slows down (for no apparent reason usually).

So to recap:
I-15 north (slow until Escondido, but good after that)
(past Norco) 60 west
(over the hill from Chino) 57 north
210 west
I-5 north

One last note: on the 210 near Pasadena where the 134 branches off, you will need to move to the far right lane to stay on the 210. The other 3 (4 ?) lanes become the 134 west). There will be signs, but just pay attention when you get to Pasadena.
If there is any slowing on the 210, it is usually in the Azusa/Pasadena area. But other than that, it usually moves pretty good.

7

Cormac, that’s essentially the route we took (of course, I was admittedly hand-waving between 15 and 210, thanks for filling it in). We’d had pretty good luck with goid that route before, except for last month and that fubar’d accident . Once we got out of the Pasadena area, it was great.

Good luck, tesseract.

8

I have done just about every major drive between San Diego and Sacramento. The ideas here are all good. My two suggestions are as follows:

Either this one (more traffic risk):
15 N
60 W (Avoid 91 W)
71 N
210 W
5 N

Or this one (nasty desert & trucks):
15 N
(Stay on 15 N at Temecula/Murrieta or take 215 N back to 15 N at Devore)
395 N
58 W
99 N

If you take 15 N instead of 215 N, you may hit traffic from Corona through Ontario. If you take 215 N, you may see traffic at Riverside, but probably less. Just keep your eyes peeled for the proper ramps at 215 N and 91.
The second option is only a difference of about 20 miles, but may be the best in peak traffic hours. The only problem with 395/58 instead of 71/210/5 is that you get stuck behind trucks more often and it’s blah desert much of the way. There’s not a lot of scenery near Adelanto, for example.

However, the drive over the Tehachapi Mountains on 58 can be very scenic. I was very pleasantly surprised. Parts of the Grapevine are gorgeous, but it’s hard to appreciate it when you’re diverting more attention to the traffic.

Since you are beginning at 2 pm, I think it best to stay on 99 instead of heading over to 5. First, going over to 5 won’t save you much time, and 99 is more populated than 5, giving you more options to stop if you get tired or hungry.

My wife & I recently drove from San Diego to Sacramento. We were glad we decided on 99 instead of 5 because we decided to call it quits for the day in Tulare.

We just had to make a stop at Escondido early in the morning to have breakfast with family. We were then planning on visiting someone in Ojai, forcing us to head from Escondido over to 78/5/73/405. Then, we hit traffic and scrapped the Ojai plan, but my wife suddenly wanted to look at the Hollywood sign, having never seen it. So we went 405/710/101. Then, we got a flat tire in Hollywood. Once that was fixed, we headed up 101/5/99. We took 99 because we knew we were getting exhausted. Dinner at Apple Annies and rest at Tulare hit the spot.

9

I agree that Christmas isn’t as bad as Thanksgiving. Especially when you’re leaving today. The holiday is more “spread out” if you know what I mean. I don’t think everyone travels on the same exact day over Christmas as much as they do on Thanksgiving.

Good luck!

10

I want to clarify that the intersection is three freeways, 215, 91, and 60. If you are on 215 N and keep heading straight, you will end up on 60 W. You don’t want this.

91 E ends at this intersection and becomes 215 N.

So, if you are on 215 N and want to continue on 215 N, you must take an exit ramp at this intersection as if you were going 215 N to 91 E… but it’s not called 91 E anymore, it’s 215 N. Makes sense?

11

This is the best option. I was a trucker and I’ve used this route many times. There’s no guarantee because anything can happen to snarl traffic, but this is your best shot.

12

Please tell us which you picked and how it went. Have fun!

13

I will —thanks much for all the responses!

14

That’s such a slow way to go, at least that’s what I think. First, going through San Bernadino County is a bitch- traffic is always awful and there are about a million cops around. Then, the desert part is fine, but remember that it might be snowing over Tehachapi- that road gets closed a lot this time of year.

Frankly, I’d just take the 5 straight up- in my experience, it’s one of the fastest ways from the South end to anywhere up north, even through LA. Though, I can agree that it maybe isn’t an awful idea to take the 15 to the 210 to the 5.

15

Cajon Pass is clear and looking towards Tehachapi…clear.

Just in case, if you hear on the radio about accidents on the 395 or 58, you could take the 138 or the 18 (which merges into the 138) towards Palmdale and take the 14 north to the 58…but otherwise, stick with 395 and the 58. Good Luck.

16

So, how’d it go, tesseract?

17

Well, if they tried to come back over the 58 today, they are probably still stuck in traffic heh :).

18

Hi, everybody. Well, we did this: *From north county take the 15 up over the Cajon pass to the 395. 395 North to the 58. 58 West over Tehachapi to Bakersfield. Then either turn North on 99 or continue west to the 5 and go north.This avoids L.A. traffic and you wind up on the north side of the grapevine. The downside is weather in Cajon and Tehachapi. * and it worked pretty well. There WAS a bit of traffic on the 15 on the way up, which definitely slowed us down. I don’t think there was any traffic-less route to be found. We made it in 10.5 hours, down from 12 hours the day before Thanksgiving, using the 5. I had been hoping for something like 9 or 9.5, but that was not to be. I would definitely use that route again, though. We checked the weather in Tehachapi before going and it was clear. If there was weather, I wouldn’t do it.

Incidentally, I think we might just try to go late from now on. On the way home, we made it in 8.5 hours going on 5, even with a detour to drop my brother off at the Sacramento airport. We hit LA at about 11 p.m., a lovely, deserted time. Well, you know what I mean by deserted in LA. Plenty of people, all going 80 mph.

19

Oh, yeah – as between 99 and 5, we took 5 all the way to Sacramento, then 99 north of that (to Chico). I know there’s nothing on 5 as far as gas and food, but you can go a lot faster because you avoid slowing down for all the little towns.