Hehe…I used to take that on a regular basis. Nothing like making a 270-degree turn with a deceptively decreasing radius. There’s one very similar to that, but worse, transitioning from the 5 south to the 2 north. I’ve almost wiped out on it.
No signs warning about this?! That’s literally an accident waiting to happen. The semi in that sat photo doesn’t even look like it’s got enough room for its turning radius…
I used to live right there in Emeryville. That’s a rough junction indeed.
Actually, it’s the 101 (“The Hollywood Freeway”) and the 110 (The “Pasadena Freeway,” first in the nation)–but they conjoin with the 10 and the five, so it’s a connecting of four destinations. That’s an interchange that actually has two names: 1) “The Four-Level Interchange” (imagine: four freeways on top of each other); and 2), “The Stack.” It is at the bottom of “The Stack” where Michael Douglas’s character in the beginning of the film “Falling Down” is stuck in traffic, and loses it–he decides to abandon his car and make a walking trek across LA (county) to Venice and reconcile with his estranged wife.
The “Stack” is actually not so bad because it handles traffic that is using essentially four separate freeways; people with four very distinct destinations.
The 101 and the 405, has been shown statisctically to have the most jams and “clusterf***s” in the nation. That’s because of the volume of traffic and that people using this interchange are all going to basically the same suburban areas. (And there are few non-freeway alternatives, although you seem to be able to use Sepulveda Blvd.) It’s not an urban interchange (like “The Stack”), but an escape-from or get-into “town” interchange.
I have postcards from the 60s which portray “The Stack” as a marvel of modern transportation. It’s actually pretty well-designed; you just should never expect to be able to go through “The Stack” at 80 mph. (Where’s the fire?)
The 101 and the 10 have problems with many people not being able to merge in time; especially traffic from USC and the museums, coming off of Vermont Ave.
And it really pisses off people in L.A. that the TV show “The OC” has a theme song which mentions the 101, since it doesn’t come anywhere near Orange County. And notice that people never say “The Orange County”; :rolleyes: It’s just “Orange County.”
Brilliant!
BTW, that link to Google Maps mistakes the Santa Ana Freeway with the 101.
The 101 is the “Hollywood” Freeway in L.A., and the “Ventura Freeway” in Ventura (naturally). Contrary to what I said above, it ends in downtown (The 101 and the 10 never really “meet” (south of downtown). Granted, that Google Map shows you that if you want to get to the Hollywood Freeway, you need to stay on the 5, going north. But at that particular position, it’s no longer the “101.”
The San’a Ana Freeway is the 5. It’s east of downtown.
That particular image is what’s called the “East L.A. Interchange.” It’s major problem is that the signs don’t tell you soon enough where to merge (right or left) to get where you want to go. So if you’re coming from San Diego and want to take the 10 to San’a Monica, and you’re in the left-hand lanes, it’s easy to get stuck by assholes who won’t let you merge to the right to get to the 10 (The “San’a Monica Freeway”). Then you have to continue on the five and either find an exit and side streets which will get you to the 10 west (a very challenging task); or just take the 5 to the 101 to the 110 south to the 10 west, which is basically driving a huge circle around downtown.
As I’ve shown above, Google Maps is prone to error, and Map Quest has led me on several wild goose chases. Sat-pict links are very prone to error, especially when they try to label a completely insane road system. As an ex-LA cabbie, I’ll take a Thomas Guide any day over these internet sites.
And just to confuse things more, the Five is often called the “Golden State Freeway,” rather than “The San’a Ana Freeway.”
And please don’t ask me why, because the 405 is called the “San Diego Freeway,” even though it never actually reaches San Diego–it doesn’t get close.
Whereas the Five freeway, in San Diego has no name–it’s just “The Five.”
And Diamond Bar–you don’t want to know about it. It’s always a problem, for some reason. I hope I never have to drive there.
TRI-CITIES FTW!!! My family’s lived here for 25 years now and my grandparents STILL get lost and end up tooling around Pasco for a half an hour on occation.
Let me also say that the I-182 and SR240 interchange can be lots of fun too! Especially with the road construction that’s been going on for about 2 years now. Go right to go right. Go left to go straight. And go straight to go left. 
All of the freeways that pass through Downtown LA change names depending on which side of downtown you’re on. As you’ve already pointed out, the 5 goes from being the Golden State Freeway to the Santa Ana Freeway (north to south). The 10 goes from being the San Bernardino Freeway to the Santa Monica Freeway (east to west). And the 110 goes from being the Pasadena Freeway to the Harbor Freeway (north to south).
I assume you’re talking about where the 57 and 60 meet and greet. I live right near there and use that “interchange” frequently. I’ve never understood how that could have been designed to where you actually have to get OFF the freeway in order to make the transition depending on which direction you’re going (if I recall correctly, getting from the 60 west to the 57 north means exiting on Diamond Bar Boulevard, jogging around some streets and clicking your heels together three times in order to find the 57 onramp). Fortunately, they’ve been doing construction there that seems to be alleviating some of the difficulty of getting through there.
This is the one I came in here to mention, but I guess instead I’ll 5th or 6th it. I’ll be the first one to admit I wasn’t a very experienced driver at the time, but when I was living in the North Bay and taking a class at the UC extension in Berkeley, driving through this exchange scared the absolute shit out of me, at least until I’d done it about ten times and knew what lane I wanted to be in early enough.
That was a long sentence. Go me.
Well, I’ve noticed that, but I’m not sure it helps as much as it’s supposed to. When people here tell each other how to get somewhere, they rarely use those names. They just say, for example, “Get on the Five south and get off at Vernon,” whether the starting point is north or south of downtown. (The only people who use those terms are the radio station traffic reports, which are completely useless, because by the time you hear about a problem, you’re already at the problem. Unless, of course it’s a “sig alert,” in which case–if you have time–you just get off the road and have a cup of coffee, hoping the whole problem will just go away as soon as possible. Usually it’s some truck carrying something like teddy bears, which has turned over, and they have to clean up all the run-over teddy bears.)
It’s just that the names seem rather arbitrary. Why the “Santa Ana Freeway”? It’s not as if it goes to Santa Ana and then stops. (Most people would avoid going to Santa Ana whenever possible.) The “Pasadena Freeway” makes more sense to me, though, as well as the “Harbor Freeway” and the “Santa Monica Freeway.”
In any case, to a traveler not familiar with this custom and the area, it could only be confusing. (E.g., “Wait a minute, I was just on the Santa Monica Freeway, and now I’m on the San Bernadino Freeway. Have I made a wrong transition somewhere? God, please don’t make me go to San Bernadino. Anywhere but there.”)
But please explain to me State Highway 90, which is called the “Richard Nixon Freeway,” (as well as the “Imperial Highway” 
and the “Marina Freeway”). This short, characterless freeway connects the 405 with Marina del Rey. Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t the office (or perhaps home) of Daniel Ellberg’s psychiatrist–the place where Nixon’s “plumbers” broke into trying (to find evidence to discredit Ellsberg for release of the Pentagon Papers), an act which became part of a series of acts culminating in the House’s decision to impeach Nixon–located in Marina del Rey?
It’s probably the place, because just about everyday the traffic report says there’s some kind of problem there.
Do you know why it’s called “Diamond Bar”? Is it because of some kind of diamond, or some kind of bar?
Please, go on!
When I lived there, it wasn’t so bad, because the volume of traffic wasn’t as high. But now, when I drive there, I don’t see any difference between Los Angeles traffic and Bay Area traffic in many places. That particular interchange is worsened by the fact that the signage is limited.
I’ll second (or 4th or whatever) this nomination. It’s a clusterfuck that’s also an under-construction clusterfuck, with signage & lane paint from several projects ago, full of terrified, confused tourists going 40, aggressive confused tourists going 80, pissed-off locals, and assorted monkeys changing lanes, flinging poo and slamming on their brakes at random intervals.
That 10-110 mess in LA is a comparative joy.
I think we have a definitive answer, at least for the next several months.
Accident Destroys Bay Bridge Maze Connectors
This section of freeway (actually three different freeways intersecting) was already high on “the list”. This is only going to make it much, much worse. I feel sorry for anyone who lives or works anywhere *near *this area. You might as well just stay home until August.
Sorry no cite, but this particular clusterf*ck is officially the highest volume passage in the US.
And this morning it just got worse by an order of magnitude. I haven’t heard the news report yet, but going through the Maze this morning I was astonished to see that a huge fire had erupted underneath one of the high ramps, melting the structural steel, and the ramp had come down, quite spectacularly. Should be a juicy news item Monday morning, with advisories to avoid the Bay Bridge.
And don’t forget the even further west Brock Road leading into Guelph. Bah!
I came into this thread to post this.
I used to work near Fresh Pond. It is the prime example I keep in the back of my mind why Massachusetts natives aren’t nearly as smart or civilized as they pretend to be. Not two miles away, there are MIT researchers working on cutting edge traffic theory and how it applies to fluid dynamics and yet the clusterfuck that is the Fresh Pond Rotary is right there just like a real-world experiment. I can drive on it just fine now but you have to think like a member of a brain damaged school of fish to make it out the other side.
I would love to hear the story of how Massachusetts driving ended up the way it is. I imagine some corrupt, retarded little man in an appointed position setting the precedent back in the 30’s or so but I can’t be sure. I do know that I have to apologize profusely to family, friends, and other guests who are unquestionably great drivers where they are from for the conditions and attitudes or Massachusetts roadways when they inevitably get shaken up and their world-view altered.
We have some real monstrosities here in Montreal, for example, the Décarie Circle; the Turcot Yards, which Autoroute 20 enters backwards – with traffic on the *left-*hand roadways – for what reason I do not know; and the Anjou interchange, which approximately half the times I’ve gone through it returning to town from Repentigny, has sufficiently confused the driver so as to send us down to the Lafontaine Tunnel instead of towards downtown.
Then there are some smaller but equally fucked-up junctions, such as the Acadie Circle, which has an annoying habit of filling with water when it rains; the Dorval circle, possibly the most irritating conceivable way of linking a road, a highway, and an airport; and the De la Concorde overpass in Laval, which recently fell on some people.
Finally, I recall the two highway interchanges that, for some reason, the city fathers felt were necessary at the intersections of two pairs of city streets right next to our most significant park. The Des Pins/Du Parc interchange – now that was a lovely thing to negotiate your way through on your way to the tam-tams, let me tell you, including the rather annoying feature of sidewalks that simply ceased to exist halfway through, stranding you in the middle of high-speed traffic. It has mercifully been removed – the link shows it in mid-demolition – and replaced with (get this!) an intersection. With a stop light. We can dearly hope that its counterpart at the other end of the park, the Côte-des-Neiges/Remembrance interchange, is next on the chopping block. It’s one of the few pieces of road my dad was actually scared of.
Here’s a news story about it. My commute doesn’t go anywhere near it, but I really feel sorry for everyone whose commute does…
San Francisco, you have 48 hours to figure out telecommuting – I mean really get telecommuting right, and keep your organization running smoothly. Ready… go.
(File under nasty coincidence: one of the interchanges I mentioned above in Baltimore had a tractor-trailer wreck this morning, too. All lanes of I-95 South are closed, and 3/4 northbound lanes.)