Los Angeles traffic vs. Bay Area traffic: illustrated (San Francisco, Sacramento: rentals, homes)

[sonarrat]

5 pm on the Thursday before a three-day weekend and Independence Day.

Bay Area:



Los Angeles:



Let's contrast the two. In Los Angeles, there's lots of freeways. But during peak volume, they're all jammed. Westbound directions are much lighter than eastbound, except for the northbound 405 which is absolutely slammed leading up to the Sepulveda Pass.

In San Francisco, the geography is more challenging, which makes for tough going if you're getting out of San Francisco. The worst spots are eastbound I-580, which is the connection from the Central Valley to the Bay Area, and I-80 getting out towards Sacramento, Reno, etc. Northbound I-680 is pretty awful as well.

Not really visible in the picture, but one of the worst commutes at this time would be trying to get to the Golden Gate Bridge via 19th Ave from Daly City. Count on an hour and a half slog, and through a residential neighborhood no less.

[Charles]

Originally Posted by sonarrat

5 pm on the Thursday

The sad thing is, the LA traffic isn't too much different on Sunday afternoon at 2PM.

Originally Posted by motoman

most people moving here have no concept of 16+ hours per day traffic ... And when you tell them they don't believe you. So you have to tell them over and over and over again. And they still don't believe you..

[hsw]

Fairly meaningless pic

Would look at where major job centers are in each region vs where most of such workers live (esp worker bees vs >$200K/yr employees)

And on Th PM of a holiday wkend many senior execs/engineers/financiers aren't in office or work from remote (we are in era of Net/laptops/Blkberries)

Irony is most of BA (Marin, City of SF and East Bay) is an economic lightweight, as are vast expanses of LA region outside of Westside: many of areas with worst traffic in each region at any time/day are economically irrelevant, as wages of those stuck in those traffic non-flows confirm

[bayarea-girl]

LA traffic is the WORST! I'm grateful and saddend that in these times the traffic in the bay area is decreasing due to the economy less people are on the roads.

[Charles]

Originally Posted by bayarea-girl

I'm grateful and saddend that in these times the traffic in the bay area is decreasing due to the economy less people are on the roads.

I am not familiar with the Bay Area but I would really be surprised if the traffic decrease was noticeable - who knows, maybe it is, just seems like it wouldn't be.

However, I remember in 1984 during the Olympics, the traffic in LA was noticeably less. Everyone was warned. Lots of people planned vacations for then fearing it would be horrible. I had a front row seat. I commuted from Woodland Hills to Rosemead that summer in vanpool.

[bayarea-girl]

Charles, I have got to find the article the paper did (sfgate) but they said what I've been noticing is that there has been a decline in traffic since the downhill turn in the economy. It is VERY noticeable. It is also obvious that people are moving to where I don't know but they are moving as there are so many homes and rentals available. Rentals have been chopped in half from the previous year. So traffic would be too. Aren't there more people in So. CA anyways?

[skywalker400]

I remember reading post dot-com boom how traffic patterns changed in places like the sunol grade on 680, which would make sense. The two maps here arent on the same scale though, so the bay area jams look a little bit smaller than they should (580 is as bad as the 10 or 60 east). Geography with the bay, and having two parallel freeways opens up the peninsula a bit too (for all those venture capitalist earning over >200k, though I believe quite a few have weekend places in West LA, which might explain the worse traffic in the area for the 4th of July weekend).

[BayAreaHillbilly]

A picture's worth a thousand words. Those maps are archetypal of the usual pain points.

[City Boy]

The Traffic in the Bay Area is right behind LA as the second worse. It's horrible, 880 is ALWAYS messed up. The Bridge is almost ALWAYS backed up. 101 Backed up, 680 Backed up. It gets really bad. LA well it's LA.

[mike8290]

Originally Posted by sonarrat

5 pm on the Thursday before a three-day weekend and Independence Day.

Bay Area:



Los Angeles:



Let's contrast the two. In Los Angeles, there's lots of freeways. But during peak volume, they're all jammed. Westbound directions are much lighter than eastbound, except for the northbound 405 which is absolutely slammed leading up to the Sepulveda Pass.

In San Francisco, the geography is more challenging, which makes for tough going if you're getting out of San Francisco. The worst spots are eastbound I-580, which is the connection from the Central Valley to the Bay Area, and I-80 getting out towards Sacramento, Reno, etc. Northbound I-680 is pretty awful as well.

Not really visible in the picture, but one of the worst commutes at this time would be trying to get to the Golden Gate Bridge via 19th Ave from Daly City. Count on an hour and a half slog, and through a residential neighborhood no less.

There really is no question that L.A. has worse traffic over San Francisco any day of the week. 24/7/365. There is almost always traffic on LA, I've even seen bad traffic at midnight. The only time when there is little traffic is on major holidays. When I moved here about 15 years ago you could get on the freeway at 7am and the freeway would move well enough to get you across time quickly. Now you would need to get on the freeway at 6am to do the same. Even sometimes I've been on the freeway at 6am and their was a huge traffic jam.