Traffic in San Diego (Oceanside, Escondido: employment, beach, stadium)

[zrbite]

I'm coming from Boston and I'm trying to understand the flow of traffic in San Diego. In Boston, going towards the city is busy in the morning, and away from the city in the evening.

Is it the same in San Diego? From what I read, there seems to be traffic either way on 5 and 15? How about 56? I tried checking the data using google traffic, but it shows green almost everywhere and isn't too useful.

[oddstray]

The pattern generally is that heavy traffic heads downtown in the mornings or eastbound (I-52 and I-56) in the mornings. Opposite in the evenings. Rush hour isn't long compared to other cities (LA, Chicago, London) - it really lasts only about an hour.

Exceptions are when special events are happening at Balboa Park or Petco Park. Then traffic is heavy heading downtown for those events. And sometimes events at Qualcomm Stadium cause heavy traffic to head in that direction (intersection of I-8 and I-15).

To monitor San Diego traffic, try the CALTRANS site:
San Diego Real Time Traffic

[jksouthbay88]

Not totally the same.An example is the 805.Most of that freeway is slow NB in the AM and slow SB for the same distance in the PM.Also the 163 NB can be slow in the morning even though downtown is behind it.Slow going into DTWN in the after noon and the same goes for the 5 between DTWN and Pacific Beach.I've noticed volume picks up around 2 and all out slowing begins from 3-about 615.

Typical traffic patterns for slowing are
5 Southbound*:In the north county into downtown in the morning(and select weekends in the summer)
5 Northbound*:From the South Bay into downtown in the morning(and select weekends in the summer)
805 Northbound^:From the South Bay nearly all the way up(mornings)
805 Southbound^:From Sorento Vly nearly all the way back down(afternoons)
163 Northbound:Some mornings just out of downtown
163 South:Some mornings into downtown and more often in the afternoon into Downtown
8 Westbound^:On and off in the morning
8 Eastbound^:On and off in the afternoon
15 Northbound^:Slowing around the 163 and or the 56 through inland areas in afternoon
15 Southbound^**:Slowing through the Escondido corridor and sometimes in the Mira Mesa area.
52 Eastbound#:Over the summit into Santee/El Vajon in afternoon
52 Westbound#:Over the summit out of Santee/El Cajon during morning
94 Westbound#:On and off into downtown in mornings
94 Eastbound#:On and off out downtown in the afternoon
78 Westbound^:Out of Esco. in the mornings through San Marcos
78 Eastbound^:Off the 5 and through San Marcos into Esco in the afternoon


*=Traffic on weekends into SD during the summer months from Oceanside-Del Mar on Saturday's from about 9AM-630PM and then leaving SD on sundays from about 2-7PM
^=Everyday volume/traffic pattern
**=Same type of commute of the 5 during the summer but shorter times.About 1PM-5PM and some Sundays during the summer
#=Commute my be in effect some days and on others it may be full speeds

Wow-Long post.Hope that helps

[esmith143]

56 is very slow west from Carmel Valley Road to 5 in the mornings (until 9:30 .. 10 am), east from 5 to Carmel Valley in the evenings (5 to 6:30 .. 7 pm).

[sav858]

Traffic is heaviest heading to the suburban office park mess that Sorrento Valley, Sorrento Mesa, Carmel Valley, UTC, and Kearny Mesa make up. Traffic into Downtown San Diego is not that bad at all and most of the traffic experianced approaching downtown is from cars heading through it to other employment areas.e

For example, traffic on I-5 southbound is heavy heading towards Sorrento Valley/SV Mesa/UTC area but once you past that area there is NO traffic heading into Downtown SD. Same thing on the 805, there is NO traffic heading south into downtown in the morning, its all coming north to UTC/Sorrento area. Downtown SD is NOT the largest employment area in SD, the Sorrento/UTC/KM area is. Plus downtown has a relatively high percentage of workers who use public transit unlike the Sorrento/UTC/KM area.

56 is VERY heavy Westbound in the morning heading towards the Carmel Valley/Sorrento area.

[JakeInSoCal]

the 56 can be really bad at points when your headed to the beach & its summer which means tourist traffic.

[loveautumn]

SD totally different than Boston, not that many people work in the "city".
Beds of employment are Sorrento Valley, Carmel Valley, UTC/Golden Triangle, Carlsbad...as the previous posters have said.

[SEAandATL]

Originally Posted by loveautumn

SD totally different than Boston, not that many people work in the "city".
Beds of employment are Sorrento Valley, Carmel Valley, UTC/Golden Triangle, Carlsbad...as the previous posters have said.

I always wondered about the flow of traffic in SD and how it was different from Atlanta, where all the traffic in the morning is inbound toward the city, and the afternoon traffic is outbound from the city.

[1AngryTaxPayer]

Massive mess on the 8 west in the morning and 8 east at night. The 805, 5 and 15 (and other roads) suck North in the am and suck S at night.

[Huckleberry3911948]

it fluctuates and changes greatly according to time and accidents. 1angrytaxpayer pretty much hit the nail on the head.
probably i would add, the worst commute hands down (the kiss of death reassignment move) is san diego - carlsbad/oceanside.