Request for help re: LA Thanksgiving traffic patterns
 

My family and I are going to be driving from San Luis Obispo to Redlands, CA (east of Los Angeles) for Thanksgiving. We have two small kids (1 yo and 3 yo), so even the normal 4 hour version of this drive is difficult. We need to leave on Wednesday and I am trying to figure out what time to leave SLO to avoid too much evening/night traffic when we get to Los Angeles. We plan to take the most direct route: 101S, 134, 210, and finally I-10.

Does anyone know what time the gridlock associated with the Wednesday before Thanksgiving might clear in LA?

It takes us about 3 hours to get from SLO to LA. We are basically trying to decide to leave at 6 PM, 7 PM, or 8 PM. Do you think the traffic will still be awful in LA at 9 PM, 10 PM, or 11 PM?

Thanks for any suggestions.

Suggestion: avoid the Hell Ay megasprawl by cutting east first, then going southeast to San Bernardino via Palmdale. See map. Yeah, you'll have about 100 miles of two-laner (166), but most parts of that road are good for 60+ mph.

https://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=san+luis+obispo&daddr=34.8655312,-119.231484+to:34.5581141,-118.0771281+to:redlands+ca&hl=en&ll=34.912962,-120.355225&spn=1.01351,1.766052&sll=34.343436,-118.105774&sspn=1.020491,1.766052&geocode=FUBfGgIdYOHO-Cknwmx7vubsgDFGD-_OwpACvA%3BFXsBFAIdBKzk-CnPrRmsNIbpgDFYGd8jpzflLQ%3BFaJQDwIdOEn2-CkdVGH1d_jCgDE6Z-cy6YOkcA%3BFZGlBwIdtu8D-SlDsZZBxlPbgDFnuts7yunZdQ&t=h&mra=dvme&mrsp=2&sz=9&via=1,2&z=9

Yup --antalope--- er bakersfield--victorville. wouldn't even consider thru LA

I concur with the above.

There is no good time to take the 101 or the 5 freeways through L.A. It will be unbelievably bad.

I'd probably still take 166 a bit to the south of SLO -- the route through Bakersfield is ~30-35 miles longer.

The only time traffic will be good in LA is after it is wiped out in a nuclear war. You shouldn't notice any difference in overall road quality, either.

Re: LA Thanksgiving traffic patterns
 

I've been reliably informed that from space the traffic patterns look like a big burnt turkey.

You guys don't know what you are talking about and are giving horrible advice. If you like to avoid Los Angeles all together, from the 101 S take the CA-23N, this becomes the 118 and leads you to the I-210 E. This will be faster than the route you had planned.

I was the other day in San Luis Obispo; drove up 8 sheep, some chicken, two Maremma Sheepdogs and a beautiful girl in a Uhaul up there. Lovely place.

Have a save trip.

Thanks everyone, for your..... er..... suggestions (??). I appreciate the alternate route suggestions and will carefully consider them. We have about 30 minutes of driving until we have to make a decision about which route to take, so we will probably just respond to what our local traffic volume is. Taking an alternate route ensures the drive will be 5 hours (at least) instead of 4 (best case time), so I am hesitant.

But not to beat a dead horse here, but can any one venture a guess to the original question? Clearly at 5 PM on Wednesday the traffic will be terrible. But clearly at 4 AM on Thanksgiving day, the traffic will be fine. So does anyone have any idea when it switches from gridlock to free flow on Wednesday Night/Thursday Morning? Thanks.

If you take my route you will be fine, I can't speak of the Redland area, but the only place where I would expect maybe some traffic would be around Pasadena.

I know for sure you will be in traffic if you take the 101 to the 134 around 4/5PM, it's a bottleneck that starts before the 405. At 4AM LA traffic is a breeze, in the last weeks I have exceeded 90mph several times around that time. Around 6:30/7AM traffic starts to build up and will come to a crushing halt around 8:30/9AM.

Take some refreshments - good music - and a happy attitude and have a great holiday no matter what the traffic does or looks like!

(I guess they'll all be off down the beach dude)

Traffic starts to get bad at about 6:00 a.m. from the 101 past Camarillo, all the way through LA on the 101, the 134, and the 210. It will start to lighten up past Pasadena as traffic is headed the other way.

This thread is like that "The Californians" segment on SNL.

Except it's shorter. :D

And we measure distance in time, everything is 20 minutes.:D What is sort of true if you don't take traffic into account.