LA area tuggers - traffic pattern question

klpca · Sep 5, 2016

We are headed up to Yosemite next week for our daughter's wedding. (So excited!) We have made this trip numerous times and are familiar with the traffic, which seems to be pretty much any time we drive through. :wall:

We are contemplating taking the 15 north to the 10, then the 210, instead of our normal route of 5 north straight through. I have been googling traffic patterns and I am having a more difficult time getting the information than I thought I would. My primary question is about the 210 - is there heavy traffic heading west in the morning? We are planning on leaving SD by 5:00am, so that would put us in Corona around 6:15-6:30. Once we get through there we're at the mercy of the traffic patterns. We have to be at Yosemite West no later than 4:00, but I would prefer to get there much earlier, so I don't want to push our start time back to 9:00am to miss some of the rush hour traffic. Any other suggestions?

Ken555 · Sep 5, 2016

The 210 can be ugly, but I've not driven it at that time of day. Trust Waze.

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klpca · Sep 5, 2016

Ken555 said:
The 210 can be ugly, but I've not driven it at that time of day. Trust Waze.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Definitely. Saved us a boatload of time a couple of weeks ago when we went to see the in-laws. Can you believe that it was 30 min faster to take the 91 to the 15 from Redondo instead of 110/5 south? In over 30 years we've never even thought about taking the 91!

buzglyd · Sep 5, 2016

Many moons ago I rode up 395 and entered at Lee Vining. It's a nice downhill coast to the other side and gorgeous to boot.

Make it an adventure!

klpca · Sep 5, 2016

buzglyd said:
Many moons ago I rode up 395 and entered at Lee Vining. It's a nice downhill coast to the other side and gorgeous to boot.

Make it an adventure!

I wish! We are staying outside the valley at a house in Yosemite West which is much closer to the south entrance near Oakhurst. The drive from Tuolumne to Yosemite West is about 2 hours. I wish that we could though. The drive along the eastern Sierra's is beautiful. So much better than central CA!!

Side note: timesharing has totally spoiled me. We are renting a three bedroom house. It was $500 per night through the property manager, $700 per night on AirBnB. Gulp. The things you do for your kids.

DAman · Sep 5, 2016

I'm assuming you are doing this on a weekday.

I would start earlier around 3:30/4:00 and drive straight up the 5. Once you get to Santa Clarita you are fine. Stop for a nice breakfast at Laval Rd. exit(at the bottom of the north side of the Grapevine) where there are a lot of places to eat.

My San Diego friends tell me leave the night before and stay near Magic Mountain. Easy to get a hotel on Priceline they say. I rarely do this as we are usually trying to maximize our time in SD.

The drive seems to change constantly. I used to always drive the 210 but then I found traffic there.

Recently Google and Waze say stay on the 5(ok Waze will take me off the freeway sometimes).

Of course you can't plan for some the problems we have encountered recently. A fire near Castiac which shut down North 5. An overturned truck closing I 5. A fatal accident where the CHP were covering the body as we drove past on the 210 right as you exit S 5(we had to think of a really good story for our kids).

The problem with the alternate ways is what if you hit traffic there? We just had a nice drive through LA from SD with minimal traffic delays in early August. However we had major delays near Paso Robles(we were driving to Pacific Grove) due to construction.

Give yourself plenty of time and enjoy your daughter's wedding!

x3 skier · Sep 5, 2016

I thought this was about flying when I read the title

Traffic Pattern is what path you fly on approach to an airport if you're not under instructions from the Ground Controllers.

Cheers

klpca · Sep 5, 2016

DAman said:
I'm assuming you are doing this on a weekday.

I would start earlier around 3:30/4:00 and drive straight up the 5. Once you get to Santa Clarita you are fine. Stop for a nice breakfast at Laval Rd. exit(at the bottom of the north side of the Grapevine) where there are a lot of places to eat.

My San Diego friends tell me leave the night before and stay near Magic Mountain. Easy to get a hotel on Priceline they say. I rarely do this as we are usually trying to maximize our time in SD.

The drive seems to change constantly. I used to always drive the 210 but then I found traffic there.

Recently Google and Waze say stay on the 5(ok Waze will take me off the freeway sometimes).

Of course you can't plan for some the problems we have encountered recently. A fire near Castiac which shut down North 5. An overturned truck closing I 5. A fatal accident where the CHP were covering the body as we drove past on the 210 right as you exit S 5(we had to think of a really good story for our kids).

The problem with the alternate ways is what if you hit traffic there? We just had a nice drive through LA from SD with minimal traffic delays in early August. However we had major delays near Paso Robles(we were driving to Pacific Grove) due to construction.

Give yourself plenty of time and enjoy your daughter's wedding!

Thanks. You have summed up the problems with this drive exactly. Such a crapshoot. Our best drive ever was leaving at 5am on a Sunday. Straight through LA at full speed. It was like seeing a unicorn. This time we are coming through on a Thursday. I'm not loving the thought of doing this.

I wondered about the 210. It seemed logical to me that people live east and commute into the central part of LA, but I wasn't sure. I would love to leave earlier than 5 am but my youngest daughter (not the bride) works until late the night before and my husband is still recovering from radiation treatment so I am not pushing him. Maybe I will see if they will let me take the first leg and they can sleep for a couple more hours. He's agreed to share the driving with me and my daughter (first time in over 30 years, lol) so hopefully it won't wear him out. Once we get to Yosemite, it will be worth it though.

klpca · Sep 5, 2016

x3 skier said:
I thought this was about flying when I read the title

Traffic Pattern is what path you fly on approach to an airport if you're not under instructions from the Ground Controllers.

Cheers

You need to listen to the Airline Pilot Guy podcast. If you are an aviation geek you would love it. And I wish that I was flying over the traffic instead of driving through it!

heathpack · Sep 5, 2016

The problem with LA traffic is that there's no logic to it.

Yes, the 210 heading west will have traffic in the morning. Folks from Pasdena heading into the valley or LA basin/downtown for work. Once you start heading north on the 210 around La Canada, you'd be home free. But from inland empire past Pasadena would be as bad as the 5.

I concur with the recc for the earliest possible start. We do this all the time when heading down to SD (one of my bike race venues is Mission Bay). Can cut travel time in half, and we're always heading down on a weekend.

Waze really is the best option. I'd just do whatever it recommends on the day of the trip.

isisdave · Sep 5, 2016

We used to do 15 - 395 - 58 - 99, and especially liked the desert and 58 above Tehachapi. But we haven't done this in years.

We also used to use 138 when we suspected 210 would be bad, but it's all 2-lane road (or was then) so any kind of road work or accident would make that investment a bad one.

aandmrun · Sep 6, 2016

Very Long Drive from SD to Yosemite

Even from Los Angeles, this is a very long drive. It would be best if you could leave when your daughter gets off work the night before and spend the night near Magic Mountain area, as someone else suggested. This would mean you could arrive more rested and ready to visit with the family. Best of luck to you whatever you decide to do.

klpca · Sep 6, 2016

Revised plan is to leave at 4am. Gulp.

We used to stop in Bakersfield when the kids were little, but we've been doing it in one day for awhile now. It's the only bad thing about Yosemite. If only LA was not in the middle of the drive!

My middle daughter (bride) used to be a guide for Outward Bound out of Midpines and used to leave our house at 2am to drive up there for the start of a trip. I'm so glad that those days are behind us!

Thanks to all who offered suggestions. I'll post a picture when we get back!

Ken555 · Sep 6, 2016

aandmrun said:
Even from Los Angeles, this is a very long drive. It would be best if you could leave when your daughter gets off work the night before and spend the night near Magic Mountain area, as someone else suggested. This would mean you could arrive more rested and ready to visit with the family. Best of luck to you whatever you decide to do.

Absolutely agree, though it seems the OP is ready for it. For myself, I'm done with long driving days. Not quite sure why the OP isn't considering flying, if only to Sacramento, but I'm sure there are reasons.

I even stop for the night en route to Phoenix from LA, and that's only because I've done it many times and had unexpected delays turning a ~6 hour drive into a ~9 hour drive and it's worth it to me not to risk that in future. I've learned that I enjoy the drive, and my body doesn't complain as much, when I limit my driving to ~4 hours per day...

klpca · Sep 6, 2016

Ken555 said:
Absolutely agree, though it seems the OP is ready for it. For myself, I'm done with long driving days. Not quite sure why the OP isn't considering flying, if only to Sacramento, but I'm sure there are reasons.

Wedding crap mostly, lol. All of the other times we make the drive we are camping, so we just do it because of all of the camping crap. The drive is fine (boring though) except for the traffic in LA, which is painful. We are up in LA on all of the holidays, plus various times throughout the year, and any more I just dread it.

My mom is flying into Fresno. Horizon has a cheap flight twice a day. We are spending the night in Bakersfield on the way home because the flight times were ridiculous (something like 7am or 9pm) so she is driving home with us and she won't sit in the car for a full day. (Will do it on a plane though - her next trip is to Provence, but that's another story

)

DAman · Sep 6, 2016

Ken555 said:
Absolutely agree, though it seems the OP is ready for it. For myself, I'm done with long driving days. Not quite sure why the OP isn't considering flying, if only to Sacramento, but I'm sure there are reasons.

It could be Sacramento traffic. Believe it or not when I go to Tahoe I have to worry about traffic in Sacramento. Or in the Vacaville area....Nothing like LA but enough to add a couple hours to your trip.

Good luck leaving San Jose heading east to Yosemite anytime after 1:30/2:00 on a week day.

LA area tuggers - traffic pattern question

klpca

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Ken555

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klpca

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buzglyd

klpca

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DAman

x3 skier

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klpca

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klpca

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heathpack

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