Escape from L.A. County

How to get out of Los Angeles eastbound on a Friday night

Traffic Maps:
- L.A. area Freeway Traffic Map from KABC.
Road Advisories:
- I-10 L.A. to the Desert: [CalTrans] [Amdahl]
- Hwy 60 Pomona Fwy: [CalTrans] [Amdahl]
- Traffic Advisories going into Arizona
- CHP incidents: [L.A. sector] [San Bernardino] [Indio] [Barstow]
Traffic Reports:
- SmarTraveler: [I-210] [I-10] [Rte 60] [Rte 91]
Experimental CalTrans Freeway Cams (pot-luck style): [Los Angeles] [San Bernardino] (requires streaming RealPlayer capability)
Weather Conditions: [Ground Winds] [Current Temperature Map] [Rain]

Weather Details along the Route:
(depending on how far I'm going)

Site Reports:

On I-15 heading for Las Vegas:

Northeast on I-15 to Las Vegas, or east on I-40:

On I-10 heading for the Lower Deserts:

More Arizona weather

More weather information at Scratchi's Weather Page

Now, how DO you escape from Los Angeles on a Friday? Do you really think I'll give away any secrets here?? Some of the TV and radio stations did some stories about shortcuts in the L.A. area. Within a month those shortcuts were no good because everybody knows about them now. How to get out of Dodger Stadium by means of a little known gate on the east side leading down a residential street. Not any more. How about getting from Beverly Hills to LAX using La Cienega Blvd. over the Baldwin Hills? Not any more. Used to be you could take various canyon roads over the Santa Monica Mountains to get from the Valley to West L.A. or Beverly Hills. Not any more, in fact they've become downright dangerous these days.

So now you want to know how to get out of L.A. anyway. First, set the car radio to 1070 KNX or 980 KFWB. They have the most frequent traffic updates, but they never mention the normal condition of traffic. They just assume that no-go is normal so it's not worth reporting!

If you have to take the 10, 60 or 91, you have no alternative. Just enjoy the ride. The 60 is probably better than the 10, though.

If your route is along the 210 like I use, here's my advice.

Follow the trucks at a safe distance in the #3 lane. They know how to get through traffic. Stay on the 210. The streets in the San Gabriel Valley are much slower, no matter how sluggish the freeway seems. Stay in the #3 lane, let all the idiots fight for the first two lanes on the left (not counting the carpool lane). If you can, get behind a big rig. The truckers know how to move through traffic rather well, and you can hang on their back door. (Just be real careful, they can't see you hiding there since you're in their blind spot, and if they have to hit their brakes you'd better hit yours too or you'll need a new front grill.) Besides, most people don't like being right behind big semitrucks. Maybe it's better to keep a couple of cars in between you and the truck.

This picture is one of several from an actual trip out of town. You can see many more at my Road Trips page.

The traffic is always bad from Pasadena east with speeds at 25 MPH or less, then it usually opens up to 60 MPH or more by the time you reach the 605. I tend to get off at Grand Avenue in Glendora. This is because the 210 needs to turn south up ahead and join into the 10, and that freeway does not move. I take Grand down to Arrow, then east all the way to Garey Avenue in Pomona. Then south to the 60, which is usually wide open in that area. I've tried taking the 210 to the 71 and south that way, it's not worth the traffic jam at Mission Blvd.

Then the 60 east to the 15 north, and then the 10 on east from there. By then the 10 is moving well.

Thinking of taking the 30 east to Foothill and going on east that way? Don't. It takes 30 minutes on a normal day, and 60 minutes on a Friday night, just to get to Rancho Cucamonga from San Dimas.

And that's how I escape from L.A. Now, watch THIS route get all jammed up in the following months all because I blabbed it here.

Escape from West L.A.! 24 November 2002. They opened the new section of the 210 freeway today from La Verne to Fontana, which generally follows the Baseline all the way through to I-15. I happened to be out that way and drove it. Very nice, for now. It's 3 lanes each direction plus 1 carpool lane. I expect that as soon as the mass public finds out about it, it'll be as jammed as I-10. But it should alleviate some of the L.A. to Vegas (or vice versa) traffic.

It only comes a year and a half too late for me to have used it in getting out of town to the low desert, back when I worked in Glendale. Maybe it'll be good for the ride home.

18 June 2001. Well, things have happened since I first wrote the above sections. My employer relocated from Glendale to over near LAX! Isn't that just great! Now I have to fight my way clear across Los Angeles County to get out to the low desert.

I traveled the 210 out of Glendale for 3½ years and pretty much knew how to do it right, unless it was a wildcard weekend like Memorial Day, Independence Day, or Labor Day.

Well, here's what I've worked out for escaping from the westside.

I have to start out from the Howard Hughes Center, which is alongside the 405 freeway south of the 90 (Marina Freeway).

First, forget all about the Santa Monica Freeway. It's a lost cause. It'll take hours to get from West L.A. to Pomona.

I've figured out that the best plan is to take Sepulveda Blvd south past Century (which is about 2 miles away). There's some amount of airport traffic, but they all want to go into LAX. So, I keep going south, through the big tunnel under the runways, and then get onto the 105 freeway going east.

Now comes a decision. Before even starting out I'd have checked one of the freeway maps to see which is going faster: the 105 or the 91. If it's the 91, I'd get on the 405 and go down to the 91 and then go east. If it's the 105, take that to the 605, then south and join onto the 91. (Often the 105 is better, sometimes it's a toss-up.)
Now it's east along the 91. Got to stay on there all the way through Anaheim, Corona, and into Riverside, no matter how bad it gets.

Here's one big secret. Don't take the 60 freeway in the Riverside area! The section from I-15 to the 91 is always slow, and so is the section from Riverside up to Moreno Valley. Instead, I keep going north on the 215 from Riverside into San Bernardino. Then I get on I-10 going east, which is moving well by then. It's a couple of miles longer, but far less time.

From there I stay on I-10 to wherever I'm going.

This page is not affiliated with John Carpenter's Escape from L.A. movie. (Compared to some of the junk coming out of Hollywood lately, that movie deserved 10 Oscars!)

This page is written and maintained by David Bartholomew.
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