Motorists Finding Congested Freeways a Driving Concern

The truck driver to your right is yelling obscenities into a cellular phone and the woman in the dented Pontiac Grand Am in front of you has been busy curling her hair for at least five minutes.

You know this because you have been sitting dead still in traffic for what seems like hours.

And like millions of drivers before you, you are convinced of one thing: “This has to be the most crowded freeway in the state.”

If you are driving in Los Angeles, chances are you’re right.

With the Department of Motor Vehicles reporting more than 19 million licensed drivers in California and just over 5 million of that number in the Southland, it’s not surprising that Los Angeles County has the four busiest freeways in California.

Topping the list released this past week by the California Department of Transportation is Interstate 405, the San Diego Freeway, specifically that stretch south of Santa Monica Boulevard in West Los Angeles. As the state’s busiest freeway, it carries 331,000 vehicles a day, said Caltrans spokeswoman Margie Tiritilli.

“Because it’s West Los Angeles to begin with,” Tiritilli says, “it’s going to be busy. That’s a very well-built area. There are residential areas and a lot of activities such as entertainment. Also, it could lead you to the beach.”

Coming in second is the Santa Monica Freeway east of Vermont Avenue down to the four-level downtown interchange, with 323,000 vehicles. Rounding out the top three is the Hollywood / Ventura Freeway west of the 405 in Sherman Oaks, which carries 321,000 vehicles a day.

In addition to those hot spots, Caltrans also measured the busiest interchanges in the state. The Santa Monica/Harbor freeway interchange wins that award by carrying 558,000 vehicles per day.

Second is the East Los Angeles interchange, which serves as a connector to four freeways: the Golden State, Santa Monica, Pomona and Hollywood. It averages 557,500 vehicles daily.

Ranked No. 3 is the Santa Monica / San Diego interchange, with 548,500 cars.

Comparing Los Angeles County to the Bay Area shows a significant difference. The busiest freeway up north is the MacArthur Freeway at the Bay Bridge, where 274,000 vehicles pass each day. That ranks as the seventh-busiest stretch of highway in the state.

At least as intriguing as the freeway usage numbers is learning how Caltrans goes about compiling them. Contrary to the image of some bored city worker attempting to tally speeding traffic, there is a far more practical method of counting cars.

“We have traffic count stations,” Tiritilli said. “They are buried in what we call loop inductors that are in the pavement. That information is transmitted to our office via phone lines.”

Those sensors placed deep down in the driving lanes enable Caltrans to track freeway usage.

But with statistics like that in hand, what exactly does Caltrans do with them? In addition to providing insight into the proper areas to dole out maintenance allotments, measuring which freeways are the most heavily used is helpful in determining which ones should be the first to get new car-pool lanes.

“It helps us identify areas where there is growth,” Tiritilli said. “And right now we are busy putting in HOV (high occupancy vehicle) lanes because there is so much growth. We are putting them on most freeways in L.A. County.”

Tiritilli said numbers indicate that even with increased access and use of public transportation, the number of people using some parts of California highways is still growing.

But with eliminating smog a primary concern, Caltrans tries to encourage more drivers to share their cars with co-workers or abandon the freeways and take to public transit.

“That’s what we encourage,” Tiritilli said. “We are definitely now a multifaceted transportation service agency that has to take in account buses and trains. We have to get better at things like car-pooling because with 30 million people, counting the tourists that come in the summer, we are not going to survive in this state unless we learn how to better accommodate all those people efficiently and safely.”