I am offically not driving my roadster over the hill from the valley to anything south on the 405. For those that don't know the 405 is the most F'up piece of road in the entire country. I tried to get to a car show at the Automobile Drivng Mueseum today for a cars of Duece of Spades display this weekend. I could not move in 5 lanes of traffic and finally started to overheat, dropped a cylinder and had to abandon the trip. This was well after the so called morning rush so I should have made some kind of good speed. I am pissed because my car does not overheat and travels well. I don't enjoy driving it anymore and have it for sale. This show is a high end deal and I may have found someone who thinks they want into the hot rod biz. To top it all off, they are closing 10 miles of this road, both ways on the July 15th weekend. Film at 11 on your local channel, it will be a mess! I am sticking to race cars from now on. Rant over, going to refill my Chardonney, DW
Yeah I feel ya, my mom lives off santa monica and the 405, super pain in the ***. I know cruising is dead because everyone and there 8 kids has a car now. I always try to seek out lesser traveled roads, but I guess you dont have that in LA
Yeah, my mum and big sister live in woodland hills, Thats why I live up here in the Great NW!! And I am a ****er for bad wheather.....
Try driving anywhere near the valley next weekend when the 405 is closed to demo the Mulholland bridge.
I called it quits there nearly 15 years ago for many of the same reasons. You can't get anywhere without getting stuck in some sort of traffic. And if it rained, you were really ****ed. I've been up and down that stretch of the 405 countless times over 30 years and it was rare that I didn't caught in some traffic. Nevermind the westside, stay out of L.A. period.
That why, if I travel to car shows in the valley, I'm on the freeway at 5 am and only on weekends. When I go to Ventura, I take PCH through Malibu. Unfortunately, the Beatnik Blowout is coming up and PCH is closed on the north side of Malibu.
a while back was on 405 South Bound, heading for Long Beach. listened to local channel with traffic updates. we were at a dead stop for a long time, and news person said traffic was better than it was the Nite before-say what? guess they were going backward the Nite before, but at least moving. Ha!
Is the 405 the only road you can drive on down there? You need to sell your car all because of 1 road? Traffic on 880 can **** balls up here too pretty much every single day, but it has never dawned on me to sell my truck because of it. If it is busy and I don't feel like dealing with it, I either go on another road or I just find something else to do.
Years ago we took a road trip to California and the trip from Universal Studios to Palm Springs convinced me to never return...
Well I feel your pain on traffic, BUT, dude, your car overheats and it's got nothing to do with anyone but the builder. Traveling well means it should be able to travel at any speed. Not just travel at high speed. Traffic will remain if you sell it or not. Race cars are the original pain in the ***, and Chardonney? Well, that says something. If you said whiskey I may not be busting your balls.... Take a spa day tomorrow...
I quit driving the 405 from the Valley to the Donut Shop on Sat. Going down was easy but the return at 10am is no fun, traffic, pot holes and clueless drivers still on their cells. I'm a LA native and won't leave but I pick the venues and they're either in Ventura or Pomona.
I feel your pain. I worked in West LA in the eighties and lived in Hollywood. I remember some days with a 3 hour commute over the 10 miles. It was actually faster to ride my skateboard. The skateboard served me well. Used it to fetch my Camaro out of Hollywood impound on a regular basis. That car was stolen so often, I had all the nearby impound numbers memorized. Finally figured out the So Cal was not the same place I grew up in the sixties and seventies. Left fir Colorado and have never regretted it. Best to you!
If you think today's traffic was bad, on 7/15 the 405 will be closed for 53 hours between the 101 and the 10 freeways! They are demolishing the Mullholland bridge. Now that's going to be a fun weekend for traffic!
I decided a long time ago --I don't drive my car South anymore. Too many close calls, Los Angeles is the home of the Original ***hole Driver. A friend of mine still talks about the time we almost had 3! major crashes driving thru the Valley.Like someone said--too many ****ed-up people on cell phones--men shaving--women putting on make-up, and all of them doing 3--4 lane changes at 60--70mph.But what the hell--they waste their "BMW" / "Mercedes" , they just get mommy / daddy / hubby / wifey to buy a new one,and **** the guy in the "old car".
The 405 is not the only one that ****s. Takes 45 min just to get to the freeway. My car is fine, it will go to Pomona three times next weekend with no problems. I'm selling because I just don't use it anymore. Last time I had it out was for the movie deal in Filmore last year. I have no place(shows) to go that I enjoy. Drive over to the local Bob's on a Friday and all you see are Mustangs, Corvettes, some rods(the same ones each week) and no body who shares my interests. I am pushing 69 and need to reach my 300 MPH goal before I am 70. DW
**** THIS PLACE!!! I just found out I need to move because my home owners ***ociation decided that I can not have a project car in my garage!!!!! Been in this neighborhood for almost 4 years and now this???
Well said, it's like a ****ing war on L.A. county roads, you rarely get respect in an older car, to most sheeple your just in their way and they are waaayyy more important than you.
I've heard this a lot from HAMBers - over in the UK if I have a project car in my workshop or a parts car on bricks in my front garden it's no one's business but mine. If a resident's ***ociation asked me to move it then I would have the option of tidying it up a bit or tell them to piss off....
I lived in the valley and traffic has always ****ed the whole time i lived in that **** town..... Try driving to Torrance for a while! Every Friday night I would drive past bobs on Corbin in the valley than go home change and go to Toluca Lake Bobs where there was more variety.... I decided to get the F out and now enjoy the better side of LA down here in LBC where I have yet to see grid lock, and where else could I park and build two cars inside an apartment that is only 8 blocks from the beach???
Being a native from the South Bay (Inglewood), I can fully empithize with you! Long-long ago before there were any freeways in L.A. area, the only resemblence to that term was the Pasadena 2 lane each way section for about 1 mile from L.A. civic center to So.Pasadena with a divider & shrubs down the middle, they finished it up just before WWII started. From Inglewood to Norco/Corona used to take 3 hours on old Firestone & Imperial hwy. to visit relatives there, & longer if it was foggy. Going over to the San Fernando valley on Sepulveda blvd. & thru the old tunnel was always a great experience too. The exhaust fumes that built up inside the tunnel was an eye watering rememberence for all. As each section of new freeways were extended month by month in the late 50's, drivers would anticipate the day of final completion in all areas under construction, the 405 would later become the most heavily traveled both North & South bound. Building my '32 roadster from 1962-68, living in Torrance, we watched the 405 slowly reach South to new neighborhoods in the Orange County area & eventually down to San Diego.(101). Moving to Westlake Village in 1968, we experienced the Ventura freeway (101) makeover for a couple years too. Lots of anxious moments in traffic both ways while under construction. The delays & accidents were outrageous & frustrating to say the least. Every day I would countdown until I could retire & not have to make the trip into L.A. area any more! Conditions on the freeway systems all over were continually getting worse & finally retiring in 1984, we saw the light at the end of the "Tunnel", sold our home & moved North to Bend,Oregon where we are enjoying our "golden years".-------Don
Plenty of side streets. I used to take them all the time in my roadster. Sure, you hit lights but your not sitting in a parking lot for an extended time like the 405. You just gotta plan ahead...
That's a good illustration of how roads development creates traffic! The mechanism is that a new road increases the commercial development viability of places hitherto too inaccessible, while simultaneously compromising existing markets due to differences in accommodation costs. The upshot is that places you need to go keep moving further and further away, so new road are barely finished before there's as much traffic congestion as there was before. The error here is the view a**** planners that traffic is "hydraulic", i.e. that there is a "traffic pressure" that "just is" and that needs to be accommodated in some way. How often is a new road project not justified by its "taking pressure off" such and such other route? In fact a "botanical" metaphor describes traffic better: it's a thing that grows where its growth is stimulated. I believe that LA's vehicle-dependent structure and consequent traffic and California's level of overregulation go together; and not merely by way of the latter being a response to the former. They are more deeply syndromic. The regulation feeds the economic "traffic machine" and those en***ies that benefit from it.
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