How bad is the traffic from san diego to los angeles?

Leave ASAP. After 3:00 and it starts to get hairy. If you are not traveling alone you might be a little better off in the car pool lanes.

You probably won’t be sitting in traffic the entire way, but there will be plenty of pockets. Once you get a bit further up the coast (a bit before Long Beach) the traffic will probably be pretty consistent.

Drove it once. It sucks LA.

Leaving around noon you shouldn’t encounter much traffic at all up until you reach LA. However as an added precaution you should try taking the I-405 toll road in a pinch.

I-405 begins at the El Toro Y interchange with Interstate 5 in southeastern Irvine. It then runs northwest through Orange County to Long Beach in Los Angeles County. The freeway then roughly follows the outline of the Pacific coast, varying between five and ten miles (16 km) inland before crossing over the Sepulveda Pass in the Santa Monica Mountains. I-405 then travels northerly through the San Fernando Valley, before terminating with I-5 in the Mission Hills district of Los Angeles.

Around noon-1:30 traffic on the 405 is nil, but any earlier or later and it gets pretty bad.

Good luck!

@Dr_C ; The 405 is not a toll road. “here is a Toll Road map
If there is another one that I don’t know about that gets you all the way up to downtown LA PLEASE TELL ME!!! I have the toll road fastpass and It could save me tons of time. I am always learning new things. I have driven the entire 405 several times and have never found a toll booth.

@Judi yo’re right…. I confuse the 405 with SR 133 which is near the El Toro interchange.. they are very close together.

@Judi ha, ha it would be great if there was a toll road that could get us through that mess, wouldn’t it? They have one in the San Diego area now that takes people right over the Mira Mesa to Escondido traffic, and it’s worth the money. There’s just no way of knowing. I once left San Diego at 1 pm and arrived in San Fernando by 3:30. It seemed like a miracle, since it usually takes a minimum of 3½ – 4 hours.

I once left San Diego at my usual time (1 PM) and it took me 3 hours to get to Oceanside. I don’t know of any way to tell which it is going to be.

Actually I’ve never taken over 3 hours to get to LA from San Diego. Maybe it’s the way I drive? Also… there is a new toll highway (125) from SR 905 in Otay Mesa to the 54. Way faster than the 805 or the 5.