I was heading back into downtown Los Angeles on the 110 and around the 91 the traffic started to backup. One of those large freeway signs said it would take 35 minutes to get into downtown, and sure enough, within a mile or so, traffic was stop-go, stop-go. At one point we were completely stopped for what seemed like almost a minute, meanwhile traffic in the other lanes seemed to fly past. Of course when you're stopped, even 30mph looks fast.
Around Slauson another sign said it was now 20 minutes to downtown. I looked at my watch again. Sure enough, exactly 15 minutes had elapsed since the sign proclaiming the 35-min trip into downtown.
Now I would much rather be on surface streets stopped at a red light than sitting on the freeway, stopped for no reason at all, other than the fact that someone had jammed their brakes on at that very spot, 2 hours ago, and people were still stopping there. Residual slowing/stopping they call it. You stop your car, and the car behind you is forced to come to a complete stop. You then move on but before the car behind you can move on, the car behind him is forced to stop, and the cycle repeats, and if traffic is heavy enough people can still be coming to a stop at that very spot where you hit your brakes two hours before.
So I got off at Slauson and headed north into the city, and within 15 minutes I was at City Hall gassing up my car.
20 minutes to downtown indeed. Yeah, if you want to stay on the freeway in stop-go traffic.
Of course it doesn't always work out to your advantage to get off the freeway, but as I said, I'd rather be on surface streets stopped for a red light, than going nowhere on the freeway.
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Yeah I would have to agree with you there. When you are on the freeway in one of those situations, you never know when someone in front of you is going to lock up their brakes; especially if you are behind a Uhaul style box truck. One day I was heading home to Chicago, and along the way there was a multi lane accident that caused the traffic to stop for so long that when I pulled up people were eating lunch out of the trucks of their cars, while sitting on their hood. I looked to the right and traffic wasn't moving the fastest on the side roads, probably due to traffic reports, but it was at least moving. 45min later and I was back in my car and moving again. I would bet money that while I was sitting there in backed up traffic, the people who were tipped off, were already jumping back on the freeway one exit down where everything was clear. `
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