GETTING THERE Building L.A.’s Transportation Network

Freeways. They are both a lifeline and a nightmare for hundreds of thousands of Southland commuters. We need them to get to work and school, to shop, to go to the beach, to reach innumerable destinations. Yet at certain times of the day--and for increasingly longer periods of time, it seems--we are trapped in the tight clutches of traffic jams. Freeways, the roads we love to hate.

* The Pasadena and Hollywood freeways are the oldest in the county, both having sections completed in 1940. On July 20, 1940, a 3.7-mile portion of the Pasadena Freeway--then called the Arroyo Seco Parkway--was opened to traffic. That stretch ran from Avenue 40 to Orange Grove Avenue. Then on Dec. 30, the remaining section was formally dedicated, completing the 6-mile section of the parkway, from Glenarm Street south to what is now the Golden State Freeway. It cost a mere $5.05 million, not counting some land acquisition costs. A 1.8-mile section of the Hollywood Freeway between Cahuenga and Barham boulevards was opened on June 15, 1940. This section, called the Cahuenga Pass Freeway, cost $1.5 million and was expected to carry 50,000 cars daily.

* There were 509.7 miles of freeway in the county last year, a sizable increase from the 1950 tally of 22.2 miles.

* The heaviest traveled freeway interchange is the junction of the Santa Monica and the San Diego, carring about 513,000 vehicles daily. The second-busiest is the East Los Angeles Interchange (junction of the Golden State, Pomona, Santa Ana and Santa Monica freeways), with a daily usage of 509,000 vehicles. Downtown commuters are probably most familiar with the four-level interchange, which sees about 460,000 vehicles a day.

* Ever feel a bit claustrophobic on the Santa Monica near Normandie Avenue? You’re not alone. Literally. The highest volume of freeway traffic in the county is the 315,000 vehicles, on the average, that traverse that segment of the Santa Monica each day. The second-highest volume is the 300,000 vehicles per day on the San Diego Freeway near Olympic Boulevard.

On a typical weekday in Los Angeles County, in a 24-hour period, there are 19.8 million vehicle trips--one-way jaunts from Point A to Point B. The typical number of vehicle trips during the morning crunch (6 a.m. to 9 a.m) is 3.36 million. The typical number of trips during the evening commute (3 p.m. to 6 p.m.) is 5.46 million. (The evening figure is higher because the traffic mix is much broader, with commuters, shoppers, school trips, sport trips, etc. Morning traffic consists almost entirely of commuters.)

* An average of 137,397 hours are wasted per day in traffic congestion on Los Angeles County freeways, costing an estimated $240 million annually.

Source: California Transportation Department