It’s Summertime and the Freeway Driving Is Easy

Memo to Los Angeles-area commuters: It’s illegal to go 80 mph on local freeways, even if you are only keeping up with traffic.

As strange as it sounds for a city whose name is synonymous with gridlock, that reminder may be necessary because of the amazingly light conditions on local freeways these days.

August has arrived.

School’s out, vacations are on, and this year people have an extra incentive to avoid downtown: next week’s Democratic National Convention.

That translates into scenes like this: Southeast Los Angeles County commuters heading downtown Tuesday morning, cranking it up to 80 mph on the San Gabriel River and Long Beach freeways.

In Commerce, drivers were doing the practically unheard of: hitting 55 mph at 9:15 a.m. on the connector linking the northbound Long Beach to the Santa Ana Freeway, which most of the year has backups of a mile or more.

Commuters on the Pasadena Freeway also reported surprisingly wide-open traffic, their speeds restrained only by the nasty curves that define the state’s oldest freeway.

Ditto the southbound Golden State Freeway out of the San Fernando Valley until a few miles from the downtown Civic Center.

One downtown Los Angeles commuter who takes the Ventura and Hollywood freeways from her Woodland Hills home made it in 35 minutes Monday during the peak morning commute, although the 25-mile trip was a more normal 50 minutes Tuesday.

These only-in-your-dreams driving conditions don’t seem to be universal.

Traffic accidents, Caltrans work crews, breakdowns of cars that couldn’t squeak out another mile can slow any freeway, even in August, and all were reported Tuesday.

And some problems never seem to go away, like too many cars fighting for the same limited space on the Santa Ana and San Diego freeways.

Like bears coming out of hibernation, commuters suddenly released to the glory days of August after months of stop and go traffic have a tendency to lean heavily on the accelerator. As for the belief that you can beat a speeding ticket by explaining that other cars were going just as fast or faster, forget about it, said Sgt. Rhett S. Price, a CHP spokesman.

“The typical excuse is: ‘I was keeping up with flow of traffic,’ ” Price said. “With a maximum speed limit of 65 mph, there is no leeway on the opposite side. You can get a ticket just as easily doing 66 mph as 80 mph.”

One of the interesting statistical footnotes to August traffic patterns in Los Angeles is that while peak-hour commuting is noticeably easier in many instances, traffic volumes are among the highest of the year. This is because, while many commuters are on vacation and school buses are in the garage, tourists are coming onto the freeways at off-peak hours.

“This is a typical August,” said Nick Jones, who is in charge of Caltrans’ traffic monitoring unit. “In August, we have all those people coming in from out of town, but they are on the road at oddball times.”

Even though breezy commutes might not last, some commuters are enjoying the break.

Lisa Fitch of the Greater Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce said she usually takes surface streets to her home in the midtown area. But because of detours around Staples Center, she decided to take the Harbor Freeway, even if it might mean a bumper-to-bumper crawl.

“I thought I would get on the freeway and just get home when I got there,” Fitch said. “Instead, I just zipped right along.”