Visitors to Los Angeles: Be Aware of Especially Bad Traffic This Weekend

I’m so happy that I’ll be at the Chicago Seminars this weekend and not home in Los Angeles. Several major sports and entertainment events occur on Friday and Sunday. Several of them are in the same area of town. This means the city’s legendary awful traffic is expected to be even worse.

Baseball, and Football, and Basketball, and Concerts, and Hockey — Oh, My!

I suspect plenty of people will be coming in from out of town this weekend for one of the big sporting events (baseball, college football, NFL football).

The big story around here is that the Los Angeles Dodgers host the New York Yankees for the first two games of the World Series.

It’s also NBA opening weekend — and the Los Angeles Lakers host games on back-to-back nights. One of those games is after a Los Angeles Kings matinee.

On one night, events take place at SoFi Stadium, YouTube Theatre, the Intuit Dome, and The Forum. All four venues are very close together in Inglewood. (Always up to no good!)

With so many people going to events in two different parts of town, the freeways and some side streets back up more than normal.

The Minnesota Vikings are in town to play the L.A. Rams on Thursday night. The New Orleans Saints play the Chargers on Sunday afternoon. But it’s Friday and perhaps Saturday that will be icky. And visitors for the NFL games will be scattered around and need to get to the airports at some point.

For some reason, weekend traffic in this city has only worsened in the past several years (I keep hearing about “everyone’s leaving California!” Well, not where I live.) And it’ll be downright hellish this weekend.

Friday, October 25

Friday is likely to be the worse of the two days. Friday afternoons here in L.A. are like Friday afternoons everywhere else: chaos. Except everyone drives in L.A. and is perpetually late. So, it’s a special kind of slow-moving madness.

Game 1 of the World Series between the Dodgers and Yankees starts at 5:00 PM at Dodger Stadium. (You know, rush hour.)

That’s just north of Downtown Los Angeles. It’s accessible via the 101, 110, and 5 freeways. All of which are usually nightmares between 7 AM and 9 PM anyway. For what it’s worth, there should only be about 56,000 people heading to the game.

People who get the time off from work (or tragically “come down with something” — not that I ever did that) will likely start showing up around 4 PM. So, the roads will be garbage starting around 2 PM.

At 7:00 PM, the Los Angeles Lakers host the Phoenix Suns at Crypto.com (which everyone still refers to by its old name: STAPLES Center.)

Another team from the New York City area is in town. The Rutgers University football team is in town to play the USC Trojans. That takes place down the freeway at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, which seats 77,500. Kickoff is 8:00 PM.

All told, we’re looking at just under 150,000 people going to events in a 5.5-mile stretch. And most people are driving.

In Inglewood, the East L.A. Classic high school football game kicks off at 6:00 PM inside SoFi Stadium. Codiciado plays the YouTube Theatre at 8:00 PM. (That venue is part of the SoFi Stadium complex.)

A block away, Jeff Lynne and his ELO group play The Forum at 8:00 PM.

Down the street, David Gilmour of Pink Floyd takes the Intuit Dome stage at 7:30 PM.

All we need now are visits from President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, or former President Donald Trump to make traffic somehow worse.

Saturday, October 26

Saturday is a little better.

Game two of the World Series starts at 5:00 PM.

But the Los Angeles Kings take on the Utah Hockey Team (or Club or whatever they are) at STAPLES. The puck drops at 1:00 PM. That will let out just as northbound traffic into Dodger Stadium gets cooking.

The Sacramento Kings and Los Angeles Lakers tip off at 7:30, also at STAPLES Crypto.

Jeff Lynne’s ELO is back at The Forum for an 8 PM show down in Inglewood. Latin music star Residente plays an 8:00 PM at YouTube Theatre.

What About Public Transportation?

That’s cute.

Let me put it this way: some members of the public transportation board went on the record to say they won’t take Metro because it’s unsafe.

Some people swear by the L.A. Metro system. Most other people swear about it. There are shuttles between Union Station train depot and Dodger Stadium, so that’s an option. (If you’re brave, you can take one of the L.A. subway lines to Union Station.)

What Should You Do?

Leave early. (And bringing sunscreen and water. It’s going to be warm on Friday and Saturday.) Avoid downtown L.A. if you can, especially Friday. Some family members went from Woodland Hills in the San Fernando Valley to the Intuit Dome to see Billy Joel during a recent Saturday night. It took them almost two hours. There was another event at The Forum that night. A USC football game was played at the Coliseum near downtown.

That will likely be three hours on Friday.

The events in Inglewood will probably affect some of the LAX-related traffic during the early evenings. They shouldn’t have much bearing on the games downtown.

For what it’s worth, the best station for traffic reports is 1070 AM.

Drive carefully and have fun!