Los Angeles Thanksgiving Traffic 2019: Best, Worst Times To Drive

LOS ANGELES, CA — Thanksgiving is right around the corner, and planning the logistics of your holiday travel can be a stressful affair. The same question seems to emerge every year: When is the best time to hit the road in the Los Angeles area?

Google Maps has identified the best and worst times to leave for your Thanksgiving road trip, helping you focus on enjoying family fun and chowing-the-turkey time. As it turns out, common sense applies. Leaving in the middle of the night makes for the quickest commute, but afternoon rush hour will get you. The folks at Google also studied the best and worst times to head to the grocery story, the liquor store and the bakery leading up to Thanksgiving as well as the worst time to hit the shops on Black Friday (1 p.m.).

Here are the times you need to know for turkey day related travel in the Los Angeles area.

Best Time To Leave Before Thanksgiving: 2 a.m. Wednesday
Worst Time To Leave Before Thanksgiving: 4 p.m. Wednesday
Best Time To Leave After Thanksgiving: 3 a.m. Friday
Worst Time To Leave After Thanksgiving: 4 p.m. Friday

Traffic on Black Friday in our city will spike between 4 and 5 p.m, while the busiest time at the shops will be 1 p.m. Friday.

To determine the best and worst times to drive on Thanksgiving, Google Maps analyzed data from the 2018 “Thanksgiving Holiday Period,” which included the Wednesday before Thanksgiving until the end of Sunday after the holiday.

The web mapping service found the volume of cars on the road at a given time during this period, and received the traffic information anonymously from Android users in 25 cities throughout the United States.

And from all of us here at Patch, have a happy Thanksgiving