Oh boy. Memorial Day Weekend, the traditional start of summer (so soon?), is almost here.
Mark Leuthi / Flickr
If you're road trippin,' be prepared to spend much of your three-day weekend huffing exhaust fumes from the comfort of your vehicle. Traffic data service INRIX gave us the 411 on the upcoming holiday crush, including ways to beat it:
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From the Department of Tell Us Something We Don't Already Know we bring you Tom Tom's latest "congestion index" data.
Tom Tom
This particular breaking news involves the GPS company's round-up of North American cities with the absolute worst traffic at the end of 2012. And you know who the wiener is:
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Santa Monica Boulevard, once a lifeline called Route 66, remained closed in West Hollywood this morning following an electrical vault mishap, authorities said.
Google Maps
The problem came up at 6:45 a.m. and prompted the L.A. County Fire Department to respond, officials said. Although West Hollywood sheriff's officials called it an "underground transformer explosion in the middle of Santa Monica Blvd.," fire authorities say there was no blaze:
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For anyone who has ever fretted about what driving long distances without passengers during rush hour is doing to the environment and to your wallet, there's Lyft. 
Lyft
Launched in San Francisco in 2012, the mobile-app based ride-sharing program allows members to find drivers in their areas who will shuttle them and others nearby for a fee that's reportedly cheaper than most cab rides.
The program hit the Santa Monica area last week.
Not surprisingly, traditional taxi and limo companies are not pleased. The California Public Utilities Commission -- which regulates the state's transportation systems -- has issued fines against the company and even sent it a cease-and-desist.
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With a camera and a web site, D.J. Prator fought the law and won -- and saved downtown drivers hundreds of dollars each in the process.
D.J. Prator LAPD officer giving ticket in downtown
Last night, SoCal Connected's Laurel Erickson reported how Prator got a "no right turn" sign at the intersection of 7th Street and Broadway in downtown taken down in a matters of weeks after catching the city red-handed for setting up what appeared to be a ticket trap.
The city usually spends years taking away such a road sign. The extraordinarily fast action was "like an admission of guilt," Prator tells L.A. Weekly, that the some city official was up to something very sketchy.
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No big surprise here.
Eric Demarcq / Flickr
Every quarter, it seems, new data supports the fact that Los Angeles is the absolute worst place in the nation for traffic.
This time around TomTom's annual Congestion Index gives us the crown once more.
Yay!
Remember car pooling, flexible work schedules and "telecommuting."
Eric Estrada / Flickr
Yeah, none of that worked as far as our traffic goes. L.A. still has the worst congestion in the nation.
Will anything bring relief? Researchers at UC Berkeley and MIT think they might have come up with something:
We're number one! We're number one! That's right, L.A. is ranked first in the latest ranking of U.S. cities... in terms of worst Thanksgiving getaway traffic.
Flickr.com/epsos
Data traffic provider INRIX predicted the top 10 busiest cities this holiday and, to the surprise of no one, Los Angeles tops the list with the average driving trip expected to increase by 33 percent compared to a typical day.
How about you tell us something we don't already know, traffic experts? What's that--you know which are the worst times to hit the road?! Go on...
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Using the 110 Freeway through South L.A., which runs through some of the most economically challenged turf in Southern California, could soon cost you as much as ... $1.40 a mile.
Terry / Flickr
That's because Los Angeles County's first "High Occupancy Toll" system will spark up starting Saturday. You'll have the option of paying for using revamped diamond lanes, now called Metro ExpressLanes, or staying stuck in slower traffic.
The rates will vary depending on how bad traffic is:
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The West Hollywood Halloween Costume Carnaval is going down tonight. That means the streets of WeHo will morph into a sweaty, bacchanalian scrum of frankenstorms and binders full of women and guys galloping Gangnam Style, all jockeying for each other's costume compliments. 
Andy Keown 2011 West Hollywood Costume Carnaval contest winners
Incidentally, those streets will also be closed to cars.
The following roads will be closed through 6am tomorrow morning:
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| Huizar: Flying colors |
President Obama is back, baby.
Obama for President
And we're not just talking about winning the last two presidential debates after choking in the first one. No, the POTUS is back in L.A. this afternoon for the taping of the The Tonight Show With Jay Leno.
And you know what that means? Traffic:
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If the space shuttle Endeavour's trip from LAX to Exposition Park seems slow going this afternoon, that's just another day on the streets of L.A.
Eric Demarcq
The latest TomTom quarterly report on traffic congestion, Los Angeles is maintaining its top-dog status in the nation.
Issued this week, the study says L.A. drivers spend 33 percent more time on the road than the average U.S. motorist:
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CicLaVia is rolling through the streets of Los Angeles once again this weekend--but not the same streets it usually rolls through. 
Rich Jhong
The bicycling block party has new route connecting MacArthur Park in Westlake with Exposition Park near USC, Downtown's newly-opened Grand Park, Chinatown and Mariachi Plaza in Boyle Heights. And that means a whole new set of streets will be closed off and a whole new set of intersections have been designated "car crossings."
Here's what you need to know if you plan on navigating the streets this Sunday in (God forbid) a motor vehicle.
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Could the big rig that just smashed through the concrete divider on the 5 freeway in Burbank have picked a worse possible time to bring traffic to a standstill?
NBC4 Oh no you did not.
Just after 5 p.m. this afternoon -- smack-dab in the middle of the Friday rush -- a big rig heading southbound somehow lodged itself into the concrete, causing as many as four smaller vehicles to crash as well, according to TV reports.
Like a good L.A. news station, NBC4 is streaming the mother of all traffic jams live...
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Let's hope incoming NASA space shuttle Endeavour doesn't hit one of these babies on its road trip across Los Angeles.
@kevintakumi via Twitter Pothole traffic.
Last night around 8 p.m., just as rush hour was about to die down, the pothole to trump all potholes was unearthed on the 405 North -- right smack dab in the middle of Metro's latest carpool-lane construction zone.
Thus turning the evening commute into an impromptu Carmageddon II, far more dramatic than the real thing:
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The nation's most glamorous space shuttle is coming home! California Science Center President Jeffrey Rudolph just announced that the Endeavour, a gorgeous Palmdale native with a 78-foot wingspan, will be returning to its area of birth on September 20, barring weather or other issues.
Wikipedia Endeavour incoming.
To give Endeavour a proper, SNL-style California welcome after all those years adventuring the universe with Gabby Giffords' husband (but mostly just chilling patiently at the International Space Station)...
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A new wave of resistance is swelling in the decades-old struggle between California transportation officials and L.A.-area residents over both an expansion and extension of the uber-clogged 710 freeway.
LADOT Can freeway expansion ever be healthy?
That's partly because various extension scenarios just released by Caltrans and Metro happen to barge through suburban, serene Northeast Los Angeles. As with helicopter noise and subway construction, the hubbub gets so much more louder when the L.A. gentry get involved!
But the real losers will be those lower-income folks living and working right up against the roadway:
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No longer do you have to buy a crappy navigation device and suction-cup it to the wrong part of your windshield only to get stopped by cops for obstructing your driver's side view.
Eric Demarcq / Flickr
Caltrans this week announced that it's helping to put TomTom out of business with a new traffic website called Quickmap that gives you detailed, up-to-the-minute data on where the logjams, construction closures and accidents are. Sure, TomTom and other nav systems offer traffic updates, but this is the source.
And, yes, there is an app for that:
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For eager end-of-world watchers, Carmageddon I last summer was a total letdown. We did a little tour of the projected problem streets that famous Saturday, and found they were emptier than ever. Turns out everyone either stayed home or spent the weekend strolling around their neighborhood, for an almost sickeningly happy/communal day of waving at neighbors and noticing little things like the sweet peas blooming next door. (Barf. So... Brooklyn.) And on Sunday, construction ended earlier than expected, around noon. Wah wah.
Zazzle.com Not so fast
But come September 29 and 30, we may have another shot at apocalyptic traffic mayhem:
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