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San Diego Freeway
Maintained by Caltrans
San Diego Freeway in blue
South end:	MX 1 at Mexican border towards Baja California
Major junctions:	I-805 in San Ysidro I-8 in Ocean Beach I-805 in Carmel Valley I-405/I-5 in Irvine I-605 in Seal Beach I-10 in Culver City US 101 in Sherman Oaks
North end:	I-5 in Mission Hills
System:	Southern California freeways
State highways in California History - Unconstructed - Deleted - Freeway - Scenic

The San Diego Freeway; the Interstate 405 segment is highlighted in red, the Interstate 5 segment is highlighted in blue.

The San Diego Freeway (Interstate 405, and the part of Interstate 5 south of the El Toro Y^[1]) is one of the principal north-south highways in Southern California, and the major beltway of I-5 running through Southern California. Connecting Los Angeles to South Orange County, it is heavily traveled by commuters and freight haulers along its entire length and is known as one of the busiest and most congested freeways in the world. It has played a crucial role in the development of dozens of cities and suburbs along its route through the Greater Los Angeles area. A portion of the I-405 section of the freeway was once known as the Sepulveda Freeway, after the former district of Los Angeles now known as North Hills.^[1]

Northbound

• San Diego- between Interstate 8 and Mexican border
• Los Angeles- north of Interstate 8 to State Route 74
• Santa Ana / Los Angeles- north of State Route 74

Southbound

• Mexico- between Mexican border and State Route 905
• San Diego- between Orange Crush Interchange and State Route 905

Northbound

• Long Beach- north from El Toro Y to 7th Street; 22 West (Los Alamitos Curve)
• Santa Monica- from Interstate 605 (Los Alamitos Curve) to Interstate 10
• LAX Airport- from Interstate 110 to Interstate 105
• Sacramento- from Interstate 10 to Interstate 5 Merger

Southbound

• Santa Monica- south from Interstate 5 to Interstate 10
• LAX Airport- from Interstate 10 to Interstate 105
• Long Beach- fromInterstate 105 to Interstate 710
• San Diego- from Interstate 710 to El Toro Y

San Diego Freeway built south of El Toro Y originally signed as U.S. Route 101 and U.S. Route 101 Alternate before it was built which full length was completed in 1969. The U.S. Route 101 decommissioned in 1964.

The San Diego Freeway, close to the interchange with the Ventura Freeway, on one of the rare days when it is not congested.

The San Diego Freeway splits away from the Golden State Freeway (Interstate 5) in the Mission Hills district of Los Angeles (Exits 73/158), becoming Interstate 405. From the northern San Fernando Valley it heads straight south toward the Santa Monica Mountains. After crossing over the Sepulveda Pass, its route roughly follows the outline of the Pacific coast, but between five and ten miles inland. It crosses the Los Angeles/Orange county line in Long Beach, then continues southeast through Orange County. It is joined by the Santa Ana Freeway (Interstate 5) in southeastern Irvine at the massive El Toro Y interchange, below which it merges back into Interstate 5 (at Exit 94).

The San Diego Freeway (now Interstate 5) turns due south in Mission Viejo and continues in that direction until it reaches the bluffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Dana Point, at which point it once again turns southeastward to follow the contour of the shoreline. After passing through the 28 miles of Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in northern San Diego County, it travels through the northern suburbs of San Diego and into the city itself. In the Sorrento Valley district, the freeway ends, splitting into the unnamed final portion of I-5 and the Jacob Dekema Freeway (Interstate 805).

San Diego Freeway southbound near the intersection with Interstate 10.

The San Diego Freeway's congestion problems are legendary, leading to the joke that the Interstate was named 405 because traffic moves at "four or five" miles an hour. Indeed, average speeds as low as five miles per hour are routinely recorded during morning and afternoon commutes, and its interchanges with the Ventura Freeway (milepost 63) and with the Santa Monica Freeway (milepost 53) each consistently rank among the five most congested freeway interchanges in the United States. Commuters are known to despise the freeway: Steve Harvey of the Los Angeles Times once featured a photograph of a personalized license plate with the text HATE405 in his column. While much of this gridlock has to do with the lack of alternate routes between many of the areas it connects (some of which, such as the Pacific Coast and Laurel Canyon freeways, were proposed but abandoned for environmental reasons), the freeway would likely be busy even with the addition of other roads and mass transit solutions, as it connects so many important locations in the Greater Los Angeles area.

Aerial photo of the 405 intersection with State Route 19

• LAX
• Long Beach Municipal Airport
• John Wayne Airport
• Port of Los Angeles
• Port of Long Beach

• Century City high-rise office park
• Marina del Rey
• More than ten California state beaches, as well as many owned by counties and municipalities, and many tourist-heavy beach cities

• California State University, Northridge
• The J. Paul Getty Center
• The Skirball Cultural Center
• University of California, Los Angeles
• Loyola Marymount University
• California State University, Dominguez Hills
• California State University, Long Beach
• University of California, Irvine
• University of California, San Diego

Communities along the route of the San Diego Freeway include

• Mission Hills
• North Hills
• Panorama City
• Van Nuys
• Sherman Oaks
• Bel Air
• Brentwood
• Westwood
• West Los Angeles
• Sawtelle
• Palms
• Mar Vista
• Culver City
• Ladera Heights
• Westchester
• Inglewood
• Hawthorne
• Del Aire
• Lawndale
• Torrance
• Harbor Gateway
• Carson
• Long Beach
• Signal Hill
• Seal Beach
• Garden Grove
• Westminster
• Huntington Beach
• Fountain Valley
• Costa Mesa
• Irvine
• Laguna Hills
• Laguna Woods
• Lake Forest
• Mission Viejo
• Laguna Niguel
• San Juan Capistrano
• Dana Point
• San Clemente
• Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton
• Oceanside
• Carlsbad
• Encinitas
• Solana Beach
• Del Mar
• Torrey Pines
• Carmel Valley
• Sorrento Valley

See Exit list on Interstate 5 and Interstate 405

While dangerous high-speed chases along the San Diego Freeway are not uncommon, perhaps the most famous chase in its history was also one of the slowest. On the afternoon of June 17, 1994, former football star O.J. Simpson, suspected in the murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and waiter Ronald Goldman, took to the freeway in a white Ford Bronco (driven by former USC teammate Al Cowlings) pursued by police, commencing a bizarre, widely televised low-speed chase that ended hours later when Simpson returned to his estate in Brentwood via the Sunset Boulevard exit and surrendered to police.