Los Angeles Traffic Reports: Socal Traffic Expert details LA's Radio Stations

While every major city has radio traffic reports, it is Los Angeles that seems to personify the image of the “traffic helicopter,” particularly thanks to the slew of televised “police” chases in the last few decades. 

Most Angelenos’ first reaction when hitting unexpected traffic is to tune to their favorite news station.  Each one has (with few exceptions) had relatively the same content format for decades, and no matter how the personality lineup changes, the frequency of traffic reports doesn’t.

Drawn from experience both listening to and reporting on each of these radio stations for over a decade, here are the author’s personal recommendations for each:

·         KNX 1070 AM

·         KFWB 980 AM

·         KFI 640 AM

·         KABC 790 AM

Local stations in surrounding suburban markets provide traffic reports as well.  Many times, these stations are much more reliable for localized information and expertise than the “big” L.A. stations:

·         KHTS 1220 AM (Santa Clarita)

·         KVEN 1450 AM (Ventura/Santa Barbara)

·         KHAY 100.7 FM (Ventura)

·         KFRG 99.9 FM (San Bernardino/Riverside)

·         KHWY 98.1/99.5 FM (Barstow/High Desert)

KNX 1070 AM

·         Radio Station Format: News (24 hours)

·         Geographic Area of Station Signal:  Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, Santa Barbara, Kern, San Bernardino, Riverside, San Diego counties

·         Geographic Area of Traffic Report coverage:  Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, San Bernardino, Riverside counties.

·         Frequency of traffic reports: Every 10 minutes, “on the 5s,” :05, :15, :25, :35, :45, :55

·         Exception to regular traffic report programming:  Sunday mornings 5:30am-5:58am, during any re-broadcast of “60 Minutes” or Breaking News

·         Airborne Coverage:  2 drive-time, 1 midday

·         Pros:  Drive-time reporters produce their own reports, usually get information faster than stations that use information fed from a producer’s desk

·         Cons: KNX covers such a large geographic area that it is oftentimes difficult to have a truly comprehensive traffic report.

KNX is always the superior traffic reporting resource.  I don’t say this just because my voice was on their airwaves for nearly 10 years….  I saw in action, both on and off-the-clock, how KNX reports are more accurate than any other station at least 80% of the time.  KNX traffic reporters have some of the most loyal bases of “tipsters” – a term actually coined by KNX in the 80s and stolen by seemingly every broadcast media in the Southland.  Tipsters, eyewitness drivers, usually provide more accurate information than overburdened law enforcement officers, especially when they are regular commuters very familiar with their routes.

KFWB 980 AM

·         Radio Station Format: News/Talk

·         Geographic Area of Station Signal:  Los Angeles, Orange, parts of San Bernardino and Riverside counties

·         Geographic Area of Traffic Report coverage:  Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, Riverside counties.

·         Frequency of traffic reports: Every 10 minutes, “on the 1s,” :01, :11, :21, :31, :41, :51

·         Exception to regular traffic report programming:  During Select talk shows

·         Airborne Coverage: 1 drive-time, 1 midday

·         Pros:  KFWB has the weakest signal of all AM-News stations in Los Angeles, so reporters don’t usually bother mentioning freeways outside of their coverage area.  This allows *slightly* more time to devote to pressing incidents “closer to home.”

·         Cons: Reporters (with only the exception of diligent and experienced drive-time reporters) read information fed from a producer’s screen, which can include information up to 30 minutes old.

In the traffic reporting world, KFWB is considered the “neighborhood station.”  KFWB will spend an inordinate amount of time covering a surface street tie-up in Hollywood, when KNX might devote the same amount of time to something similar in Riverside or Redlands. During drive-time with airborne coverage, KFWB reports can be as accurate as any other station.  But any other time of the day (particularly overnights), the traffic reporters do not produce their own reports and therefore leave lots of room for error or outdated information.

KFI 640 AM

·         Radio Station Format: Talk

·         Geographic Area of Station Signal:  Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, Santa Barbara, Kern, San Bernardino, Riverside, San Diego counties (entire western U.S. at night)

·         Geographic Area of Traffic Report coverage:  Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, Riverside, San Diego counties.

·         Frequency of traffic reports: 4 times per hour, generally at :01, :15, :31, :45

·         Exception to regular traffic reports: Breaking News

·         Airborne Coverage: None

·         Pros:  KFI has a bigger signal than KNX, as it is the only Los Angeles radio station dedicated as an official “Clear Channel” (not the name of the company by the same name, but the designation from the FCC) 50,000 watt station.  Like KNX, KFI reporters use that latitude to report on places far from Los Angeles but affecting motorists on long drives, like on holidays returning from Santa Barbara and coastal cities, the Grapevine and inland valleys, Las Vegas and the high desert, Palm Springs and the low desert and San Diego.

KFI traffic reporters produce their own reports as well, lending to the accuracy of their information

·         Cons: KFI no longer utilizes airborne services (Mike Nolan, “KFI Eye in the Sky” for decades, was the last before being relegated to the studio for the last few years of his career), so reporters generally have to acquire second-hand information.  Most good reporters are keen on “borrowing” information from other sources, including airborne reporters from other stations.  So chances are the information broadcast on KFI is fairly accurate, though not as frequent as KNX and KFWB.  KFI has advertised itself for decades as the “Talk station” (not “News station”) with the “Most frequent traffic reports.”  Unfortunately, talk radio usually only lends itself to four commercial breaks throughout the hour.

KABC 790 AM

·         Radio Station Format: Talk

·         Geographic Area of Station Signal:  Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, San Bernardino, Riverside counties

·         Geographic Area of Traffic Report coverage:  Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, Riverside counties.

·         Frequency of traffic reports: 4-5 times per hour, generally at :06, :21, :31, :45, :59

·         Exception to regular traffic report programming: Breaking News, Sporting Simulcasts

·         Airborne Coverage: 1 drive-time

·         Pros:  KABC has airborne coverage during drive-time, albeit for a small window, only 6-9am and 4-6pm.  Reporters on KABC generally talk more slowly than KNX or KFI reporters, allowing better comprehension of content, but usually only mentions 3 or 4 incidents.

·         Cons: At times other than drive-time, KABC reporters are fed information from producers, so can often be reading about closures that have long since cleared (30 minutes or even hours later).  Even the airborne coverage is limited since there is only one chopper, and rarely does the reporter stay at an incident very long.

  

Stations outside of Greater Los Angeles

that provide Local Traffic

KHTS 1220 AM

·         Radio Station Format: Talk/Music

·         Geographic Area of Station Signal:  Santa Clarita, Antelope Valleys

·         Geographic Area of Traffic Report coverage:  Santa Clarita Valley

·         Frequency of traffic reports: During drivetime, on the “8s:” :08, :18, :28, :38, :48, :58, also during Local Breaking News

·         Airborne Coverage: None

·         Pros:  KHTS is Santa Clarita’s only radio station.  Every once in a while, KNX, KFI and sometimes even KFWB will cover an incident on freeways through Santa Clarita, but rarely ever will they cover surface streets.  KHTS gives dedicated coverage to any incidents, particularly major ones like fires, earthquakes, or major closures, between and including the 5 and 14 freeways in northern Los Angeles County.

How to listen to traffic reports

Most good traffic reports will give a description of an entire typical communte, for example, the 405 from the West side to the San Fernando Valley, 5 from Burbank to OC, 10 from East LA to Pomona.  But in the interest of airtime, detailed descriptions may be impossible and traffic reporters will generally refer to the “typical” slow drive on the 405, which you will better understand when you get familiar with regular traffic patterns as laid out in this guide.

Most often, traffic reports consist of a “laundry list” of incidents, in which the reporter will name all the “trouble spots.”  Good reporters will mention only the most severe spots causing unusual traffic, and will gloss over “minor incidents” that have no bearing on traffic delays.

Once you learn the regular traffic patterns of your typical commutes, you’ll be able to assess whether an “incident” will actually make your commute worse (like a major accident on the 405 in the Sepulveda Pass) or if it can be ignored (like a “Sigalert” on an offramp on a lesser-travelled freeway.

The key thing to remember about a traffic report is that there has to be a lot of information squeezed into a minute, or many times less.  Refer to the individual station guides for the assessment of each.  Also, traffic is always “breaking news” and can change at any moment, no matter how accurate a report is when it is aired.

The only way you know you're getting up-to-the-minute information these days is if you check your Google map.  Even someone who is in an actual helicopter may not be looking at the thing he's talking about (I know I used to do this, check an accident, then report on in 2 minutes later because our plane was running out of fuel! only to find the lanes were closed after I left the scene classic Murphy's Law for an airborne traffic reporter).