Los Santos Freeway

A stretch of freeway in Downtown, Los Santos, GTA San Andreas.
Map of the Los Santos Freeway

The Los Santos Freeway is a highway in the game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

Description

The Los Santos Freeway is based of US Interstate 5 and US Interstate 15, which connects Los Angeles to the Bay Area and Las Vegas all the way to Montana and Vancouver, Canada. The Los Santos is a major highway connecting Los Santos with Las Venturas. The highway is a four lane highway with a wide median in Red County. But, in Los Santos it has predominantly a median with a concrete barrier, but at times it's like a curb with street lamps in the middle of the freeway for illumination at night. In Downtown it meets a short freeway to near Grove Street where Carl Johnson lives. Near its end, for a short time, the median has two guard rails on each side keeping traffic to their own side, this is due to a tunnel upon which the freeway must encounter. The freeway ends briefly in Ocean Docks and then after clearing the docks and a few residential home (by way of traffic lights) it becomes a freeway again, on the other side of Red County. When it nears Las Venturas, it turns and heads west towards itself and ends, while staying in Red County the second time around. Traffic on the freeway is often chaotic as drivers cut each other off and cause pile ups and eventually explosions when one or more cars over turn or when the player fires a rocket from a rocket launcher at the traffic. At that time, drivers will try and flee their cars before they explode, but usually they die in the process and then it sets off a chain reaction as drivers who didn't flee their cars try to outrun the pileups and subsequent explosions. Most times, they succeed. Sometimes, they fail and die whilst trying to escape. The traffic levels bounce off from time to time, as traffic tries to get where they need to go. Sometimes, it's an easy commute with little traffic, while other times it can be a nightmare with a lot of traffic, especially around the Los Santos International Airport area.

Traffic

Most of the traffic on the Los Santos Freeway in Los Santos, itself is residential. By Los Santos International Airport, Buses and Coaches join the freeway along with other commercial vehicles. In Red County, the traffic is more rural and industrious as Linerunners frequently use this stretch of the freeway along with other semis.

Accidents

A pile-up on the Los Santos Freeway.

On average, the Los Santos Freeway suffers from more pileups than any where else in the city. When a pile up occurs, the emergency crews don't come to treat the injured unless there is a fire or drivers are dead and their bodies are strewn across the highway. The police don't block off traffic, so no one else can avoid the collision, so they too become a part of the chaos on the freeway. Then, as the police get caught up in traffic, they too will be rammed by civilians, causing the police to open fire and causing even more chaos. Firefighters and might be able to save some lives by parking their fire trucks on the road, essentially blocking traffic. All of these issues are due to a lack of such actions being programmed into the game by Rockstar. Most pileups happen at the Mulholland Intersection (the slope leading to the airport). The only place in the state that suffers more pile-ups in the state is the Julius Thruway.

Exits

Here are some of the roads the Los Santos Freeway meets (freeways included)

SOUTHBOUND

EXIT 1: Los Santos Freeway: Red County Ocean Docks

EXIT 2: Mullholland Drive: Vinewood East Beach

EXIT 3: East Beach Freeway Extension

EXIT 4: Los Santos International Airport Note: A unique interchange with ramps on the southbound side and a road that forms a wye on the northbound side.

EXIT 5: Los Santos International Airport Santa Maria Beach

AFTER OCEAN DOCKS:

EXITS 6 & 7: Red County

EXIT 8: Los Santos Freeway To Downtown Los Santos or to Las Venturas via Julius Thruway on opposite side of San Andreas Sound.

NORTHBOUND:

EXIT 1 & 2: Red County

AFTER OCEAN DOCKS:

EXIT 3: Los Santos International Airport Santa Maria Beach

EXIT 4: Los Santos International Airport: See info on Southbound portion.

EXIT 5: East Beach Freeway Extension

EXIT 6: Mullholland Drive

EXIT 7: Small one way road behind Vinewood near Red County line. A northbound exit only. No entrance back to the freeway at this exit.

EXIT 8: Los Santos Freeway: Ocean Docks via East Beach.

EXIT 9: Julius Thruway West and Julius Thruway East Harry Gold Parkway To: Bone County and San Fierro via Julius Thruway. Los Santos Freeway becomes Harry Gold Parkway at this point.

Trivia

  • The Los Santos Freeway is mentionned in Grand Theft Auto IV.
  • In the beta version, the Los Santos Freeway was called Interstate 45, which is odd, since a real freeway called Interstate 45 does not exist in Los Angeles, but rather in Texas that connects Houston and Dallas.