It’s been called the worst intersection in California — or at least in Los Angeles.
The so-called “San Vicente Asterisk” is less like a traditional intersection, where one street crosses another (often at a clean 90-degree angle), and more like a nightmare scenario cooked up by the most evil of DMV driving instructors.
The six-way intersection involves the crossing of not two, but three major Los Angeles thoroughfares: San Vicente Boulevard, Fairfax Avenue and Olympic Boulevard. Drivers heading north on Fairfax first encounter the avenue’s intersection with Olympic Boulevard, where they wait for the light to change before crossing the busy six-lane street. Then, they come to a second, almost instantaneous stop, when Fairfax crosses the diagonal San Vicente Boulevard just about 30 feet later — a paved-over vestige of the city’s historic Pacific Electric rail line that today cuts right through a dense section of the city. The boulevard, with its occasionally awkward intersections, routinely causes gridlock, dangerous pedestrian crossings and endless blaring car horns…