page_title: Santa Ana Freeway
hierarchical_section_title: Santa Ana Freeway
context_page_description: The Santa Ana Freeway is one of the principal freeways in Southern California, connecting Los Angeles and its southeastern suburbs including the freeway's namesake, the city of Santa Ana. The freeway begins at its junction with the San Diego Freeway, called the El Toro Y, in Irvine, signed as I-5. From there, it generally goes southeast to northwest to the East Los Angeles Interchange, where it takes the designation of U.S. Route 101. It then proceeds 2.95 miles northwest to the Four Level Interchange in downtown Los Angeles. Formerly, the entirety of the route was marked as US 101 until the 1964 highway renumbering, which truncated US 101 to the East Los Angeles Interchange and designated the rest of the freeway as I-5.
  North of the East Los Angeles Interchange complex, I-5 follows the Golden State Freeway. South of the El Toro Y, I-5 takes on the San Diego Freeway name from I-405.
  An abundance of landmarks, most importantly Disneyland and Angel Stadium of Anaheim, along the Orange County portion of its route combines with a severe bottleneck beginning at the Los Angeles County line to make it one of the most congested freeways in Southern California.
context_section_description: The Santa Ana Freeway is one of the principal freeways in Southern California, connecting Los Angeles and its southeastern suburbs including the freeway's namesake, the city of Santa Ana. The freeway begins at its junction with the San Diego Freeway (Interstate 405, I-405), called the El Toro Y, in Irvine, signed as I-5. From there, it generally goes southeast to northwest to the East Los Angeles Interchange, where it takes the designation of U.S. Route 101 (US 101). It then proceeds 2.95 miles (4.75 km) northwest to the Four Level Interchange (also known as the Bill Keene Memorial Interchange) in downtown Los Angeles. Formerly, the entirety of the route was marked as US 101 until the 1964 highway renumbering, which truncated US 101 to the East Los Angeles Interchange and designated the rest of the freeway as I-5.
  North of the East Los Angeles Interchange complex, I-5 follows the Golden State Freeway. South of the El Toro Y, I-5 takes on the San Diego Freeway name from I-405.
  An abundance of landmarks, most importantly Disneyland and Angel Stadium of Anaheim, along the Orange County portion of its route combines with a severe bottleneck beginning at the Los Angeles County line (shrinking from 10 to 6 lanes) to make it one of the most congested freeways in Southern California.  The infamously busy intersection of the Santa Ana, Garden Grove, and Orange freeways in southwestern Orange is nicknamed the Orange Crush.
  The freeway is officially defined as Routes 101 and 5 from Route 110 (Four Level Interchange) to Route 405.
caption: Santa Ana Freeway highlighted in red