And much more so nowadays. I drove regularly in L.A. from '79 to '00 (mostly on the West side), and the traffic was always bad, topping every "worst traffic" list I ever read. Moved away in 2000, and friends kept telling me how much worse it'd gotten in a relatively short time (3 - 4 years). Didn't believe them. ....until I returned.
I changed my hours from 6:30am until 3pm, and even that didn't help much. The I-5 and 405 are nearly as plugged at 5:30am as 7:30.
Eventually, I just "retired" and moved out here to the desert in '02 and haven't been back since.