People often ask me what's the best piece of advice I can give on LA (ok, so no one asks me but when someone finally does I heard a great piece of information that has helped me immensely which I can pass on).
I have a friend who was personal assistant to Estelle Getty and during an interview he told me she was asked what's the best piece of advice she could give on Hollywood. She answered very simply, "Take Fountain". For some reason people in this city are much more like lemmings than anywhere else I've been. They see everyone else using the well known streets like Santa Monica or Sunset so they use them and don't seem to mind averaging 5 mph or less during rush hour.
As you can see on the map (highlighted in green) Fountain goes through most of Hollywood and West Hollywood and no one uses it. Most prefer to use the streets highlighted in red.
So, the next time you're crusing though Hollywood and Sunset gets a little jammed just go on down to Fountain. Just make sure you watch out as often when cars are parked on Fountain it gets slimmed down to one and a half lanes in each direction.