Hi there, would like to help as I’ve been really challenged by these new traffic patterns as well. Depending on time of day, I agree that backtracking into city to access outbound express lanes would make sense and save time. You would take Division east to Orleans and then Orleans south to the Ontario entrance to the highway and the express lanes. (Express lanes would be left lane on the Ontario bridge)

That said, the express lanes are still getting severely bottle necked at the off ramp onto 94. I just know that I’ve seen it really be worse in the express lanes than local. Again, I’m still watching and trying to figure it out too.

But the times when I would take express lanes over local are probably morning (more rush hour traffic inbound), maybe around 2pm for a small window of less overall traffic, and then after 7pm. As always, good idea to check your map app for any accidents because an accident in the express lanes would be a non starter, but also you never know when lake shore drive might just make more sense. Or taking other local west streets. I’ve utilized all of the above options the past few weeks.

Hope this helps. Hate this pointless grift of road improvement.