San Luis Obispo :)

I live in and work in the same zip code, Westlake Village. Took me 6 minutes to get to the office this morning, I missed one of the 3 lights. Top off, 55*, this place sucks. Leave and/or don't come as applicable.

Live in LA, NYC, DC, SF? BTDT. If you can't commute by rapid transit, change jobs.

105 is not the norm. Usually it's about 40-50 minutes, which I don't mind. Gives me some "alone time"... NPR, sports radio, occasional smoke...

I'm commuting from Hermosa to Brentwood. The firm I'm working for is well worth the commute. But an 82 minute difference from one day to the next is kind of... well... a kick to the nuts.


As for "getting out of California".... Not anytime soon.

In the past two months I've had four nights in my sleeping bag (Joshua Tree), I've surfed a bunch of days, snowboarder in Mammoth, moutain biked in Los and Orange counties.... shall I go on? Ok... Hiked in the Angeles mtns., gone to the beach for some sun and most importantly dated some very fine women. All this during winter months!

Y'all are over the Golden State? My response....

Laaaaater!

=)

Commute from Hollywood to the San Fernando Valley during the Hollywood Bowl season (summer), and you'll know very deftly what TRAFFIC is. I live 7 miles from work, and when "The Bowl" is in season, on any given day, it takes me over an hour to get home.

I figure I just need a standard ol' mountain bike - not even a race bike - and I could get to and from work faster than if I were in my car - hills included - and doing so without breaking a sweat.

Also: our new mayor, Antonio Villagriosa, is supposedly working on some traffic relief. However, putting meter maids out in the middle of Cahuenga and Hollywood boulevard to direct traffic, is in my opinion, no solution.

When downtown LA became accessible by one way routes only, virtually all traffic jams ceased to exist. Now it's a breeze getting through there.

I wish the same could be done with L.A.-area freeways. One would need to make all eight lanes of the 170, 101, 110, 10 and 405 one direction for four hours daily. For example, in the morning, all traffic from the San Fernando Valley is routed toward downtown L.A. during the hours of 6AM to 10AM, then from 4PM to 8PM, the flow is reversed out of downtown.

Those going against traffic would simply have to use surface streets.

Is this feasible? A

re there any city planners on this forum?

SmileWavy

Thats the payback for our salty, snowy roads - its a pretty lonely drive mostly.

Not really feasable IMHO. Many are actaully going the other way to service jobs and construction out in the burbs.

Mny years ago, when unions had a better toehold on construction, I would see people crossing each other's paths. I always wondered why the union could set up a clearing house to trade like jobs so the valley guys coming to OC don't pass the oncoming OC guys going to the valley. We have a lot of that, trust me. I'm still out on sites now and then.

AFA want CA used to be, well I'm a 2nd generation CA resident. I could cry. But. I've left and come back. I didn't find Nirvana elsewhere and I don't think it's here either.

I suppose if you could make your living on one of the less populated HI islands, that would be step in the right direction.

The secret to living in CA these days is to be somewhat of an isolationist and not drive too damn far for anything. Save all your driving for early Sun morns.

That's kinda how I do it now. Whereas I used to drive 25K/year and not leave the county except for a weekend now and then. I now drive about 4000 miles/yr and stay in the city. Most drives are 10 to 20 minutes.

Eventually, I'll be out in the weeds with a big barn to work on cars. I won't leave the property much at all. Wayne, that's real America, just like our many farmers and ranchers as well as workers in a company dominated town. We are actaully getting back to that, somewhat, with Mercedes and Toyota, etc., opening plants in semi-rural areas.

How feasible is an underground subway running from SM to downtown?

It's being talked about now.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-02-08-la-subway_x.htm

The reason it was never done was because of an underground methane explosion in the Fairfax area, specifically at Ross Dress-for-Less.

It must be getting a little better down there. Half your population (the half that can't drive) has moved up here.

Well, you can't have it all, which is my argument. And secondly, I believe it is feasible, for if the majority of commuters are going one way to the majority as most large employers are located in clusters within L.A. (Downtown, the Westside, SFV, LAX, etc.) and they're given one-way access on the freeways, then this frees up the boulevards for those going opposite directions. For those, the duration of traffic signals should be lessened from 30-45 seconds down to possibly 20 seconds.