Traffic, Traffic, and more TRAFFIC!!!!

So, last night I pounded out this blog post, but decided I would wait until after a good night sleep to post it.  This was mainly due to the fact that it was not a warm fuzzy type of post.  But after reviewing it again, I have been able to tone it down a bit. 

                As I have now been here for almost a month, I believe that I am transitioning nicely to my new life in California (car break-ins excluded).  The large multi-cultural city is nothing new for me, and in many ways makes me feel more at home.  There is an abundance of places to explore, restaurants to taste, and entertainment to enjoy.  However, there is one thing that I have not been able to adjust to – Traffic.

I HATE being stuck in traffic.  Everyone is used to getting caught in the occasional rush hour traffic.  But here in Los Angeles, rush hour seems to be every hour.  This is what my life has been reduced to:

As the traffic has been bad, my annoyance boiled over last night as I drove to a community council meeting in Hollywood.  The location was 9.2 miles away from my house.  Two weeks before, it had taken me 45 minutes to drive 5 miles in the same general direction, at about the same time of day (6 PM).  But those 5 miles required me to drive past some large freeway on and off ramps that are notoriously bad, as there are a very limited number of streets that allow you to cross the freeways.  Since these 9.2 miles would not take me near any freeway systems, I figured if I left one hour and 15 minutes early, I would be able to get there on time, maybe even a little early.  Boy was I wrong.  I reached the meeting just over an hour and a half after I left my house, an absolutely ridiculous time frame.  9.2 miles…..IN 1 HOUR AND 37 MINUTES!!! 

As time passes by I have begun to realize just how inefficient this city can be.  Because of the constant traffic, there is a limit on the amount of tasks that can be accomplished in a day.  Where 10 miles seemed used to be a short 15 min drive, in LA 10 miles is an activity that requires 3 hours of round trip commuting (this of course does not count the 10 minutes it takes you to find parking within a half mile of your destination).  As I meet more people here, it becomes more apparent that most of the people in LA live within a 5-7 mile bubble.  That is, their life is centered around that 5-7 miles, and the rarely ever leave it unless they are going on vacation, or an occasional special event (Lakers Game, Concert, etc).  When I worked in the credit card industry in Utah, I used to commute 92 miles round trip each day for work, which took less than two hours of my day.  Here in LA, I live 2.9 miles from work, and it usually takes me a half hour to get there: 20 minutes to get passed the freeway, and ten minutes the rest of the way.  I know that my complaining does not change anything, but I just had to get this off my chest.  Sometimes, you just have to vent!  I will however be very interested in hearing the plans these cities have to confront this ever-growing problem.