The first thing you do when you wake up in the morning if you are a commuter in Los Angeles is to turn on your television or radio and tune in to the traffic report. There are many cities around the country where traffic is bad but none can compare with rush hour traffic on one of L.A.s massively traveled super highways. Some will argue and say that San Francisco traffic with its outdated and obsolete freeway system is the worst. San Francisco after all is the only city to have actually torn down a freeway because it was interfering with scenic views of the bay.
But nothing can compare to the parking lot that is the 405 freeway each and every morning between the 110 interchange near Compton up until the abrupt end of the carpool lane near Culver City to the north. Whoever thought of this must have just escaped from an insane hospital. Imagine you are tooling along in the carpool lane (a great idea) and all of a sudden you come to a dead halt and have to merge over into the regular, completely stopped traffic and all because whoever designed this freeway decided while on a drunken binge to just end the carpool lane right in the place that it is most needed. By the way, the carpool lanes in Los Angeles are for two or more passengers, not the crazy three or more in some radical cities (San Francisco).
Some of the worst Los Angeles traffic occurs along the 405 and all the way up to the 101 interchange right after the Sherman Oaks Galleria mall. Coming over that hill is murder most days and even into the evening and on weekends. There is really no good time to make that trek and no soft hour unless it is in the middle of the night. But even at two or three a.m. you could find several lanes blocked for construction and traffic slowed to a trickle.
Los Angeles commuters who attempt to navigate through Los Angeles traffic are at the mercy of construction crews at any time of night or day. It seems that CalTrans has been working on those freeway expansion projects for the past forty years in a row, with no end or relief in sight.
The other thing that causes Los Angeles traffic to be so brutally slow at all hours are the hundreds of fender benders and serious accidents that occur with great regularity. It is a rare day that there are no accidents and freeway travel is smoother than usual on those days. When accidents do happen, which is all the time and every single day, traffic comes to a complete stand still, sometimes for hours. It is a wonder that any one in Los Angeles ever gets to work on time.
The misguided transit system plays a large part in the congestion. The green, blue, and red line trolleys that take you all the way downtown were a good concept, but they were poorly executed. They require that you change stations in the middle of some of the toughest and most crime-ridden neighborhoods in the city. This type of commuting is dangerous and it sometimes feels like you are taking your life in your hands.
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