Los Angeles. Known for beautiful people, beautiful weather and ugly traffic.
Over 12 million people live in greater L.A. and nearly everyone drives everywhere. Rush hour for many urban centers are like 8:00 am though 10:00 am or so, and 5:00 to 7:00 in the evening. But L.A. doesn't have rush hour. It has rush day. The whole day. All day. Except on Friday when it's even worse. Having lived in Charlotte, NC (metro population: 1.7 million), and growing up in Knoxville, TN (655,000), traffic rarely played a role in my daily life. But in a place like L.A. it's more than a factor, it's a character, another player on the stage of life. Case in point: When Angelenos refer to the interstates we use the article "the." We don't say "I-10," but rather the 10, the 405, the 101, etc.
Traffic affects the scheduling of our calendars in an extreme way. I will not, for instance, go to coffee with someone at 3:00 pm on a Wednesday, even as close as five miles from my apartment. Why? Because I know I would then be getting home at about six. Sorry, dude.
Further, you can meet the most beautiful, charming, wonderful person in the history of carbon-based life forms -- but if you live in Santa Monica and they live 20 miles away in Pasadena, your relationship is over before it even started. No one wants to leave home at four to make an eight o'clock dinner.
L.A. is a great city but its transportation logistics are always working against you socially, economically and in every other possible way.
Sign in to post
Please sign in to leave a comment.
Continue