Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Total Gridlock!

If there's one thing I hate more than anything else in the entire universe, it's sitting in traffic. I would rather do a month's worth of ironing, get a deep-cleaning at the dentist, and put together one of those flat-packed DIY projects from Home Depot than spend my day shifting between first and neutral on the I405 N. Why on earth then, did I move to LA, where the traffic is notoriously bad and the drivers spend more time checking their text messages and applying mascara in the rear view mirror than they do watching the road? (By the way, there is a fantastic outlet for bad experiences with LA drivers at http://www.lacantdrive.com/)

Well, for the most part, I have been able to avoid getting behind the wheel altogether. Until our bikes were stolen, my husband and I cycled to work every day. The 6-mile trip between Hollywood and Beverly Hills took precisely the same length of time to cycle as it did to drive, enabling us to burn off the previous night's dinner while feeling smug about our child-size carbon footprints. I can't even begin to describe the satisfaction gleaned from zipping past a line of stationary cars on Santa Monica Blvd. Or the frustration when, on the odd occasion it was too wet to cycle, I had to sit in that same line of stationary traffic. My record car journey home took me an hour and forty five minutes. To drive six miles. I could have walked faster (and would have done if there was any bloody parking between Fairfax and La Brea at 6pm on a week night...)


Gridlock: Envisage twice as much traffic on the I405 and you have a vague idea what an Obamajam looks like

Anyway, that puny traffic jam was nothing compared to the havoc that is wrought on the city whenever President Obama visits. I have witnessed coworkers calling in sick just to avoid being on the freeway during an Obamajam. Journeys have to be planned with military precision, vacations postponed, and dinners with friends cancelled. I hope none of the president's dinner guests were stuck on the I10 tonight. Because if I were to donate to a presidential campaign after spending two hours on an LA freeway, it most certainly would not be Obama's...

1 comment:

  1. The traffic is clearly the republican's fault- stop blaming Obama!
    Racist!

    ReplyDelete