So sorry for the lack of 7 Deadly Lists recently. My computer's been in the shop for the past couple of weeks. I was working on a list for 7 Reasons I Love Apple Care, but I couldn't get past point 1: It saved me over $1,000 in repairs. Unfortunately, this means I had to abandon the Halloween list I was planning, but there's always next Halloween. I would also like to thank Cassi Jerkins for helping out in the lull with some creative writing stories. I hope you all enjoyed them as much as I did, and hopefully she has more coming soon.
Anyway, in the time since my last post, I was moved from my job at our Orange County location to our Redondo Beach location, which is good, because at least I'm getting work, but bad because on a good day, I have a one hour commute now. Which has forced me to create the 7 Reasons Southern California Sucks. And I think this will be the first list that I count it down from 7 to 1. Enjoy. Or not, I already got your page view.
7. Entrances to the 210
They're probably moving faster than you usually can.
Basically, my problem with the 210 is that they overused the traffic signals on the entrances to the freeway. I understand their intentions were good, but the execution failed a bit. There's no reason I need to wait for a red light during non-peak times. Recently, I was was backed up for over half a mile at one of these red lights only to merge onto a perfectly clear 210 after the light. The traffic lights are supposed to be relieving traffic, not adding to it.
6. San Diego Freeways in General
I enjoy that Google Image Search thinks that the 57 is in San Diego
My parents read this list and they live in San Diego, so I didn't want them to feel like they were left out, since apparently San Diego is part of Southern California too. Weird.
My one major complaint about San Diego traffic is that it's completely unpredictable. At least in Orange County, you know to avoid the 91 during rush hour at all costs, and in Los Angeles you know that the 10/110/101 mess is going to be bad. Also, San Diego tends to have a lot of people who are in Vacation Mode and aren't paying attention to anything going on around them and have no idea where they are or how to get to where they want to go. And those people don't make good drivers. LA drivers are bad, but they're really just intimidating. Once you figure them out, you get used to it.
5. Any Time the 605 Crosses Any Other Freeway
This is why you don't parallel park on the freeway.
This one is really confusing to me for some reason. The merges aren't designed any worse than other freeway merges in the area, and yet these always seem to be the most backed up. And it's not that the 605 is a crazy backed up freeway either. Once you're on the 605, it's back to normal 65 mph traffic. Maybe the 605 just confuses people and they need a minute to remember if they need to go on that freeway or not. By they way, I've typed "freeway" about 50 times in this blog already and every time, it comes out as "freeqway." Thought you might want to know about my fat fingers.
4. The Merge of the 10, the 110, and the 101
I really wish I understood Google Image Search sometimes.
And we finally find our way into Los Angeles. The 10/110/101 merge is a nightmare. Back when I used to have to fight my way through this daily for work, it could potentially ruin any kind of commute. The worst I ever experienced was two hours to get from the USC area to Studio City. That's less than 15 miles. With no traffic at 4:00 am, I've made that commute in 10 minutes.
But the worst part about this mess is that there's really no way to avoid it. In my three years of working for Universal Studios, I had no less that a dozen people try to give me good alternate routes. The problem is that nobody wants to be stuck in the terrible merge and is using these alternate routes. They don't help.
The only reason I didn't rank this any higher is that the traffic jam here is completely predictable. It's just south of the heart of Downtown Los Angeles, the combination of three very major freeways, and it is 100% guaranteed that it will be severely backed up. Plus, 95% of the people who use this merge, use it every day, so it's not like you have a bunch of people who don't know what they're doing and screw up the traffic any worse than it already is.
3. The 105
At least this would be an explanation...
It's funny how people who live in Los Angeles think they have the worst traffic ever. Little do they realize that most of the people who work in Los Angeles commute there from Orange County. Which means when the work day is over, everyone comes back to Orange County. At the same time. And there's less freeways with fewer lanes in Orange County than there are in Los Angeles. (I included both less and fewer so that at least one of them would be grammatically correct. Someone please let me know which is right.) This is a recipe for disaster. Plus, there's an airport or something at the end of the 105. That probably doesn't help much.
2. The 91
Bullshit.
According to Wikipedia, the 91 is the only freeway to connect Los Angeles County, Orange County and Riverside County. Not a good thing. Remember what I just said about the 105? Now imagine that same thing on a freeway that was designed before traffic jams in Orange County were a big deal. They try to improve the freeway, but they're always several years behind what the freeway actually needs. Plus there's that whole California has less money than most non-profit organizations thing. Perhaps we should hold an Upgrade the 91 Bake Sale...
1. The 57 and 60 Merge
Mad Rogue Comedy fully endorses this happening to the 57 and 60 merge.
I would really like to know who's idea it was to take a crazy busy freeway, cut it down to 2 lanes, and force it to merge onto another crazy busy freeway for over a mile before breaking it back off onto its own freeway. That was truly the stupidest decision in the history of freeway planning. Can someone please demolish it so that we can get a correct freeway intersection in there?
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