I (want to) love LA, but...

I really do want to love this city. I (try to) defend LA to every hater that has ever griped about how this isn't a real city and its too sprawling and its full of transplants that didn't grow up here and how over crowded it is, blah blah blah.

Today I was the biggest hater of all. Everyday LA tests my patience from the second I leave my front door, as soon as I sit in my car to drive to work.

This is my daily commute from Los Angeles to Pasadena:

• Drive 15-20 minutes on pothole riddled surface streets to get to the 101. I take 3rd Street or Beverly Blvd depending on my mood.
• Then I sit on the 101 for about 5-10 minutes, its always slow like molasses
• Then I get to the 110 and drive another 10-15 minutes north. This is the only part of the drive that is usually not congested. Unless there is an accident or construction. I take it till it ends in Pasadena.
• When I get to Pasadena, I have to cross my fingers that the Metro Gold Line won't keep me from turning left to get to my office. When the train is crossing Glenarm, California, or Del Mar, the traffic system is really (really) retarded and will keep a person from turning left for up to 5 minutes . So you could end up sitting in the left turn lane with a red arrow for a whole 5 minutes- its happened to me. My gripes about Pasadena will come on another day.

This is without any additional traffic. There is always some base traffic, but if it is more than usual it can take me 1 hour or more to drive the 16 miles I need to get to work.

That's right. 16 miles. One hour.

Today was especially bad...really bad. Before going to work, I had to drive 3 miles west (opposite direction of work) to pick up something before heading to work this morning. That little 3 mile drive took almost 1 hour.

That's right, 3 miles, one hour.

Needless to say I was cursing the whole way there and back. The return trip was only 10 minutes long driving east to get back to the freeway. The traffic was only in the westbound direction. This all boils down to really poor city planning and lousy infrastructure design. I should say NO infrastructure design.

I left my apartment at 8:20 and got to work at 10:10.

Don't even get me started on the condition of the surface streets. The pavement of the famed Sunset Blvd looks like a bomb went off every few yards. This is shameful. People come from all over the world to see Los Angeles, and the streets are so trashed that its embarrassing.

I'm not one to complain and not take action (or at least I try). I sent a (very tactful) complaint on this website this morning about the conditions of the streets.

http://www.lacity.org/boss/request.htm

Here's a website on potholes: http://www.lacity.org/boss/Resurfacing/potholes.htm

If you're in the LA area and notice a pothole, or poorly surfaced streets, go to this website and fill out this form. I've submitted a report once about two years ago when I punctured my tire on a pothole, and they filled up the pothole the next day. Maybe someone else had complained about before I did, but at least something was done.

Here's an article on the LA Times' blog about potholes

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/bottleneck/2007/03/the_cost_of_pot.html

If you have to live in LA, love it or hate it, at least try to be a part of improving it. I'll let y'all know if the potholes improve.