Commuting to Work (通勤)

In Los Angeles (and many other cities I'm sure but especially Los Angeles), commuting to work (Tsuukin) is a big deal. Having lived in various parts of the city, I can attest that certain parts of the city are definitely harder to get to than others. You have the "Bermuda Triangle" of the 101/I-10/I-405 highways (named because once you go in, you can't get out) where it takes a deceptively long time, and I pity those who work in there but don't live there. Mostly, professionals like myself work in 2 main areas, downtown Los Angeles and Century City (both have tall buildings as the icon of LA but barely make up a presentable skyline)

Keys:

1.) Find a home near a highway. This is essential to being able to get anyway, as side streets contain seemingly thousands of possible red lights where one can get stopped, plus pedestrian walkways, random construction, street closures, etc. etc. Highways get closed once in a while too, but at least when they're running you can get through (when it's not peak rush hour of course)

2.) Not all highways are the same: Certain sections of highways 10, 101, and 405 are ALWAYS congested, almost no matter the time of day.

3.) Go countertraffic- if most people go one way, try to go the opposite. On the I-10, it's astoundingly easy (well, proportional to LA traffic) to go east from Santa Monica to downtown in the morning whereas the opposite is a parking lot, whereas the opposite is true in the afternoon. I had the easy commute for a year and loved it.

4.) Have a contingency plan. Traffic can happen anytime, anywhere in LA- have some books on tape ready, music, etc. just in case.

5.) Rush hour is seemingly between 6AM-10AM and 3PM-7PM in the afternoon. as long as you avoid these hours (haha), you'll be fine.

6.) Find the Fasttrack highways and get a FastTrack device in your car. Actually extremely useful, can use the express lanes during peak traffic time and cut down significantly on your commute, as long as willing to pay each time for use, OR Carpool!

7.) People in other big cities like New York and Tokyo give great attention to their train station, to the point of Tokyo-ites (? I think) ask each other where they live based on what train station they get off at. LA.....actually does have a train system, and for all the bad reputation a lot of people I know actually use it, as it runs from downtown LA to Pasadena, Orange County, Long Beach, Redondo Beach, etc. It's just longer, and the trains seem really slow. And there are some unsavory characters on the train. Almost no options for those in Century City area unfortunately.

8.) Biking- trains, planes, and automobiles, I guess. Some people do bike to work....probably a little easier in the suburbs, I almost get run over sometimes by bikers and skateboarders, who in turn are almost run over by cars and buses....it's a very free-for-all driving situation in L.A.

9.) Especially in the summer, even if one gets off work earlier, just go outside, take a run, walk the dog, enjoy the weather until 7PM, then go home......lot better traffic then. Secret for those who in downtown: Dodger Stadium and Elysian Park is not that far away, and driving the 5-10 minutes there can sometimes be worth it.

10.) Uber-ing to work...is that a thing nowadays? Haven't tried it but seems feasible.

11.) Watch out for cops....for some reason they seem even more active for rush hour, maybe cuz people are rushing to get to work, make bad decisions, etc.

12.) The best thing to do (saving on parking, etc.) is to just have someone like my excellent gf drop me off at work. Yay! And carpooling is cool to spend some time with someone you (hopefully) enjoy being in the company of.

Today a construction worker fell from the currently-under-construction Wilshire building in downtown LA to his death (53 floors!) It gives me pause to first of all be thankful that I work on a job where there are no inherent work hazards, nothing that could potentially kill me, and I can work comfortably at such job without risking physical injury. Doubly sad (other than the mere fact that the worker passed away) was that it was his 3rd day on the job, where he was just getting used to the conditions, lot of time in front of him to work. Unfortunately, probably explains why he wasn't familiar with some safety instructions, etc. It also means he probably woke up this morning expecting to go to work, come home afterwards, have dinner, maybe talk to family, friends, go to dodgeball (or other social recreational activity to blow off steam), or like most people today, join in some St. Patrick's Day celebrations. If I do pass away, I'd like to have some mental preparation, some hint that it was coming, so that I could say some goodbyes, etc., but unfortunately that doesn't always happen (see The Sopranos's TV show ending).

Fantasize on,

Robert Yan