Traffic is killing me!!!

I mentioned in my last entry that my commute is roughly 2 ½ hours each day. Before school started at the beginning of September it was only 1 ½ hours. I still cannot believe that when I get on the freeway at 6:00 AM within a mile of the onramp I am sitting in stop-and-go traffic.

I have several people to blame for my crappy commute. The first to blame is myself. When I was contemplating taking this job I knew the commute would be bad. I worked in the same area before with almost the same commute and knew what it would be like. The 20% pay increase made my decision.

The next people I would like to blame are families with children. You can call me a hypocrite in a couple of years. During the summer I miss all of the traffic, because most people don’t start work until 8 or 9 AM. During the school year not only do you add 106,000 teachers and staff to the mix (23,659 Orange County and 82,447 Los Angeles County), but you also have the parents leaving for work earlier so they can drop off their kids at school. There are also the students who drive to school.

I would also like to pass some blame onto the illegal immigrants. There are an estimated 2.4 million illegal immigrants living in California today. While one could argue that many do not drive, but many do drive and they are on the roads and freeways as well.

My last piece of blame goes to the government. Nearly 70% of Californians voted to pass Proposition 42 in 2003, which specifically called for $1 billion of budget money (created by raising the gasoline tax) to be put towards relieving traffic congestion and improving roads. Every year since then the governor has put the $1 billion towards non-transportation projects by declaring a “fiscal emergency”.

I would love to take the Metro, but there aren’t any stops near my work.