Telecommuting, Part Two

As if to underscore the advantages of working from my home office, I spend an hour and a half in my car on a commute that should have taken less than half an hour. With all of the growth in Los Angeles over the past decades and especially the last few years, leadership (both local and state) have proceeded with barely a nod to infrastructure improvement. Some of the most congested parts of the city are totally ignored, as far as transportation solutions.

• The San Diego freeway, which runs from West Los Angeles to the San Fernando Valley, is considered one of the most congested routes in any American city. One would think that a train running along that route would be heavily used. It's never discussed.
• Of course, the train needs to connect with the rest of the Metrorail system - but that system has also virtually ignored the west San Fernando Valley. A route comes out from downtown to the mid-valley, but to get to the West Valley, the city has constructed a busway along the old train route - a much less efficient (and slower) solution. On the other end of the route, in west Los Angeles, there isn't any existing route with which to connect (though there is talk about building a "railway to the sea" someday...
• To be fair, the Los Angeles area has many more rail solutions that just fifteen years ago - but entire sections of the city are being ignored. With many members of the Los Angeles City Council having sold out huge sections of the area to over-development, the area is becoming virtually unlivable.

That's why I'm no longer a Los Angeles City resident. Unfortunately, I still need to work there.