the unspeakable horrors of driving in los angeles

One thought is stuck in my mind today: road construction in western states sucks. I mean, sucks. Arizona was bad in the way they resorted to Rube Goldberg methods to route traffic in construction areas, and it seems California -- or at least L.A. -- is as bad. Must be a western thing. These dang hippies need to put the joints down long enough to rationally think through construction plans.

Anyway, so I'm driving up through L.A. on I-5 from the Santa Ana airport last night, and suddenly the traffic stops. Well, surprise, welcome to L.A., I think to myself. But it's as if there's an accident -- moving fine, then stops for no apparent reason. After several minutes I see a construction sign that says the left three lanes are closed. Excuse me? Three out of five lanes on a major urban interstate are closed at the same time for construction? Now that makes sense. Worse than that, they were closed for maybe a quarter mile at the most and there was no sign whatsoever of construction or reason for construction in that tiny stretch. Brought back memories of the "let's just rotate pylons around our freeways" approach to "construction" in Chicago.

So that sucked. But finally I'm through that and on my way. But wait...there's more. A few miles up the road splits three ways, and the ramp for 5 north is blocked. Not just a lane missing, but the whole thing is pyloned off. It is impossible to continue north on 5 at this point. What the crap? So I take my best guess and try 101 north, because it appears to be taking me more in the general direction (north) I want to go. Wrong choice. That freeway ends less than a mile after I get on, and 45 frustrating minutes later I make my way back onto 5. Problem is, I get back on south of the blocked ramp, so I very soon approach the same dilemma that got me lost the first time. Okay, this time I take I-10 west. West? I'm on the freakin' coast. How much further west can I go? Much to my chagrin, there is never a detour exit to get back on route 5. And I find that I wasn't so close to the coast either. Several miles later I finally get on 405 north and manage to run that all the way north of L.A. until it meets 5 again. So, after all that pain, I'm back on the road I should have been on all along. All because the road crew flat-out blockaded an on-ramp for the major north-south freeway in southern California. These people are idiots.

So, all in all, I took about three hours to go a distance that the rental car guys told me would be maybe an hour and a half max. Of course, they also said there'd be no traffic at all on the roads so late at night. I don't know how they define "no traffic," but it wouldn't be how I define it. Traffic was moving -- except in construction areas -- but the roads were clogged all night. Reminded me of Chicago again in that no matter what time you're on the interstate it's guaranteed to be busy.

Bottom line: avoid driving in L.A., or any area in a western state with road construction, at all costs. Buncha crap.