A life of perfect weather nearly everyday of the year

[tstieber]

Originally Posted by Losfrisco

Which is why I was confused as to why it would specifically be associated to Los Angeles as opposed to southern California.

Its almost like just taking any traffic bottleneck in all of southern California and calling it 'LA traffic."

Thought you might be interested in this brand new global study of traffic. It just came up on my feed. This one measures how long it takes drivers to travel 6 miles in each metro area around the world. American cities, on average, did much much better than many other cities, with Los Angeles coming in at number 233 in the world. London was number one, Toronto number two. San Diego was number 385, behind Albany and Dayton. This would be average speeds where rush hour and other times are all averaged out. In just the US ranking, Los Angeles came in at number 9 and San Francisco number 3. Bottom line, Los Angeles traffic is not as bad as people think. And San Diego traffic is apparently better than a lot of small, third tier cities as well. Even Fresno and Bakersfield were worse! So we really have nothing to complain about here either. We just don't know how much worse a lot of people have it!

https://www.tomtom.com/traffic-index...ng/?country=US

[1AngryTaxPayer]

Originally Posted by tstieber

Thought you might be interested in this brand new global study of traffic. It just came up on my feed. This one measures how long it takes drivers to travel 6 miles in each metro area around the world. American cities, on average, did much much better than many other cities, with Los Angeles coming in at number 233 in the world. London was number one, Toronto number two. San Diego was number 385, behind Albany and Dayton. This would be average speeds where rush hour and other times are all averaged out. In just the US ranking, Los Angeles came in at number 9 and San Francisco number 3. Bottom line, Los Angeles traffic is not as bad as people think. And San Diego traffic is apparently better than a lot of small, third tier cities as well. Even Fresno and Bakersfield were worse! So we really have nothing to complain about here either. We just don't know how much worse a lot of people have it!

https://www.tomtom.com/traffic-index...ng/?country=US

So LA is in the top ten. Wayyyy more than most of the US. No thanks to any of the top ten cities. Ever.

[tstieber]

Originally Posted by 1AngryTaxPayer

So LA is in the top ten. Wayyyy more than most of the US. No thanks to any of the top ten cities. Ever.

Top ten US but not even close on a global level. Had no idea the rest of the world had such horrific traffic!

[1AngryTaxPayer]

Originally Posted by tstieber

Top ten US but not even close on a global level. Had no idea the rest of the world had such horrific traffic!

They can keep it.

[bloom]

Originally Posted by 1AngryTaxPayer

So LA is in the top ten. Wayyyy more than most of the US. No thanks to any of the top ten cities. Ever.

Agree on Miami but Seattle and Boston are decent

[Losfrisco]

Originally Posted by tstieber

Thought you might be interested in this brand new global study of traffic. It just came up on my feed. This one measures how long it takes drivers to travel 6 miles in each metro area around the world. American cities, on average, did much much better than many other cities, with Los Angeles coming in at number 233 in the world. London was number one, Toronto number two. San Diego was number 385, behind Albany and Dayton. This would be average speeds where rush hour and other times are all averaged out. In just the US ranking, Los Angeles came in at number 9 and San Francisco number 3. Bottom line, Los Angeles traffic is not as bad as people think. And San Diego traffic is apparently better than a lot of small, third tier cities as well. Even Fresno and Bakersfield were worse! So we really have nothing to complain about here either. We just don't know how much worse a lot of people have it!

https://www.tomtom.com/traffic-index...ng/?country=US

In other words, we have 80% of the "big city problems" that L.A. has with 15% of the perks, while paying the same premium with fewer actual sunny days (gotta pay the sunshine tax to live in SD, bro, also burritos).

"One time I got stuck on the 405 for two hours" is a huge red herring as it presumes living/working between south LA county and the San Fernando Valley is a typical experience. In reality, its no more typical than living in San Ysidro and commuting to Carlsbad for work.

[tstieber]

Originally Posted by Losfrisco

In other words, we have 80% of the "big city problems" that L.A. has with 15% of the perks, while paying the same premium with fewer actual sunny days (gotta pay the sunshine tax to live in SD, bro, also burritos).

"One time I got stuck on the 405 for two hours" is a huge red herring as it presumes living/working between south LA county and the San Fernando Valley is a typical experience. In reality, its no more typical than living in San Ysidro and commuting to Carlsbad for work.

I agree about the traffic differences being small, and of course we now also know that many other cities in the country have terrible traffic that also compares to LA, but traffic alone isn't the sole basis for assessing all big city problems. There's crime, homelessness, cost of living, and so much more, which we haven't discussed or compared. So I think your conclusion about the downsides vs upsides hasn't been established just by discussing traffic..

I mean, yes, LA is way more cosmopolitan, but it's also not a beautiful city. There are tradeoffs in each city that are better and worse. But just imagine the poor folks in Bakersfield or Omaha who have even worse traffic than San Diego and aren't half as nice as San Diego. I guess the unexpected lesson of these traffic studies is that pretty much every city in America has traffic conditions similar to LA.

[ryanthegoldengod]

Everywhere has bad traffic because the 20th Century was alll about dismantling streetcars and other mass transit for the "freedom" of single occupancy vehicles. Freedom is never free. This is all The Beach Boys' fault.

[tomfirst]

The beach girls fault too