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Location: Austin, TX/Chicago, IL/Houston, TX/Washington, DC
10,138 posts, read 16,049,308 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by LA Fan
Again, you're speaking about being able to do this on city streets. Can you do this on the expressways of Chicago as opposed as you compared city streets to LA freeways. There is no need to answer that since I already know you can't. I'm quite familiar with Chicago, I used to live there.
Again the same can be done in most cities on surface streets (get out and go to Subway or Quiznos, Starbucks, etc, etc.) These same type of shops are in abundance in LA just like there are in NYC, or Chicago. Hell there are probably more Subways, Starbucks, and other coffeehouses-Coffee Bean, Peets, It's a Grind, Daily Grind just to name a few per capita than Chicago. So the options are there. Even every exit in LA freeways one could easily get off, and find an abundance of options to eat, drink, take a dump, etc, etc. It's not like there aren't commercial streets all around LA freeways. Traffic doesn't most that slow on the freeways here, that you can't reach an exit within a few mins to exit. Most exits off the freeways are also very close to each other.
Say what?
I do not think you're understanding the point of my post. my point was that inner city roads in NYC are busy, the ones in the midst of the city.
Obviously you can get out of your car and get food in LA too during traffic, but I wasn't talking about inner city streets in LA, read my post above, I was talking about freeways/expressways/highways... where as I was talking about inner streets/neighborhood streets for NYC.
Why are you making this into a competition? What the hell... what does LA having more restaurants than Chicago have anything to do with this?
I just listed a particular incident where I went to a subway.
Want to talk about restaurants? I'll make a thread for that, let me know... I mean seriously man, relax.
I was just talking about my experience and which kind of traffic I prefer more (because I;m actually able to make use of the time in traffic in inner city roads and get some grub). If I was stuck in traffic in downtown LA and saw a subway and knew the traffic would last a good 20 minutes I would do the same. But if you look at my post from before, I was talking about traffic on freeways/expressways in LA versus the inner city streets for NYC... so obviously you'd find a subway or Starbucks or something like that there...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Adric
Lol I thought you meant you actually just cut your engine off in the middle of the freeway, got out, walked across i90 and into downtown, and got a bite to eat. My face went
Lol, no!!! I haven't ever done something like that, but I have done some wild and crazy things while driving in my late teenage years...
As far as street traffic, NYC would obviously be more traffic congested. Now when it comes to freeways, LA is the more congested.
I can't really speak for NYC in this regard, but in LA, it doesn't matter where in the metro area you are at, you can be in a monster traffic jam on a twelve lane freeway and you still 70 miles from downtown. The traffic is EVERYWHERE, not just in the central city portion of the metro area.
I have heard numerous stories about a 4 hour commute from the Westside down to Orange County.
The congestion is everywhere, not just near the core. I have been stuck in some monster traffic jams at 10 at night and on a Sunday. Thats insane!
Location: Cleveland, OH USA / formerly Chicago for 20 years
4,069 posts, read 7,317,864 times
Reputation: 3062
Quote:
Originally Posted by LA Fan
LA traffic is bad, but really no worst than any of the other big cities (Chicago, Dallas, Houston, San Francisco Bay Area). NY metro has by far the worst traffic in the country. In fact I find it more frustrating driving in Chicago, and even San Francisco Bay Area more so than Los Angeles. Believe me LA traffic can be a nightmare, but I haven't really noticed it any worse than some of the other big american cities. Granted LA is my far much larger in population than the other big cities I mentioned, but the traffic is really not as bad make it out to be.
I'd have to agree with this. When I visited LA, I didn't find the traffic to be nearly as bad as what I was used to dealing with in Chicago on a daily basis... at least not on the roads I used and the times of day I drove.
I thought surface streets (Wilshire and Santa Monica Boulevards, etc.) moved pretty well. Now, I only used freeways coming and going between downtown and the airport, but although there were some traffic backups in spots, travel times weren't really bad at all.
I did get stuck in traffic one afternoon downtown, but it was right at 5:00 rush hour. Also one time on Santa Monica Boulevard somewhere east of West Hollywood, but it was because there was road construction, one lane was closed ahead, and two lanes had to merge into one. Otherwise, it was pretty smooth sailing for the most part.
Location: Austin, TX/Chicago, IL/Houston, TX/Washington, DC
10,138 posts, read 16,049,308 times
Reputation: 4047
Quote:
Originally Posted by andrew61
I'd have to agree with this. When I visited LA, I didn't find the traffic to be nearly as bad as what I was used to dealing with in Chicago on a daily basis... at least not on the roads I used and the times of day I drove.
I thought surface streets (Wilshire and Santa Monica Boulevards, etc.) moved pretty well. Now, I only used freeways coming and going between downtown and the airport, but although there were some traffic backups in spots, travel times weren't really bad at all.
I did get stuck in traffic one afternoon downtown, but it was right at 5:00 rush hour. Also one time on Santa Monica Boulevard somewhere east of West Hollywood, but it was because there was road construction, one lane was closed ahead, and two lanes had to merge into one. Otherwise, it was pretty smooth sailing for the most part.
I agree with him on that too, if it just me or are Chicago drivers very aggressive for no reason?
As far as street traffic, NYC would obviously be more traffic congested. Now when it comes to freeways, LA is the more congested.
I can't really speak for NYC in this regard, but in LA, it doesn't matter where in the metro area you are at, you can be in a monster traffic jam on a twelve lane freeway and you still 70 miles from downtown. The traffic is EVERYWHERE, not just in the central city portion of the metro area.
I have heard numerous stories about a 4 hour commute from the Westside down to Orange County.
The congestion is everywhere, not just near the core. I have been stuck in some monster traffic jams at 10 at night and on a Sunday. Thats insane!
We were in a similar situation just this Saturday, that GWB is a nightmare.
NYC traffic is unlike anything in America. It's filled with cars and people, and horns are blaring. To compare LA traffic with NYC traffic it's really like comparing apples to oranges.
LA is very sprawling and in LA the freeways are the main places that traffic is cramped. As soon as you exit the freeway in LA the traffic on most streets are almost non-existent - at least compared to NYC.
In NYC there is no escape - wherever you go there are people, cars, taxis, buses, bicycles, and so on...some people refer to it as energy of the city.
From my experience - NYC street traffic is just insane and there is no where that comes even close. In LA only the freeways are bad, otherwise, pretty much everywhere else it's like your typical suburb.
I think the best example is this:
LA traffic equals - driving on the interstate from SF to LA or DC to NYC (during peak traffic) - with nothing but just car traffic.
NYC traffic equals - driving in the city in Tokyo or some other super large central business district..just insane with people, cars, buses, bicycles, and so on.
Last edited by EastBay-NowDCarea; 05-18-2010 at 08:35 PM..
on all my LA visits, i was actually SURPRISED how "light" (comparative) it was considering there is no other alternative.. i used 405 mostly as i stayed on the west side
..where in NY you have subways, shared cabs, buses, MASSIVE Transit systems - NJ Transit/LIRR/PATH/Light Rail/Metro North/AmTrak/etc/etc..
NOTHING can be compared to the worst case of NYC (save some 3rd world scenarios with NO mass trans).. it's just about 50 times more congested in the NY metro.. i can only imagine if NYC had LA's lack of transit options how much worse it would be..
If you disagree, I challenge you to drive from Washington, DC to Boston the Sunday after Thanksgiving.
To be fair its pretty bad in and around LA during the Thanksgiving weekend here too. A lot of people head up to Vegas, and I warned my best friend and his wife & other friends no to go during that time. They lived in another city a little over 200 miles north of LA.
Well let me tell you, I received a voice msg, that the traffic was worst than they would have ever imagined. What normally take 4-5 hours from Vegas to L.A. ends of being 9 hours on that holiday day weekend.
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