la la land - part 2 - driving

Most of my time in SoCal was spent in the greater L.A. area. We lived in San Pedro (not far from Long Beach, where the great Queen Mary is anchored) and commuted almost daily to various parts of the city. The commute was in a very comfortable, brand new Dodge Caravan van. I am not a great van fan here at home but there is no doubt that it's a great touring vehicle to have.

To get from San Pedro to - for example - Silverlake, where my good buddy Maurice lives, we would take the 110 freeway north and then the 101 Hollywood freeway north-west (for some pretty scary freeway pictures, look here) The trip would usually take between 30 - 45 minutes, depending on the time of day. And here's the kicker: although L.A. is 2.5 times the size of Toronto and although many of the freeways frequently move very slowly, I did not find the commute any worse than, say, driving from mid-town Toronto to Mississauga.

There are visibly more cars on the road in L.A. (obviously, since there are many more people!) But the overall delays are more of the slow moving variety, rather than the complete stop-go-stop-go kind we seem to have here. There are car pool lanes on many (not all) freeways, which means that if there's more than one person in the car, you can slide into the car pool lane and cruise along comfortably. Also, unbelievable as it may seem - I found L.A. drivers on the whole much more patient and courteous than Toronto drivers. People would slow down or stop and let you go in front of them, there wasn't as much tailgating and not nearly as much honking. I do keep in mind that as a tourist, I was in no rush to get anywhere and therefore saw the congestion as a minor inconvenience, rather than as a heart attack inducing catastrophe.

Then there's the parking. In all my ten days in the greater L.A. area, I never once, not once, had any problem with finding either free or very cheap ($5) parking. Even on the very busy and tourist-infected Hollywood Boulevard, we were able to sneak into a side street and find a comfortable, two story (therefore shaded) parking lot for five bucks - unlimited time. Since I came back to Toronto, I've already gotten one $30 parking ticket for parking on a completely abandoned residential street ("no parking between 8AM - midnight", "parking on the left side of the street midnight - 3AM", "parking on the right side of the street 3AM - 8AM", "no parking for persons of Central European descent", "parking for permit holders only in February and November from 8AM - 8:10AM" and "pet parking only") I was also forced to turn back and drive back home on a sunny Sunday afternoon when unable to find any parking whatsoever at Harbourfront - unless willing to re-mortgage my house for 1 hour worth of parking, 0.5 km away from where I wanted to go.

In San Pedro, a neighbour greeted us one morning in that typical, American way: "Where you guys from?" When told we were from Toronto he said: "Ah, the Great White North...do you guys still have that major parking problem up there?" God's honest truth, that's what he said!