Just Consider the Alternatives

Maybe I’m strange--various people have suggested that (and worse) over the years--but I’ve actually enjoyed driving in post-earthquake Los Angeles.

I’ve lived in Southern California since 1946 and I’ve driven here since 1959. For most of that time, I’ve been telling out-of-town visitors--especially those smug, if benighted, souls from New York--that Los Angeles is the most manageable big city in the country, if not the world.

No need for snow tires or topcoats in winter. No need to shower twice a day in summer. No standing on the corner, waving futilely at taxis. No bombardment by constant noise and hordes of people--most of them growling like angry bears--as you try to walk down the street.

But the one feature that made life in Los Angeles most manageable was the very feature that outsiders grumbled about the most: the spread-cum-sprawl of the city. In L.A, until a few years ago anyway, you were rarely caught in a New York-style (or Chicago-, San Francisco-, Paris-, Jerusalem-, Mexico City-style) traffic jam--the vehicular equivalent of Sartre’s “No Exit.”

In New York, if you’re going to Kennedy Airport, say, and you get stuck in traffic on one of the bridges or expressways, you stay stuck in traffic; there’s no reasonable alternative. But in Los Angeles, you could always find an alternate route.

Since the earthquake, I’ve had to find many alternate, non-freeway routes. And--surprise!--I get where I’m going almost as quickly, sometimes more quickly, and with less uncertainty and less stress than I did on the freeways.

I’ll be the first to admit that my daily commute is infinitely easier than most. I work Downtown and live 12 minutes away (15 if there’s heavy traffic). But my wife and I go out several nights a week--to Santa Monica, Pasadena, Beverly Hills, the Valley, everywhere--and I’ve been delighted to find that driving has generally been, well, a breeze, even during evening rush-hour.

We used to take the Santa Monica Freeway for most of our trips to the Westside. Now I usually stick to surface streets, at least during the week. Beverly Boulevard (or Third Street) all the way to Doheny, south to Olympic or Pico, then west if I’m going to Beverly Hills or Santa Monica, for example.

I’ve gone door-to-door in less than 40 minutes a dozen times since the quake--without the uncertainty I’ve encountered in recent years on the freeway: Would I have clear sailing or inexplicable congestion? In pre-quake days, I routinely refused--except in extraordinary circumstances--to leave home for the Westside before 7:30 on weeknights. Now I leave as early as 5 or 6 o’clock, and if I do hit a traffic jam, I take special pleasure in dodging it by instantly zigzagging through surrounding residential streets. It adds a new dimension to my driving pleasure, without significantly expanding my drive-time.

About a month after the earthquake, I finally decided to try the Santa Monica Freeway again. It was a weekend and my wife Lucy was with me, and the car pool lanes had us jumping off and back on the freeway quicker than you could say “Adriana Gianturco.”

Thus emboldened, I tried to take the Santa Monica Freeway from Downtown to West L.A. one weeknight when I had to work late. I left the office a little after 8 o’clock. The freeway detour as a solo driver was noticeably longer, but it still only added about 10 minutes to my ride.

My wife, who commutes to Century City for work, tells me it now takes her 10-15 minutes longer each way. I sympathize with her. I sympathize even more with the people who now spend an hour or two getting to and from work. But a recent story in The Times said that while the earthquake had “adversely affected the daily commutes of about 1 million motorists, it has improved the drive for about 200,000 others.”

Why? Car pools. Car pool lanes. Mass transit. Flexible work hours. Fewer drivers using the freeways.

One night last week, I undertook the ultimate challenge: I left Downtown at 5:20 p.m.--the teeth of rush hour--bound for Beverly Hills. I cruised west on Beverly Boulevard until I approached Vermont. Spotting a bottleneck ahead, I hung a quick left and doglegged down to Third Street. Approaching Western, I spotted another bottleneck and hung a quick left to Sixth Street.

But I breezed along Sixth--one of the great “unknown” east-west arteries in town--until I got to San Vicente. There I encountered my first truly horrific traffic jam of my post-quake era: As I approached La Cienega, the left lane was blocked by a stalled truck, the right lane was closed for repairs and the traffic lights were out in every direction. I had no choice but to inch along for what seemed an eternity. But I only had to go one long block; I still managed to make the trip in 39 minutes.

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That drive confirmed what I continue to think is the best feature of driving in Los Angeles--post-quake even more than pre-quake: the ever-popular alternate route, a fixture of the Los Angeles road system for so long that it once fostered a song (“Take an alternate route, take an alternate route. It’s a lovely day for an alternate route . . .”)

From where I live, for example, the best way to go to South-Central Los Angeles is to take the Hollywood Freeway south to the Harbor Freeway; after the earthquake, when I heard a report (erroneous, as it turned out) that the Harbor/Santa Monica Freeway connector was damaged, I just took Rampart Boulevard to Hoover to Washington to Figueroa to Vernon and hopped back on the Harbor Freeway.

The next day, when I heard a report (accurate this time) that there was a problem at the juncture of the Ventura and Hollywood freeways, I just got off the Ventura two exits before the problem, zipped along Olive Avenue to Barham Boulevard and picked up the Hollywood Freeway.

Each of these detours occasioned only a minor delay. For all I know, they might have been faster than the freeway, where--in recent years--I’ve encountered traffic jams at virtually any time of the day or night.

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I miss the old days, the days when if you just avoided rush hour, you could race down the freeway as fast as you were willing to drive. I love the sense of speed and freedom on the freeway, and in those days, traffic jams were so rare--and I drove the freeways so much--that I prided myself on being able to instantly determine, from the flow of traffic, precisely why a freeway was suddenly jammed at a given moment.

Accident? In the traffic lanes? Off to the side? Or was there a big football game nearby? Or was it just the looky-loo phenomenon?

I once stunned an out-of-town visitor by saying, in the midst of a San Diego Freeway traffic jam on a warm summer afternoon, “I bet we’ll find a good-looking woman standing by the side of the freeway with an overheated car about a mile ahead, with every guy slowing to look--but not to help.”

My friend laughed.

I got cocky.

“Center divider. Red dress. Blue car,” I said.

I was right.

Except the car was green.

I always jump off the freeway the instant I sense a serious traffic problem. Life is too short to spend any of it in traffic jams. Especially in Los Angeles, a city with even more alternate routes than would-be screenwriters.

Now, I often skip the freeway altogether. And driving is again as relaxing as it was back in the ‘60s, 70s and early ‘80s.

The extra few minutes that some trips now take just make it easier to finish smoking my cigar before I get home from dinner.