Commuting Sentences

Jim Thornton and I are practically best buddies. Though we’ve never met.

Perhaps half a dozen times each morning--sometimes more--the morning traffic announcer on KNX-AM (1070) joins me on my 64-mile journey from Dana Point to downtown Los Angeles.

Like many others with long, sometimes hair-raising commutes to work, I miss these traffic updates every six minutes only at my peril. There are mornings when I spend more time with Thornton than I do with my wife and kids.

But I need to know what’s going on out there.

Is a SigAlert blocking the San Diego Freeway? Is the 605 better than the Long Beach Freeway?

I take five freeways to work, a roundabout route designed with one goal in mind: to keep me off the Santa Ana--the most miserable, traffic-choked, construction-plagued excuse for a freeway I’ve ever had the misfortune to sit on--until the end of my trip.

Shortly before 9 a.m. I hop into my 1993 Honda Civic, which has 210,000 “freeway miles” on it, and take surface streets to the San Joaquin Hills toll road, a 14-mile stretch of open, scenic freeway that is well worth the $2.25 one-way fee. Then on to the San Diego Freeway, where traffic begins to load up. The San Diego to the Long Beach. The Long Beach to a two-mile stretch of the Santa Ana (that can sometimes take 15 minutes) to the 101. The 101 to surface streets. Surface streets to the office.

If there is no major tie-up, I make it in about 75 minutes.

I tried the train for a few months. It took nearly two hours door to door (though I got a lot of reading done). There are few trains running back to Orange County by the time I’m finished with my day, usually around 7:30.

I’ve tried different ways to reduce the stress and tedium. On a previous long-distance commute, I’d spread the newspaper out on the passenger seat and scan it while I drove--ignoring hostile glares--until friends and family persuaded me it was too dangerous. News, music, books on tape, sports talk radio and the cell phone help--a little. I can’t stick with any of them for too long, for fear of missing a traffic update.

Why do I do it?

The answers are almost cliche. Good schools, safe streets, cleaner air, an affordable home where I can feel the breeze off the ocean. The perfect cul-de-sac, a place where kids ride bikes in the street and neighbors hang out in each others’ homes and yards. A sense of community.

Of course, I miss a lot of that. I’m in the car.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

MORNING

Distance: 64 miles

Time: 1 hour, 15 minutes

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EVENING

Distance: 58 miles

Time: About 1 hour

Cost: $6.25 ($4 in gas, $2.25 in tolls)