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The second graphic confirms my hypothesis ... that los angeles employers have somehow staggered their hours (or given the employees more liberty) and that rush

The second graphic confirms my hypothesis ... that los angeles employers have somehow staggered their hours (or given the employees more liberty) and that rush hour has become more equally distributed over a larger time range. This remediation has helped increase the number of cars commuting on the roads without significantly growing the underlying infrastructure (Washington seems to have the same pattern but I can't speak to that). You can see the middle yellow dot is about equal distance between the red and teal ones. Recently (say 2013-) when I've gotten on the freeway at about 8:30pm in Culver City (near the 10/405 heading east), I've been shocked to see it's light rush-hour style traffic (generally under 40mph + cars keeping close distance + lots of brake lights). Honestly it's about 9:30/10pm when it starts to free up. In the morning time, commute starts about 5:30 and goes to 10/10:30am and then the home commute starts up again around 2/2:30pm and goes until about 9:30pm. I have a place about 250 meters from the freeway and I can hear the pickup in the ambient freeway noise starting around 5:00 in the morning until about 5:30 where it reaches approximately its maximum background noise. People do the same "rush hour driving" at this time. There's a small distance between cars and large density of vehicles, but nobody has made a mistake to slow everyone down yet so people are doing this at a "let's beat the traffic" speed of around 80mph. It's so enormously dangerous. Take the 405 from the valley to santa monica once at this time and you'll understand why there's multiple accidents every day. This is different from when I was in high school in the 90s. I went from essentially Agoura Hills to Encino. The freeway was empty until about 6:30 and then when I was lucky enough to have a free period where I wouldn't have to show up until I think 930? I could leave at 8:30 and it would be a breeze on in. So in 20 years at least from my observation, the rush hour window maybe has increased about an hour either way.

ChuckMcM 9y ago
A combination of flex time and the perfect gas law. Individuals optimizing their commute move the time around until they can't optimize any more.
jayd16 9y ago
I feel like the modern day "This used to all orange grove" has become, "I used to be able to drive from Hollywood to Santa Monica in 20 minutes." These days you can only do that at 3am or so after the bar close traffic dies down.
tzs 9y ago
> The second graphic confirms my hypothesis ... that los angeles employers have somehow staggered their hours (or given the employees more liberty) and that rush hour has become more equally distributed over a larger time range. That could be it. I left the Los Angeles area in 1988, so have no idea what is going on now, but just going by my memory of what it was like when I lived there I'd have guessed a different explanation. That would be that at 4 PM you are limited by the traffic from people going home from work. By 7 PM that's largely gone, but now you are running into all the people who going out for the evening to eat, attend concerts and movies and sporting events, do evening shopping, and so on. In Los Angeles, those kind of excursions usually involved a freeway trip.
majormajor 9y ago
Something that I think they missed (or else I missed) is that going from downtown LA westbound in the evening rush hour isn't the worst one - it's going east from the west side. Living west and working east is practically reverse-commuting on the 10. The west side in particular is basically the land of "rush hour never ends" to an unbelievable extent compared to my experiences in the Bay Area, Seattle, Atlanta, and Austin (all which have plenty of people stuck with terrible commutes) - it's just a different magnitude of practically-never-ending-pain on every possible route.
- bkeroack 9y ago
  A big part of this is that the 405 acts as a giant nearly impenetrable wall separating the west side from everywhere else. The few underpasses that exist (Ohio, etc) become horrific logjams every day. I've spent 45 min going 1/4 mile to get past the 405.
  - H1Supreme 9y ago
    Holy crap. I'd get a motorcycle and lane split if I were you. Have a friend out in LA that does this. It cut down on his commute time significantly.
wutbrodo 9y ago
My parents moved from the Valley back to Beverly Hills when I was in college, so when I'd be back for break I would go between the Westside and the Valley a lot to see my HS friends. My mom would tell me that I should avoid trying to go between the two between 2 and _8_. LA traffic really is absurd.
7952 9y ago
That could just be due to people driving longer distance. They just have to start earlier or finish later.
lithos 9y ago
Confirming your DC suspicion. Quite a few jobs like construction and manufacturing are on a 6-2 or 6-6 schedule depending on their hours.
moron4hire 9y ago
In DC, the Pentagon is both a huge employer and centrally located at a number of crossroads. They specifically do have staggered schedules to combat rush hour, and some of their parking lots even have their own exists off of the highway.

ChuckMcM 9y ago

A combination of flex time and the perfect gas law. Individuals optimizing their commute move the time around until they can't optimize any more.

jayd16 9y ago

I feel like the modern day "This used to all orange grove" has become, "I used to be able to drive from Hollywood to Santa Monica in 20 minutes." These days you can only do that at 3am or so after the bar close traffic dies down.

tzs 9y ago

> The second graphic confirms my hypothesis ... that los angeles employers have somehow staggered their hours (or given the employees more liberty) and that rush hour has become more equally distributed over a larger time range. That could be it. I left the Los Angeles area in 1988, so have no idea what is going on now, but just going by my memory of what it was like when I lived there I'd have guessed a different explanation. That would be that at 4 PM you are limited by the traffic from people going home from work. By 7 PM that's largely gone, but now you are running into all the people who going out for the evening to eat, attend concerts and movies and sporting events, do evening shopping, and so on. In Los Angeles, those kind of excursions usually involved a freeway trip.

majormajor 9y ago

Something that I think they missed (or else I missed) is that going from downtown LA westbound in the evening rush hour isn't the worst one - it's going east from the west side. Living west and working east is practically reverse-commuting on the 10. The west side in particular is basically the land of "rush hour never ends" to an unbelievable extent compared to my experiences in the Bay Area, Seattle, Atlanta, and Austin (all which have plenty of people stuck with terrible commutes) - it's just a different magnitude of practically-never-ending-pain on every possible route.

bkeroack 9y ago
A big part of this is that the 405 acts as a giant nearly impenetrable wall separating the west side from everywhere else. The few underpasses that exist (Ohio, etc) become horrific logjams every day. I've spent 45 min going 1/4 mile to get past the 405.
- H1Supreme 9y ago
  Holy crap. I'd get a motorcycle and lane split if I were you. Have a friend out in LA that does this. It cut down on his commute time significantly.

wutbrodo 9y ago

My parents moved from the Valley back to Beverly Hills when I was in college, so when I'd be back for break I would go between the Westside and the Valley a lot to see my HS friends. My mom would tell me that I should avoid trying to go between the two between 2 and _8_. LA traffic really is absurd.

7952 9y ago

That could just be due to people driving longer distance. They just have to start earlier or finish later.

lithos 9y ago

Confirming your DC suspicion. Quite a few jobs like construction and manufacturing are on a 6-2 or 6-6 schedule depending on their hours.

moron4hire 9y ago

In DC, the Pentagon is both a huge employer and centrally located at a number of crossroads. They specifically do have staggered schedules to combat rush hour, and some of their parking lots even have their own exists off of the highway.