Sometimes, I wonder if trying to go carless in LA reveals a masochistic streak in me. We’re talking about going carless in a city that still defines itself via its car culture. A huge, huge city, with a still-sporatic bus system with nary a schedule at its stops, and no subway system to speak of anywhere near me. Even cabs are hard to come by at many places; you have to have ‘em on speed dial.

Then I get behind the wheel, and realize that the daily rush-hour drivers are the real masochists.

Case in point: Thursday, I rent a car because I can’t trust the bus system to get me home safe and sound from my poetry reading in Chinatown, late night. I pick up the car at 4; by 5:30, I have a parking ticket. My street, it appears, changed its street parking rules in the last couple months. Damn.

So I start driving. It takes me 20 minutes just to get ON the freeway that’s just a mile away. By the time I get to the Miracle Mile area to pick up my friend Jeff, it’s 6:45.

I’m supposed to be at the venue by 7 pm, so I start panicking a bit. Luckily, poetry readings generally start out late; we get there at 7:20, and everyone there’s just chilling out, still ordering drinks. After close to 2 hours of fighting traffic, I need one.

Jeff has his own ride home, so after the reading, I get on the 110 to the 10 — where I’m immediately brought to a standstill by an accident. I get off the freeway. I get a lil bit lost. Then I get found and back on the 10 at Vermont and get home, finally, without further ado. I remember to park a block away so as to avoid a second parking ticket –

Of course driving’s a breeze sometimes — like at 2 am on a Monday night. And of course, if you live really far from where you work, a car’s pretty much indispensable. But the whole driving nightmare made me remember why I’m glad I’ve reorganized my life so I can live, work, and play all within a bikeable neighborhood, for the most part.

The experience reminded me of a book I read a while back, called Your Money or Your Life. The authors have you calculate out a truer cost of how much, exactly, your job pays you per hour — factoring in for overtime and traffic time, and factoring out from your total paycheck the money your commute costs you in gas and car maintenance, in the cost of acceptable business attire and accoutrements (a Blackberry, perhaps), take-out lunches due to time crunches, etc.

For ex, if you spend 4 hours fighting traffic each day, that means you’re really giving 12 hours (plus overtime) of your life to this job every weekday — and your hourly wage, adjusted for gas costs, etc., should be calculated out as such. A job closer to you, even if it pays somewhat less, may very well up your “real” hourly earnings.

Of course, not everyone can make big job changes immediately, but if everyone on the 405 read this book, we might not have to quibble about widening the freeway again.

Update, 5/18/09: Get naked, or get angry — for a better commute

Update, 9/2/09: How to kill time you don’t have: Drive in L.A., still #1 in traffic congestion

Photo by andropolis

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