[LA.pm] hollywood.pm.org

[Peter Benjamin]

IMO, the LA PM mailing list should be the forum to make
the decision of how many PMs should be in LA.

Towards that end I supply information for that argument.

And to state I sure would like monthly meetings.
And I would drive to Ticketmaster from Santa Monica
for at least the first 3-6 meetings there.  Why so
few?  Read about the commute below.

At 10:01 AM 2/2/2006, terry mcintyre wrote:
>I can, by the way, well imagine a place where traffic
>is worse than in Los Angeles. Try Pittsburgh during a
>snow storm -- it can take hours to travel 8 miles.
>Even
>an ordinary rush hour can cause an 8 mile commute to 
>take over an hour.

Well, LA has Pittsburgh beat then.  The 10 Freeway
is still the busiest freeway in the world.  It's
rush hour is from 2:30 to 7:30.  I know.  For the
LAMPsig.org meetings I travel from Santa Monica
to Hoover.  On a normal "early" day it takes 20 minutes.

This same 11 miles has taken me 1 hour, 1.5 hours
and 2 hours.  It is terrible.  And I bring the
video projector to the meeting, and must arrive
15 minutes before to have time to set it up.

The average time to go the 1 mile from my home office
to the 10 freeway is 20 minutes along Lincoln.

The average time to travel from downtown Santa Monica
to the 405, a 5 mile stretch is 30 minutes or more.
Never less.  So, the posters who make 'light' of that
short commute, should not.

To get past the 405, on either the freeway or streets
is another 10 minutes, to go just 1 mile.  Sometimes
20 minutes on the street.  Any accident or CHP parked
on the freeway causes the freeway to be 20 minutes.
Any accident on the 405 north or south causes this
1 mile to get past the 405 to be 30 minutes.

At that point on the freeway it speeds up, and getting
to an exit before Harbor Freeway is not much of a problem.
Erh, well, Hoover just before the interchange can take
20 minutes to get off the freeway.  So one gets off
at Vermont and goes north several miles before cutting
over to Hoover.

Now getting off at Fairfax to go north... no brainer...
never do it.  It necks down to one lane, and to get
to Ticketmaster on Fairfax means adding 2 hours.
Yes, 2 hours to go 3 miles.  (I made that mistake
only once.)

So, La Brea or La Cienega are the only alternatives.
20 minutes minimum to go north to Melrose.  I have
a client on Melrose, so I know.  That is, if you
take the parking lane at speed.  Otherwise, about 35 
minutes.

So, minimum time from Santa Monica to Ticketmaster
is 70 minutes.  Of stop and go.  Average would be
about 90 minutes.  Sometimes it would be 2 hours.

After that, one is in no mood to sit some more, and
no mood to "network" with fellow mongers.  A cool
down of 20 minutes is needed.  So leaving work
at least 90 minutes early is needed.  And eating
dinner needs to be added.

To be consistently there on time, and in a good
mood means leaving work 3 hours before the meeting
or before 4:00.  And half the time that will mean
getting there 30-45 minutes early with nothing to 
do but wait.

It is a problem.

--

One solution is to have a pre dinner event there
for those with the long commute, where it is known
we must wind down, relax, eat a slow meal, and just
exchange knowing looks that no one is a talking mood.

Is there a restaurant in the area where parking is
free enough to not have to move it to go to Ticketmaster?

--

It is wrong to not have LA metro have two or more Monger
groups.  We have almost a dozen LUGs.  www.LALUGS.org

I've written this long post just to make that point.

Comparing LA to London, that has been done on this list
as well now.  I think it can be agreed there is no
comparing the two cities as being "commute similar."

The entire thread, when done, can be mailed to the PM master
for review.