re: highway hell in L.A. (credit, house, live)

[LAjorge]

dont worry about cahuenga pass in LA there is tons of other routes you can take, but first you got to decide where in LA you are going to live,

[Cubancoffee]

Originally Posted by LAjorge

this is cahuenga pass in Los Angeles

Ha-ha, the 101 has nowhere near this many lanes.

[JonathanLB]

Originally Posted by yoyoma02

Yes, transportation is hell out here. It's my only complaint about LA.

There is always traffic. It will take you about 30 min to go 10 miles.

I can tell you $25 will get you about 8 or 9 miles tops. I can tell you it cost me $80 cab rid from downtown to Santa Monica after a night of drinking.

However, it's a pretty easy area to learn and it's going to vary where you live. For instance, I live downtown. I know the 5, 10, 110, 405, 134, 210, 101/170... fairly well. Other than that, I have a GPS to tell me where to go.

Downtown, nice. That's where I live! I'm over in the South Park district a few blocks from Staples... I enjoy L.A. Live a lot and the cool bars we have downtown in general (Standard, Edison, etc.).

And yes, the traffic is definitely one of the worst parts of L.A. I mean, I use my GPS really to figure out where to go, I have a general sense of course of where I'm headed if it's like ok I need to go to Burbank, I go there all the time, or Hollywood, no problem, Santa Monica, etc. It's not tough to figure out the basics of where you are needing to go but some people must devote like 76% of their memory to something you really don't need to know now days. I'm not saying it's not good to have common sense, but come on, that's what the GPS is for is telling you how to get somewhere...

My producer will always be like, "You know, it's like past (so and so) like just around (whatever street) and like maybe a few streets down from (some other random thing)." He will NEVER give me an address, ever, so I have to be like ok it's near what now? Then I just GPS that and hope for the best. I guess he's been here so long he knows this stuff but I have no concept of what street is where except for something like Sunset Blvd. and that's really about it. Otherwise I can't tell you what is near this street or that street. Downtown, I know some streets like Grand because I live on that, or Figueroa because it's close and that's where lots of stuff is, maybe Hope and Flower, but I couldn't get anywhere just by street directions.

This is a HUGE sprawling area, with what like 50, 75 different cities that count as "Los Angeles" and its greater area? I still learn of a new city every few weeks, I swear. I hadn't even heard of West Hills before an editor and my sales lady both live out there and I met them. And let's be honest most of these places you really have no reason to go to ever except if you know someone there. West Hills, Van Nuys, Whittier, Northridge, places like that are useless if you don't live there. Otherwise you'll spend most of your time in Los Angeles (Hollywood included), Burbank, Santa Monica, places like that.

[Fontucky]

Originally Posted by Cubancoffee

Ha-ha, the 101 has nowhere near this many lanes.

It's an old Photochopped pic. Been around for years.

[sweetheart1311]

Originally Posted by JonathanLB

My producer will always be like, "You know, it's like past (so and so) like just around (whatever street) and like maybe a few streets down from (some other random thing)." He will NEVER give me an address, ever, so I have to be like ok it's near what now? Then I just GPS that and hope for the best. I guess he's been here so long he knows this stuff but I have no concept of what street is where except for something like Sunset Blvd. and that's really about it.

LOL This has been my experience in LA, too. Another thing everybody keeps saying to me is "Go south on Sunset" or "Go east on Hollywood" - how the hell do I know where south is??? Just give me the damn address!

[Vary]

Originally Posted by Fontucky

It's an old Photochopped pic. Been around for years.

Oh yeah! I went back and looked at it and found repeats of the same vehicles almost immediately.

[Harrier]

If u want the subway then live either in downtown LA - mid wilshire - holywood - or north hollywood/studio city - otherwise plan to take the bus or light rail - Green line or blue line south of LA or the rail system out of LA to Pasadena(can't remember what that is called - someone help me out here! - also theor is Metrolink - however I don't have a death wish so I will not ride that!

[Cubancoffee]

Originally Posted by Fontucky

It's an old Photochopped pic. Been around for years.

Ya, just trying not to alarm the OP too much.

[Fontucky]

Originally Posted by sweetheart1311

"Go south on Sunset"... how the hell do I know where south is???

Your back is to the Hollywood sign.

By the way, if someone sends you South on Sunset, find another direction giver.

[Lovehound]

I often wonder why some people have good directional sense and others have virtually none. I must have been born lucky, or maybe it has something to do with my extensive camping, hiking and outdoors experiences starting in childhood and continuing to the present day. I can almost always tell the four cardinal compass directions. One clue: sun direction (which also makes a pretty good clock). But I can tell direction even on cloudy days. Maybe I'm part pigeon.

What I hate is when people describe how to get some place and they use physical objects as reference, like a supermarket or a big tree or something. Actually I hate getting directions even when they use a compass. It's better to just look up an address on Google maps or program it into your GPS. Most people are lousy at giving directions, particularly... Well nevermind, I'm not going to open that can of worms!