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Old 09-10-2013, 07:53 PM
 
5 posts, read 27,634 times
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Hello everyone,

I'm a late 20's guy who's been working in the tech field and going to school in SF (And living in downtown SF) but I've been completely burned out and I couldn't really adapt myself in the city (I'm originally from the Midwest). Financially, I'm in a good position where I can basically support myself without having to work right off the bat, and I want to go back to school to work on a 2 year degree. I decided to move to the Antelope Valley in Lancaster/Palmdale. I'm familiar with the neighborhoods (I think) and almost closing in on signing a lease but I wanted to come here because I certainly have a few questions.

What is the highway like when travelling from the downtown Los Angeles area to Lancaster? Am I going up a mountain? I've driven through the Santa Cruz mountains and I can honestly say it was an experience I was not fond of, so I'm hoping this will be a much more straight line type of highway.

Is driving from Lancaster to downtown Los Angeles for work a legit possibility? Does anyone have experience with this? I assume job opportunities will be slim in Lancaster so I'd like to have the option to travel so I can expand my employment options.

City-Data says that 10% of Lancaster is Jewish. Being a Jewish guy myself, I was surprised by this number. Is the Jewish community really that large in Lancaster? I'm not orthodox or anything and I'm certainly not coming here to convert anyone but I definitely don't mind a small Jewish presence in the city I'm living in.

Other than that, I basically want to live in a smaller, quieter community while I work in the big city. Thank you all, I appreciate it.
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Old 09-10-2013, 08:05 PM
 
Location: San Francisco
9,030 posts, read 10,413,237 times
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Lancaster to LA is the same distance as Santa Cruz to SF. About 70 miles.

Highway 14 is wider than Hwy 17 and is quite a bit less twisty, but (at least as far as Santa Clarita) it's far from a straight road. You will indeed have to drive over a mountain -- a couple of them, actually.

Did I mention that it's 70 miles from Lancaster to downtown LA?

If you can find work in Santa Clarita, that might almost be a reasonable commute. People do commute from the Antelope Valley into LA, but if you're used to a short easy commute, it would be quite an adjustment.
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Old 09-10-2013, 08:34 PM
 
Location: East Bay, San Francisco Bay Area, CA
23,265 posts, read 23,621,950 times
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It's a he*l of a commute, on a regular work day. Reason is that there is one way in and out of AV (there is another way in and out via 2, but it is one lane in each direction). On a rainy day, your commute will be easily 2 hours each way during rush hour.

There's a big reason why the real estate in AV is a bargain.

AV to Santa Clarita or the SFV is probably fine.
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Old 09-10-2013, 10:53 PM
 
Location: TOVCCA
8,452 posts, read 14,946,733 times
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You do know that it frequently gets below freezing and snows some in the winter there, right?
And that you're moving from being right over the San Andreas Fault to being right over the San Andreas Fault?
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Old 09-10-2013, 11:19 PM
 
5 posts, read 27,634 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nightlysparrow View Post
You do know that it frequently gets below freezing and snows some in the winter there, right?
And that you're moving from being right over the San Andreas Fault to being right over the San Andreas Fault?
Well...the record low in Lancaster is 2 degrees in 1984. I've experienced worse for months at a time. Not an issue for me. If it affects the driving conditions then so be it, but I'm definitely not gonna let my decision get swayed by a little cold weather in the winter and the rare chance of snow.
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Old 09-10-2013, 11:27 PM
 
5 posts, read 27,634 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by pch1013 View Post
Lancaster to LA is the same distance as Santa Cruz to SF. About 70 miles.

Highway 14 is wider than Hwy 17 and is quite a bit less twisty, but (at least as far as Santa Clarita) it's far from a straight road. You will indeed have to drive over a mountain -- a couple of them, actually.

Did I mention that it's 70 miles from Lancaster to downtown LA?

If you can find work in Santa Clarita, that might almost be a reasonable commute. People do commute from the Antelope Valley into LA, but if you're used to a short easy commute, it would be quite an adjustment.
My commute consists of taking a train (I put my car in storage when I moved to SF) so it's certainly not short and it's definitely not easy having to walk past an assembly line of homeless people and drug addicts begging me for a quarter every day. 70 mile commute? Sign me up.
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Old 09-10-2013, 11:59 PM
 
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Why move to the AV and battle ~140 miles of freeway congestion everyday?

There should certainly be suburban areas much closer to Los Angeles that have what you are looking for.
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Old 09-11-2013, 12:13 AM
 
Location: East Bay, San Francisco Bay Area, CA
23,265 posts, read 23,621,950 times
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Years ago, I worked in Woodland Hills and had a group of my co-workers make this commute daily. They carpooled and alternated driving. On normal days (no rain and no accidents), it was roughly 90 minutes each way. They started work at 7:30 and left for home at 4:00. One heavy rainy morning, they did not arrive into the office until 10:00 AM. My manager, who was a compassionate person, told them: "next time, just take a PTO day or work from home".
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Old 09-11-2013, 12:22 AM
 
Location: Idaho
6,324 posts, read 7,669,840 times
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I've been living out here for about eleven years now, so I can give you some insight. I work "down below" and make the commute.

First things first! Settle down on the west side of the freeway. I was not told this until after I purchased my house. Luckily, it was indeed on the west side. It didn't take too long to learn why I was told this.

Quote:
Originally Posted by CaliGuy12 View Post
...What is the highway like when travelling from the downtown Los Angeles area to Lancaster? Am I going up a mountain? I've driven through the Santa Cruz mountains and I can honestly say it was an experience I was not fond of, so I'm hoping this will be a much more straight line type of highway.
As mentioned, there are several routes one can take to get from the Antelope Valley to the Los Angeles Basin. The most heavily traveled is the CA State Highway 14. It is a two-three lane each way freeway. Sometimes, it is two lanes wide, other times it is three lanes wide. Most of the time, the extra lane is on the grades so that slower traffic/trucks don't inhibit the flow of traffic. These lane counts don't include the carpool lane, one lane in each direction. One nice thing is that southbound, outside the morning rush hour, it is open to all vehicles, irregardless on how many are in the car, (i.e., you can drive in the carpool lane by yourself).

The traffic flow on the 14 freeway moves at 70-75 miles per hour, even though the speed limit is 65. The route is patrolled, but the only time I've seen tickets being handed out is on an early Sunday morning. I assume that the light traffic on Sunday mornings allow people to really speed, and the CHP won't let people get away with 80-90 mph speeds.

The only real hill of note is the Escondido Summit, which is a long uphill grade to about 4,200 feet elevation. There is snow on occasions on the Escondido Summit, but only once in my years here have I had to turn around because the road was closed. I ended up pulling an all-nighter at work that day.

Quote:
Is driving from Lancaster to downtown Los Angeles for work a legit possibility? Does anyone have experience with this? I assume job opportunities will be slim in Lancaster so I'd like to have the option to travel so I can expand my employment options.
Not really a realistic option. The vast majority of people who do work down below live in Palmdale. That's another 5-10 miles closer. The mileage has already been mentioned. On the 14, the biggest traffic jam is when you hit Santa Clarita. The population of Santa Clarita has increased so much that it is not an enjoyable commute. Instead, I drive "over the mountain". The Angeles Forest Highway/Angeles Crest Highway works well for me. I work within a mile of where the Angeles Crest Highway lets out of the mountain. When I drive myself, I can actually get to work in about 50 minutes from the house in Palmdale to Pasadena. If I were to drive around, (take the 14 and 210 freeway), it would be a few miles more and about the same time, (not including the rush hour traffic).

Realistically, a commute from the Antelope Valley to the LA Basin only makes sense if you work in the San Fernando Valley/Glendale/Pasadena area. Other than that, it is too long of a commute.

Another option is taking the Metrolink light-rail train. It will run all the way to downtown LA. Kinda expensive, but possible. You can take your bicycle on the train, so getting from the house to the station and from the station to work doesn't require a taxi or car.

Quote:
City-Data says that 10% of Lancaster is Jewish. Being a Jewish guy myself, I was surprised by this number. Is the Jewish community really that large in Lancaster? I'm not orthodox or anything and I'm certainly not coming here to convert anyone but I definitely don't mind a small Jewish presence in the city I'm living in.
I never knew this. That's a lot of Jews! I have really never seen them around. Then again, I haven't been looking for them either. One thing that was a real eye opener for me is the degree of integration up here in the Antelope Valley. Just on my street, there are blacks, orientals, Hispanics, and whites. At least around my neighborhood, we're all one big happy family. I haven't seen racial prejudice at all. (On the east side, I've seen it, and that are is a lot more segregated.) But Jews? They must be very quiet and lay low. No reason they wouldn't be totally accepted.

Quote:
Other than that, I basically want to live in a smaller, quieter community while I work in the big city. Thank you all, I appreciate it.
Palmdale/Lancaster/Quartz Hill is not a "smaller, quieter community". This is a big city! There's something like 350,000 people in the area between these three cities and smaller outlying towns. We have all the major shopping we'd want. For example, between Palmdale and Lancaster, there are four Super Walmarts, and an ongoing political battle to put another one in Quartz Hill. We have a Sam's Club and a Costco. Four hospitals, (I think). Our own fairgrounds.

This is not a small city. But!!! One of the things I really like is the openess. There is a lot of empty land, even within the city. In less than two or three miles in any direction, I'm outside the city and into the desert and open space. The bicycling out here is fantastic! Plenty of mountains if you want to do some climbing, and plenty of flat if you want to run in a pace line. Outside the city, when we can ride faster, cars are used to bicycles and are pretty respectful around them. I feel quite safe riding the roads out here, even though they don't really have shoulders. The busier roads to, but those have too much traffic to be enjoyable to ride upon. (Maybe one of the reasons car traffic gives me a wide berth is that I ride with a strobe taillight and headlight, even in the daytime. High visibility and all that.)

No, don't expect it to be "smaller" and "quieter". We even have a pretty big community college, (at which I teach part-time).

It gets hot out here in the summer. This year, it's been in the high 90s all summer. A few days above a hundred, a bunch of them right at 100, hardly any in the 80s. The summer heat is quite bearable because of the low humidity. If you do physical stuff, just make sure you drink fluids. And, as mentioned, the winters are pretty chilly. We get a dusting of snow almost every year. It doesn't stick around long, except for a few years ago when the snow hung around for almost a week, (in the shadows). The danger is that when it rains, and the temps drop down below freezing, there is often ice on the roads in the early morning commute. You'll learn where to be careful and either avoid those areas or crawl through them until the road is dry again. (The civil engineers out here haven't seem to have figured out yet how to drain rain water off the highways yet.)

The quality of the roads are mixed. I think it depends on the political jurisdiction. There is the city of Palmdale, the city of Lancaster, and the unincorporated Los Angeles County areas. The cities are hurting for money due to the tanking of the economy. In the county areas, the desert out here is the poor step child an most of the infrastructure money will be spend down below where most of the county population live. There is a bit of road work up here, but some roads are really crap. (30th street West between Avenue D and Avenue A is close because of the really poor condition of the asphalt. Makes a nice bike street, if you avoid the potholes.)

Best of luck, with whatever you decide. Remember . . . the west side!

- - - - -

Please excuse the poor grammar and typos. It's late and this was too much editing.

Last edited by volosong; 09-11-2013 at 12:31 AM..
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Old 09-11-2013, 12:28 AM
 
Location: Corona the I.E.
10,137 posts, read 17,389,194 times
Reputation: 9138
I would be cautious Lancaster,and Palmdale has some white power neo nazi types.
From the Prisons to the Streets: The Nazi Low Riders Emerge in California
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