do you ever stop to think about just how bad our roads are? & why traffic is a nightmare? (West Hollywood: apartment, how much)

[jet757f]

Originally Posted by saibot

25 years?? You have my deep sympathy, but why didn't you move closer to work, oh, say 24 years ago?

The traffic just started getting like this over the past couple of years. Before it wasn't that bad when I would go home around 2pm. Now it is a nightmare.
Used to live in Torrance and then moved to OC after we had the kids. The traffic was that bad in the early afternoon.

[man4857]

Originally Posted by YoungTraveler2011

my god. i know we've talked about this but this infuriates me. millions of people are paying 200-400 on car registration fees & stupid amounts of taxes ...and our roads & traffic are still TERRIBLE.

not to mention, they probably hire cooks or grocery baggers to run the transportation department. there's literally ZERO flow of traffic in LA. ZERO light synchronization.

you look down the street and the lights look like a god damn Christmas tree.

I don't understand how these buffoons don't get the fact that every major street going north & south and every major street going west & east should be synchronized.

streets like Santa Monica Blvd, Olympic, La Cienega, Wilshire, Sunset Blvd, Hollywood Blvd, Pico, etc. should be in sync. synchronizing these streets would force people to take them which would be a plus for everyone as you'll go through the city much faster. you'd also stop cars from going through neighborhood to bypass the stupidity.

but no, let's make one light green and the next red and the next green and the next red. IDIOTS.

one of the reasons why traffic is a gigantic nightmare isn't because there's a lot of cars, its because they don't sync street lights so it's a clogged artery at every inch of the street.

ever wonder why you can get through Beverly Hills so fast and then you get jammed in West Hollywood? That's because people running Beverly Hills aren't morons.

I can't be the only one who finds this $hit annoying.

How smooth the roads are aren't the issue or if they're synchronized. It's the design/planning of the transportation system + city zoning/density planning. Roads are laid left and right just to have a path, but not logical reasoning as to why they're laid out the way they are. Stuff is more compact in LA and so roads are generally smaller and requires more intersections.

Look at the freeway designs and interchanges of Phoenix vs. LA. Phoenix's freeways are designed pretty well generally with an exit onto a major street every 1 mile, and each entrance/exit ramp is an auxiliary lane which helps with merging. Freeways in Phoenix has clearly marked signs that are very readable, new, and not old and you get plenty of heads up before interchanges happens or what have you. (3-4 warnings) Every freeway in Phoenix has HOV ramps to link other freeways and busy streets to prevent people in the HOV lane from crossing the entire freeway to get to the exit ramps. Streets are designed like a grid so people will always have an alternative that parallels the freeway or intersects it. Every freeway interchange with a major road is generally a diamond design which is very straight forward and easy to understand, though there's some experimentation now with a single point interchange and diverging diamond interchanges which moves more cars efficiently.

And I'm originally from LA, moved to Phoenix. You can tell Phoenix's road system is light years better than LA. Not because of how smooth or nice it is (even though it is), but the design is way better. Someone actually thought out the road system here.

The problem with doing investments in infrastructure is that it's SUPER PRICEY. Your $400 car registration fee is no where near enough to fund any measurable projects to improve traffic flow. Freeways costs billions to widen for only a few miles, let alone maintain. Face it, LA is dependent on infrastructure that's poorly designed and it's too costly to make any radical changes without taxing everyone up the arse.

[man4857]

Originally Posted by Finper

Michigan is a very poor state. No doubt there roads are like off roading in Hell. Arizona gets extreme temps and there roads are pristine. I live in OC and our roads are showing wear but they are no where near as bad as LA. Something very shady and criminal is happening to the road money in LA.

Don't forget that Arizona's car registration fees are much higher than CA for the same exact car. In case you didn't know.
But yes AZ generally has nice roads. Freeways are paved with rubberized asphalt which makes it smooth, quiet, and durable even though it's pricey.

[Finper]

Originally Posted by man4857

Don't forget that Arizona's car registration fees are much higher than CA for the same exact car. In case you didn't know.
But yes AZ generally has nice roads. Freeways are paved with rubberized asphalt which makes it smooth, quiet, and durable even though it's pricey.

At least your registration fees are actually going to the roads and infrastructure. Makes paying the fees a lot easier for John Q Public

[jm1982]

Originally Posted by Finper

At least your registration fees are actually going to the roads and infrastructure. Makes paying the fees a lot easier for John Q Public

What a novel idea right ?

[man4857]

Originally Posted by Finper

At least your registration fees are actually going to the roads and infrastructure. Makes paying the fees a lot easier for John Q Public

Well because most of the infrastructure is new. LAs was built in the 60's while most of Phoenix was built in the 90s and 2000's. So of course it'll cost less to maintain. It's like complaining about the maintenance of an older home versus newer home. They aren't even the same comparison.

[Finper]

Originally Posted by man4857

Well because most of the infrastructure is new. LAs was built in the 60's while most of Phoenix was built in the 90s and 2000's. So of course it'll cost less to maintain. It's like complaining about the maintenance of an older home versus newer home. They aren't even the same comparison.

Then why is registration more expensive there??

[Sydney123]

Nope too busy enjoying the beach, weather, fine dining, shopping, local mountains. If the beach is crowded I can walk instead of drive. Same with town... I can walk to the market, bank, restaurants, shopping. I don't find the roads terrible for the most part, and during traffic times I just turn in the A/C, crank the tunes and rock out!
YMMY, but I ❤️ just about everything LA.

[man4857]

Originally Posted by Finper

Then why is registration more expensive there??

Because the roads here are generally wider and reach less people/mile due to the way zoning is done. Phoenix's population density is way lower than LA. Plus AZ decided to use rubberized asphalt on the freeways instead of just plain ole concrete. Plus voters voted to prioritize freeway expansion projects unlike LA, voters voted to fund mass transit projects.... so there's that.

And the registration fee AZ is basically a progressive income tax for cars. It's much much higher than CA. So unless you want pristine roads, then maybe you guys in CA should vote to raise car registration fees up the wazoo like AZ.

It's calculated like this:
Take 60% of your car's "assessed value" (basically the KBB value based off of the year that the car it's sold as a starting number), and for every $100 of assessed value, the tax is $2.80. Then add $13.50 to the total to get the total registration cost for that year.

So if I bought a $25,000 car, the vehicle license tax is 25000 * 0.6 = 15000 = 2.80 x 150 = $420 + 13.50 = 433.50 for 1 year.
Every year after, the assessed value decreases by 16.25% and the registration is calculated based off the 16.25 decreased value.
If I bought the same car in CA, the registration fee for the 1st year is roughly $225. (Based off of previous experience of registering my new 2013 car in CA when I bought it.) I registered the same car in AZ in 2016 about $325.

And because of ^, all rental cars in AZ if they're new, they're registered in CA since it's cheaper. lol

Edit: And if you think the high registration fees are fine for AZ because of lower income taxes. Think again. The state doesn't do jack to support social programs unlike CA.
There is no paid family leave/SDI, school teachers make an average of $25-30K/year (literally a few dollars above the minimum wage), nonexistent state support for anything related to health or lower income families, there's no state support/grants for any higher education (community college or state university) you're on your own, and unemployment benefits are literally 1/2 the amount you'd get in CA. $240/week max (and unlike CA, unemployment benefits are taxable income by the state). So take your pick. I happen to do just fine in AZ since I have an engineering background and that gets me a decent salary, but I'm willing to bet, most folks don't have a high income potential unless they're trained for the job. So you're basically screwed in AZ if anything happens.

[Finper]

Originally Posted by man4857

Because the roads here are generally wider and reach less people/mile due to the way zoning is done. Phoenix's population density is way lower than LA. Plus AZ decided to use rubberized asphalt on the freeways instead of just plain ole concrete. Plus voters voted to prioritize freeway expansion projects unlike LA, voters voted to fund mass transit projects.... so there's that.

And the registration fee AZ is basically a progressive income tax for cars. It's much much higher than CA. So unless you want pristine roads, then maybe you guys in CA should vote to raise car registration fees up the wazoo like AZ.

It's calculated like this:
Take 60% of your car's "assessed value" (basically the KBB value based off of the year that the car it's sold as a starting number), and for every $100 of assessed value, the tax is $2.80. Then add $13.50 to the total to get the total registration cost for that year.

So if I bought a $25,000 car, the vehicle license tax is 25000 * 0.6 = 15000 = 2.80 x 150 = $420 + 13.50 = 433.50 for 1 year.
Every year after, the assessed value decreases by 16.25% and the registration is calculated based off the 16.25 decreased value.
If I bought the same car in CA, the registration fee for the 1st year is roughly $225. (Based off of previous experience of registering my new 2013 car in CA when I bought it.) I registered the same car in AZ in 2016 about $325.

And because of ^, all rental cars in AZ if they're new, they're registered in CA since it's cheaper. lol

Edit: And if you think the high registration fees are fine for AZ because of lower income taxes. Think again. The state doesn't do jack to support social programs unlike CA.
There is no paid family leave/SDI, school teachers make an average of $25-30K/year (literally a few dollars above the minimum wage), nonexistent state support for anything related to health or lower income families, there's no state support/grants for any higher education (community college or state university) you're on your own, and unemployment benefits are literally 1/2 the amount you'd get in CA. $240/week max (and unlike CA, unemployment benefits are taxable income by the state). So take your pick. I happen to do just fine in AZ since I have an engineering background and that gets me a decent salary, but I'm willing to bet, most folks don't have a high income potential unless they're trained for the job. So you're basically screwed in AZ if anything happens.

I still think Az has its act together a lot more than CA.