It can take up to 3 hours to get from where I live (on Hwy 118 east of Somis, CA), to downtown Los Angeles or West LA, if traffic is on the worse side. That's 40 miles. Since I basically work from home, I can plan well enough to go into LA when the traffic is least-dreadful. Yesterday, the Labor Day beach traffic was so backed up from Ventura and the northern end of Malibu Beach, that it was stopped solid across our driveway and all the way back into Simi Valley!!! That's a total of about 30 miles of stoppage. Without traffic, I can make it to downtown Los Angeles in 40 minutes, or to the north end of Malibu Beach in about 15 minutes. Lucky I have access to dirt roads and have a 4x4, as I had to get into LA yesterday. Here's a photo I took from the house, and you'll notice cars sitting on the shoulder facing the wrong way: They all made righthand U-turns at our driveway, and are waiting to get through the westbound lane to go back where they came from

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Charles