1957 vs. 2007

Is L.A. traffic actually getting better? Larry Harnisch found an Auto Club survey of commuting times and distances for 1957, 17 different routes all ending at the Auto Club building near USC. He's now driving a few of them to see if the times still stand up. He found that if you believe Google, it sounds like getting around L.A. is actually getting better in some cases. But you can help Larry get to the bottom of this. (Check out some cool maps and photos in the process.):

Here's how you can help: Pick one of the routes, send me your time and I'll post it. Note: All drives in the 1957 survey were conducted during weekdays from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. In the meantime, I'll be sampling a few of the routes myself. Check back and see how I'm doing. Here's one surprise: So far, driving at off-hours last weekend, I beat the commuting times from 1957 by a few minutes.

Comments

[jung]

Sure it's better in some cases like 2 am! But who cares most people drive between 6am til midnight!