Crosstown traffic

If you ask 10 mainlanders why they uprooted and moved to the Commonwealth, at least seven of them will cite this grim reality of American life: traffic. I used to live in the smoggy confines of Los Angeles, and the daily, bumper to bumper gridlock drove me bonkers.
Spending an hour–or more–just to get to the other side of town is a stupid way to squander any of your mortality, if you ask me.

One fine (actually, not so fine) afternoon, mired in traffic on Interstate 405, my little brain tripped a circuit breaker and I said enough is enough. When I finally got home, I started packing. That very week I moved to a remote town in the mountains and set up shop in a humble hermitage. Telephone, fax, email and snail mail were my links to the world.
When I absolutely needed to meet folks in the city, I’d rent an airplane and fly down. I don’t mind a couple of hours in an airplane, in fact, I’d rather be in the air than on the ground sometimes. Flying is the only civilized means of commuting.

Driving, by contrast, seems downright barbaric in this dot.com age. Why does everyone need to huddle together in offices from eight-to-five for five days a week? Is this some herd instinct that can’t be resisted? Traffic is, of course, generally caused by people commuting to and from work, and I wonder how much of it is really necessary in today’s cyber world. What’s the point of email and the Internet if they don’t liberate us from the tyranny of the office and the shackles of brute routine?

And the road routine in the states is getting even more brutal. In the past decade, the total amount of miles driven has increased 30%. (Don’t ask me how they add up all the miles driven by everybody; we’ll just have to take their word for it). I know people in California who regularly spend three hours each work day driving to and from work. No thanks, sport. Three hours? Not me. Not ever.

The closest I get to a commute these days is frequent runs to Guam (ah…Taco Bell!), but it’s an easy shot. In fact, Pacific Island Aviation unveiled an $89 round trip fare to and from Guam– how can you beat that? Saipan doesn’t seem so isolated when you realize you can get to Guam quicker and easier than you can drive across Los Angeles. And, when you factor in the value of your time, it’s probably cheaper to fly to Guam than it is to drive across L.A. And, I’ll confess, I actually think PIA’s flight to Guam is scenic and fun.

Meanwhile, as we happily fly over the blue expanses of the lazy Pacific, hopping from island to island, folks in the states can barely get out of the driveway. The amount of time lost to traffic delays has increased each year for the last five years. Road construction isn’t keeping pace with things, and there’s no end to the congestion in sight.

Friday is always a great day to count your blessings, since you’ve made it through yet another week. After you clock out, you can be at the beach in 10 minutes. Your counterparts in the states, by contrast, can’t even get out of the parking lot in 10 minutes.
True, we do have our minor traffic snarls, but crosstown traffic doesn’t run our lives like it would in the states. That’s one blessing I won’t soon forget.