I assume this isn't a typical reaction? I live in London, and if it takes me an hour to get somewhere, I consider that fairly reasonable. Is it actually common for people over there to consider an hour journey as something extraordinary?
There are people who commute for an hour, and who select a place to live knowing they'll have to commute for an hour, despite having options within 5-10 minutes. I can't even begin to fathom why someone would do that, and waste 10 hours of their life every week for years.
(There's a bit of an exception for commuting by public transit with minimal transfers, since at least then you can spend the time productively rather than behind a wheel. Even then, I wouldn't want to regularly spend an hour on a train, but it's slightly less terrible.)
I am from Perth, Australia and people voluntarily driving for upwards of 30 minutes each way is extremely common with 1 hour not being all that unusual so people will happily buy a home that is distant from where they work.
Although Perth isn't huge in terms of population (~2 million) it is extremely spread out due to its very low population density. 310/km2 Vs 5354/km2 for London for example. Australian cities generally have a low density, Melbourne is 430/km2, but Perth is at the low end of the low end.
Most Perth people have never lived anywhere else so they grow up assuming that being in the car for 20-40 minutes to get anywhere is common and that a 1 hour drive to work isn't particularly bad. At a company I worked at there was someone who had a 2 hour commute. That is very definitely at the very high end and he actually lived outside of the city and drove in every day but let that sink in a little. 4 hours a day in the car.
This is, in my opinion, part of the reason why Perth people who experience living elsewhere rarely return to live in Perth. Some return after some time elsewhere but typically they leave for good after another year or two. Once you have acclimatized to having a <20 minute commute, especially if its by public transport or walking, the notion of paying a bunch of money to buy a car so you can sit in traffic for 20-60 minute each way every day is profoundly unattractive.
Commuting in LA is rougher than Perth due to the traffic but Perth's low density means that people often travel further to find the same variety of amenities.
That's common in the US too... The average commute to work in the US is 25 minutes each way. And 1 in 12 people spend 1 hour or more each way.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/03/05/c...
At one point, I drove about 80 minutes to my University and about 60 minutes back to work, which was by my home. If I got lucky and there was no traffic (rare), it was 45 minutes. You get used to it, but it's not something one should get used to.
Even now, I live 2 minutes from work. In traffic, it's 15 minutes. You can't avoid traffic in LA. There needs to be a better public option.
If the economy has any rightness in it at all, it has shown us that California is valuable. People put up with all manner of hardship just to carry out their lives in that location.
Traffic is an effect of that value. Of course, people are not perfectly mobile, and many things tie people to particular geographies and commutes; but in general people still move to California and prioritize the value of the location over commute time.
But when you are driving in that stop go traffic that feels comparable to walking speed, with the same cars around you, and no particular visible progress, the brain really hates it.
These highways are in what you would consider urban areas, but there are walls on either side to alleviate the noise for residents. Consequently there isn't that much to see along stretches other than stop and go cars going into the distance.
I was shocked on one trip to LA driving at 1am, in a two lane wide car pool lane, and experiencing traffic almost as dense as rush in the Bay Area!
Then again the non-highway streets seem to have a traffic light system geared to no movement. It is beyond annoying sitting at lights where nobody is moving.
I commute most days, usually several miles. The only time I prefer car or train is when its raining, which is rare.
http://www.yelp.com/biz/tacos-por-favor-santa-monica
There are some things you have to drive for, like great dim sum, but the great Middle Eastern and Japanese food more than makes up for it.
Two of my favorite restaurants in the world:
http://www.yelp.com/biz/zankou-chicken-los-angeles-2
http://www.yelp.com/biz/hide-sushi-japanese-restaurant-los-a...
http://www.yelp.com/biz/tacomiendo-los-angeles
monte alban is great but not for tacos/burritos.
On the other hand, ones favorite place for these things might well be an hour away. I live in West LA and my favorite Mexican food is in Eagle Rock and my favorite mediterranean food is in Orange County...
That's the perfect California response and it contains significant cultural wisdom that answers many confusions in this thread.
In most of the US, an hour drive is a long way[1]. You're talking about a 40+ mile trip since few cities experience the hours-long traffic of LA (in LA, it's easy to spend an hour driving 5 to 15 miles, if you have to go at the wrong time). The flip side is that LA is far denser than most of the US, so you don't generally have to drive nearly as far... but relationships and commuting to work can get you, and that's where you get the time-consuming drives in soul-crushing traffic.
[1] In most of the US, public transport isn't an option, and even in LA taking the bus generally adds a fair bit of time over driving direct, and the train coverage is only slowly improving.
Commuting from Redmond to Tacoma during rush hour is a 2 hour drive as well. During other times it's a 45-minute drive.
I don't mind an occasional 2 hour train ride into NYC for the weekend, but hell if I'd do it in my car regularly.
So you spend 3hrs a day just traveling, and you consider that ok?