Recently, I made a trip for a doctor’s appointment in West Anaheim. As I live in Anaheim Hills, I thought to myself, that should be no problem. Just a straight shot down the 91, off at Beach. I made sure to make the appointment time after 930am, because I thought that most people would be at work by then and off the freeways.

Well, now that you’ve picked yourself up off the floor from laughing so hard at my naivete, I have a question for you. How do you do it? How do you keep yourself from weeping every time you get on the freeways here? I can’t even begin to imagine how much time in our lives is wasted from sitting in traffic.

When we first moved here in 2001, I was still working in Santa Monica, and I had a work schedule that made it somewhat bearable to make the commute. That changed during the latter part of 2002, and has never, ever recovered. And it is suposedly only going to get worse. I recently read some reports about the 91 being the most congested freeway in the United States, based on total hours of congestion, not just necessarily during “rush hour.” The 405 isn’t exactly a cakewalk, either.

What, for you, are the most troubling freeways or portions thereof, in Orange County? What suggestions would you have for the mucky-mucks that plan for our transportation needs?

Mine would be to actually have all the carpool ramps connect with each other! What a novel idea! That way, we wouldn’t have to get over five lanes in less than a mile and thus wind up backing up traffic for miles behind us as we attempt to actually merge out of the carpool lane to make it to the upcoming interchange.

Anybody else got any ideas?