Getting Around in L.A. with the TomTom GO 930

I don't usually don't write any kind of product endorsement, but I have fallen in love with GPS. For Father's Day, my wife and son gave me the new TomTom GO 930. Which has already proven incredibly useful, and of all things, relaxing.

For one, the Bluetooth phone hands-free feature is great, given that California has a no-talking-while-holding-phone law that went into effect on July 1st. I can't figure out how to get the Blackberry Curve voice-dial to work through the TomTom, though, so I'm trying to dial on the TomTom's touch-screen while driving, which has already left me drifting wildly across lanes.

It was especially useful on my recent trip home to Raleigh, when I drove in the city I'm not too familiar with, and back and forth to New Bern, and I have used it to figure out where to find specific businesses, like a Starbucks. Those, I suppose, are the sort of things you should take for granted in a GPS navigation unit, but I'll just add that the user interface is pretty good, too.

I think my favorite thing about the unit, in Los Angeles where I already know my way around, is that the TomTom calculates the arrival time. And the result of that isn't so much time management for me, as it is the realization that speeding, aggravation and stress while driving in L.A. are all pointless, because the TomTom does not lie. You can lane change, speed, honk, run red lights; whatever. After only a few trips, you'll notice that at the most, the TomTom grants you a minute or two in time shaved off the trip. Road rage is stress, and stress kills. So, I consider the biggest value of the GO 930 to be its zen-like technology, constantly reassuring me of my arrival time, and the stress-free, laid back listening to tunes on the radio driving experience I get, knowing that I don't have to freak out in traffic to try to get where I'm going. I'll get there safer.

If I'm not trying to dial the phone, that is.

Expo Line New Aerial Station

The new Expo Line will now have its terminus even closer to my neighborhood, now ending at an aerial station spanning Venice at Robertson. According to an update on the BuildExpo.org web site, in April, the Metro Board adopted the Venice/Robertson aerial station and structure as part of the Expo Phase 1 project. The Board also increased the project budget by $54 million to a new project budget of $862.3 million.

They haven't updated the maps to reflect the new station location being further west than the originally planned Washington & National. Also, I think it still remains to be seen whether USC will have a station right next to Exposition Park. The maps still list it as optional.

Expo line

Sorry for the bad photo. I was trying to show early construction over by USC for the Expo Line light rail that the MTA is building from downtown to near my house. The line will run from downtown, by USC (including the Galen Center) and Exposition Park (home of the Natural History Museum, the Olympic Memorial Coliseum and the California Science Center) and then through kind of some rough territory to Culver City.

Rainy Days and LA Traffic Always Get Me Down.

Rainy days in Los Angeles mean a couple of things. One, turn off the lawn sprinkler system for a few days and take advantage of the rare free water. Second, take a few deep breaths before heading out in a car to commute to work, because there is nothing quite like the mayhem of LA traffic in the rain. It's comically bad; your average rain storm is the East Coast equivalent of a blizzard.

The Los Angeles Times launched a new traffic blog, aptly named Bottleneck, earlier this year; LA traffic has its own culture.