Rick Bell does extreme commuting as a daily exercise.
I am really dreading this week. In fact, the rest of June’s looking pretty gloomy too, and I’m not talking about our perpetually overcast skies this time of year. And while I’m at it, since our governor is threatening to cut basically everything in sight, I’m cool with him lopping off July and August too.
It’s time for my annual season of discontent, which started right after Memorial Day.
On an otherwise uneventful southbound commute across Camp Pendleton, it dawned on my car-pool buddy Bob and I that summer was fast approaching. Not exactly stumbling upon a map to the Seven Cities of Gold, I know. Summer’s been happening every year about this time for, ohhh, eons.
A lot of people say Memorial Day kicks off summer. Maybe so, but Bob and I milk it a couple extra weeks.
Yeah, I know summer officially starts June 21. But on our calendar, summer quietly rolled in like low clouds creeping over Highway 56 the morning of June 12.
Summer 2009 is under way, and I sense that we aren’t alone in our seasonal misery. There are tens of thousands of commuters who drive Interstate 5 every day, whether they’re headed north to Orange County like us or south to downtown San Diego, who I am sure want summer to be over-immediately.
Queue up Eddie Cochran, please, and join me in a chorus of “Summertime Blues.”
So, what’s with all this pent-up anxiety? Why dread summer, a time to wiggle our toes in the sand at La Jolla Shores, frolic in the surf in Carlsbad, barbecue until there are no more spare ribs left in the county? Why are we commuters singing the same song?
The unholy trinity of commuting
Let me present to the uninitiated — to drivers of the I-8 and dwellers of the South Bay and the backcountry — the unholy trinity of commuting along I-5 in the summertime:
• The San Diego County Fair
• The Del Mar Thoroughbred Club’s 37-day meet at the fairgrounds in Del Mar, which cranks up shortly after the fair and runs through Labor Day and …
• Tourists.
The fair opened its 22-day, chocolate-covered bacon fest on Friday — much to the delight of hundreds of high school students who finally get to show off their swine, sheep and cattle — but to the fear and loathing of we daily drivers of the I-5 corridor. Most years, attendance tops 1 million; my guess is this year won’t be any different.
The horse races will raise tension levels faster than an overheated radiator and won’t cool off until the track’s final day Sept. 9, since Del Mar averages in the neighborhood of 16,000 people daily. That should coincide with the last ‘Zonie packing up the SUV and heading back to Phoenix.
Please, don’t misread me here. I’m cool with tourists (please spend lots of money at the restaurant where my son works). A day at the races is a great time, even if the nags I bet on are so slow the jockeys keep a diary of the trip.
And the fair — God bless its deep-fried Twinkies and semi-toothless carneys — has always had a soft spot in my heart. Back in the day as a scrubby college deejay on Palomar College’s KSM, I even broadcast from the fair. Yes, that would be back in the day of vinyl-those 12-inch platters, the licorice pizzas. Wise guy.
Point being that as fun as it is to get away — be you a tourist or a local heading to the track to watch the ponies run or the fair to check out the oddball collections — we commuters are screwed.
Living the grind
I don’t need San Diego Association of Governments’ traffic statistics or interactive commuter maps to tell me Interstate 5 is a commuter’s nightmare until Labor Day. I have lived it.
For the past three years, Bob and I have slogged it out, more often car-pooling but some days making the trip solo. Either way, the Poway-Irvine commute is even more of a grind on I-5 all summer long.
OK, the early morning drive north isn’t so bad. It’s the afternoon commute south that is a guaranteed two-hour slog that at times drags on for three hours.
As bad as we have it, I really feel for you drivers who do the I-5 rush hour south in the morning and north in the evening. That has to be pure gridlock torture in the summer.
For those of you new to our 10-lane concrete road to hell, I wish I could offer you an alternative route.
But I can’t.
Though we don’t have to surf radio stations anymore to get the latest in traffic, thanks to 5-1-1 and iPhones, our newfound real-time information really only reveals there’s going to be a lot of traffic before you actually get there.
For what it’s worth: Unless traffic is at a complete standstill, surface streets won’t get you there any faster. Perhaps if the traffic-light gods are blessing you with green after green you’ll move faster, but otherwise there’s no benefit to taking El Camino Real or Highway 101. Like shooting three-pointers in basketball, live by the green light, die by the green light.
Surface streets
Going a relatively steady 15-to-30 miles per hour on I-5 beats a two-mile stretch of surface streets at 45 miles per hour, followed by a three- or four-minute wait at most every stop light. Still, if you’re going to be slogging through traffic anyway, 101’s not a bad alternative on occasion.
Another thing we have learned: Highway 78 can be a worthy summertime alternative to I-5 past the fairgrounds, if you are southbound and heading inland. Maybe it’s because MiraCosta, Palomar and Cal State San Marcos are all in summer sessions and college commuting is a shade lighter. Or, maybe it’s all in our minds, since Stone Brewery (and on Fridays when the Port/Lost Abbey Brewery is open) waits on the east end of the 78 corridor.
Anyway, settle in for a long haul, because it’s summer. And unless the company sends the corporate helicopter, you’ll be wailing along with our version of “Summertime Blues” right up to Labor Day.
Rick Bell is senior editor for Workforce Management in Irvine and previously was managing editor of the San Diego Business Journal. He can be reached by Twitter @Rickbell123 or e-mail: rickbell(a)cox.net.
Tags: SDNN
