This was very different from my own experiences living and working in LA in the late 90s and early 2000s. The buses were a joke, the Metro had terrible coverage, and the traffic was consistently terrible.

FWIW I was living near Arcadia/Covina and commuting to Santa Monica. What area of LA did you live and work in to have such a nice commute?

I live and work in Pasadena with a metro stop across the street from my apartment.

Your commute was definitely a tough one! A big issue I've noticed is that a lot of people work in west LA, but the housing prices are so high that most can't afford to live there. This also leads to much higher traffic for commuting in that direction.

That is quite a nice area to work/commute from. I hear they're extending the gold line down to El Monte--that would have made my life a lot easier at the time.

I certainly hope LA has strong, long term plans to improve the commuting/traffic situation for the area.

Of course, that commute is about 40 miles straight through downtown. Somewhat like commuting from Stamford, CT to Brooklyn. Or across the whole of London (say, Beaconsfield to Romford).

While this is true, there are a lot of people who commute to LA from as far as San Bernadino by car. As another commenter mentions, there's a ton of work to be had in LA with very little in the way of nearby housing in the price range of someone who's often driven (pardon the pun) to commuting by car.

At the end of the day I gave up on the job that required that commute--it was very stressful and not worth my health. It makes me wonder how many other people are effectively locked out of job markets in LA because they don't have cost and time effective ways of commuting there.