SoCal people I seek your help with my commute question.

Horus

Basically I got offered a job that is 30 miles away from me house for those familiar of SoCal, I am driving from South Bay area (Manhattan Beach, Torrance & Hawthorne) all the way to Huntington Beach. Relocating is not an option since I bought my house. Driving home after the interview on a Friday took me less than 1 hour. This upcoming Monday I will see how traffic is in the 9am rush. The new place is awesome and really is up my alley on my professional track. So far I am negotiating $10k more my base salary with a possible chance of $5k more.

http://bit.ly/nUhE9p

What I am hoping from people familiar on this route
1. How is the congestion during morning and eod work?
2. Alternative roads aside from 405 or PCH? Ideas from those
3. How bad is this commute? The increase of salary is twice as much for my industry and professional type of work.

kaliyama

It'll be ugly. If you can avoid a rush hour commute you'll be much happier.

zilo

That drive isn't too bad by LA standards, and you're counter-commuting (going away from downtown in the morning and towards at night). Scope out Sigalert for a week or two and you'll figure out the optimal commute schedule.

Bursar

Depending on when you'll be on the road, traffic will vary from "Get out and walk" to "quite irritating." At least you'll be going south on the 405 in the morning, so you can point and laugh at all the unfortunate souls shuffling into LA.

For alternate routes, check out the possibility of using the 105 or 91 E> 605 S > 22 E and then using surface streets (Beach Boulevard is "Highway 39" and is a major road). You don't want to be on PCH if you don't have to.

Side note: if you are taking the 405, you could consider exiting on Bolsa Chica and taking it south to Warner instead of getting off the freeway at Beach. Bolsa Chica drives past the old naval base and has fewer lights than Beach (which, while high-capacity, can really screw you if you get caught in a red-light spree).