We’re re-locating for my new job, looking around the Irvine area, visited a bunch of houses for rent, and have narrowed it down to a house in a gated community in Lake Forest. Does anyone have any advice? I’ll be commuting to somewhere kind of near the John Wayne Airport. The estimated commute time is 20 min w/ toll roads. Is this accurate?
I live near San Francisco, so, nowhere near there. But I was stationed at Long Beach Naval Station and commuted on the 405 (it’s “the 405”, not I-405), and that highway can be a miserable beach 
during commute hours. Yes it’s only 12 miles to John Wayne, but, I strongly suggest checking the maps during commute hours to see how bad the traffic is.
Oh I’m used to LA traffic, I fully expect the 10-15 mph crawl up the 405 and the 5. FSD on the Tesla saves my sanity in that. I was just wondering if the google maps estimate during rush hour is accurate, I made the mistake of living too far away from my last job in Hawthorne and I don’t want to repeat.
I don’t quite live in the area, but when I moved states, I used the “choose departure time” tool on Google to scout out the high traffic travel predictions and it landed right on the money. Likewise, when I’ve needed to travel on the 5, during high traffic, Google had predicted that correctly as well.
In general, I’d trust it.
My condolences!
It’s been too many years since I lived around there to say anything authoritative about current traffic. My brother lives in Laguna Beach and I visit from time to time, so I do drive in that region every couple/few months. Including the 405 / 5 between the airport & Lake Forest and during moderate traffic time of day.
Color me broadly skeptical about the 20 minutes unless both the job and the gated community are very, very close to the highway on/offramps. IME the killer isn’t the slow and steady freeway / toll road traffic. It’s the traffic lights on the boulevards. At ~3 minutes per light cycle, 6 backed up traffic lights can cost you ~20 minutes right there.
As to Google Maps’ travel time estimates, you can be thankful you don’t live here in Greater Miami. By coincidence yesterday I drove from my place up in the 'burbs 50 miles down to downtown Miami to attend a baseball game. If I set my departure time to mid afternoon, Google confidently asserts the travel time is 1 hour. Set departure to anything between about 4pm and 7pm and Google helpfully says: “1 hour 10 minutes to 2 hours 30 minutes.”
They are being accurate, but not very precise. Because that’s the nature of Miami’s traffic. If no one has crashed in front of you on your route, it takes an hour-ish. If anyone does crash, figure 90 minutes to 2 hours. If, worse yet, two separate crashes have occurred, it’ll be well over 2 hours. We have some real highlight reel crashes around here. Every damned day someplace.
With error bars that big on the estimates, it’s darn hard to predict when to leave to arrive reasonably on time. I just wish I could subscribe to a service that would ensure the crashes all happen behind me, not out ahead of me. 
(hijack)
I’ve been to 29 of the 30 MLB teams’ home stadiums. And Miami, you’ve got one unique (and bizarre) uh, feature. Out in the left field corner is a bar called The Clevelander. I know this because you have to go through that bar to get to seats that are on the field level and separated from the left fielder by a simple chain link fence. At least it was, about 7-8 years ago when I visited Marlins Park. My game seats weren’t there, but I spotted those seats during the game and I walked over there. A fun place to sit! You’re only about 40 feet from that left fielder.
Anyway the unique feature, which I believe is the only ’feature’ like this in any MLB stadium, is that The Clevelander has topless dancers(!). At least it did when I was there. I could not believe my eyes. Yep, there they were, wearing only small pasties covering their nipples.
Is there nothing sacred anymore? This is baseball! We don’t need strippers in a baseball stadium.
My wife doesn’t believe me when I tell her I just walked through the bar to get to those seats. What she doesn’t remember is that just about every military base has a place we call ‘the strip’, with bars with topless dancers and pool tables. If you’ve seen one set of dancing titties, you really don’t need to see any more.
(/hijack)
I’m very familiar with the area. My mom lives in Laguna Woods now and I lived and delivered pizza in El Toro (now Lake Forest) for about six months 40 years ago. 20 minutes to the airport area sounds about right. My only advice is to explore the many surface street alternatives for when the freeway or toll roads become unbearable. You will often find it easier to abandon the 405 a few exits before your off-ramp to avoid the infamous El Toro Y.
I lived in in nearby Santa Ana for several decades and still live about 40 miles from
that city. The commute time of 20 minutes sounds a bit short to me, I think it might
be more like 30 minutes. If the freeways are jammed there are plenty of streets that
you can use as an alternative but this would increase your commute time.
The Lake Forest and Irvine areas are safe and quiet but a bit boring.