Stupid cager here. The simple number is that you're increasing your per-mile risk by TWENTY-EIGHT times. You can multiply this out, and add your risk and cost of injury, to get your absolute risk per year, and with 6,500 motorcycle commuting miles, it's pretty high (I roughly got +1/2,000 risk of dying per year). For purely utilitarian purposes it doesn't really make sense - most people who ride are going to so at least because they enjoy it and it gives a deep, visceral thrill that makes the risk worth it. Zipping around traffic in hot SoCal weather for still upwards of 40 minutes to get home a little earlier seems like a worse tradeoff.
You might also find that you don't save as much time as you expect - you're aiming to cut down your time by 50% in the evening commute. That's going to be very difficult, since you really shouldn't be lane splitting at more than a 10MPH differential. I would guess probably closer to 30% time savings with reasonable risk taking. Perhaps some actual LA riders can chime in
I will say if you've wanted to learn to ride for a while and are still serious about this, go ahead - getting the motorcycle endorsement is fun and teaches you a lot (and taught me that I don't want to commute that way!)
https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality...ycles-and-atvs