Ramping up, July 18

Feuer thinks sales tax heading in right direction

I spoke last evening to Assemblyman Mike Feuer (D-Los Angeles), who has with great patience and temperament been shepherding a state bill (AB 2321) through the Legislature that would allow a half-cent sales tax increase to go on the November ballot in L.A. County.

Proponents say a subway extension, second phase of the Expo Line, Crenshaw line and Gold Line Foothill Extension could all be built if the tax passes -- not to mention $7 billion going to highway improvements. Feuer said he thinks consensus is starting to be reached on the bill.

"Any time you have a bill with forty billion dollars and about 40 elected officials interested, it's challenging but worth it," he said. "It's premature to say that this is done, it's definitely moving in the right direction."

The big thing to watch, Feuer added, is if everyone can agree on legislative language by the Metro board meeting on Thursday.

Skid Row -- it's very walkable!

The website WalkScore released its annual list of most walkable cities yesterday and declared that the city of Los Angeles ranked as the ninth in the U.S. In a list of 84 L.A. neighborhoods, Skid Row was ranked No. 11 and Bel Air sat at the bottom at No. 84.

Of course, such rankings are of great benefit for those who need a computer to tell them what's walkable. The rankings reward neighborhoods in which most errands can be done on foot (convenience stories count as groceries and fast food outlets as restaurants by WalkScore) and aesthetics are not a consideration.

Perhaps that explains the success of Skid Row, where you don't have to drive to buy some crank -- although it's kind of far walk to the new Ralph's downtown.

Los Angeles fared well because some neighborhoods such as Mid-City West and downtown scored high. Larchmont Village was not on the list, at least as its own neighborhood.

The WalkScore website has been around for a while and it is fun to noodle around on. You can also submit your own address and get the walkability score for your neighborhood. The one I live in got a 58 out of 100. Within a mile or so of my house are at least five coffee shops, one mini-mart, a public library, two colleges with park-like campuses, several banks, several streets designated as bike routes, a bike shop, several bus stops, a light rail line, a botanical garden and a few restaurants, although mostly of the fast food variety.

Today in gas prices

The price for a gallon of regular at the Chevron I've been watching has slipped to $4.599 -- down four cents from earlier in the week. But a national average of $4.114 was set Thursday although the price fell to $4.105 today, according to AAA. The California average continued to slide and is at $4.48. We've been watching this trend for a couple of weeks -- the specially formulated price of gas sold in California is going down and in most other places it's going up. 

Chicago trains stuffed

We've been writing a lot here about ripping out seats on trains to accommodate more bikes. In Chicago, officials are considering losing some seats to accommodate more people because ridership on the L is up 6.9%. The Sun-Times calls it the cattle car approach. I say hire some people pushers; check out this video of the Tokyo subway. 

Send me your links

Fred Camino, who writes the MetroRiderLA blog, posted the other day that he was going on hiatus and and cited competition with this blog and others as one reason. That's too bad. Fred did -- and will do -- a nice job in the future. And, for what it's worth, I certainly want to be read, but I don't want to put anyone out of business. 

One reason blogs are popular is because they write about things that big media does not. That's the beauty of the local blogs -- if there's something you care about, you can publish it. If you have a local blog and have a juicy item on something related to transportation or urban planning, send me an e-mail with a link and I'll be more than happy to consider linking to it on this blog. The Southland is an impossibly large area to cover, and I can use all the help I can get.

Some recent Bottleneck items

Californians want less gas, more nukes

Metro's Snoble optimistic about sales tax plan

Will turnstiles stop terrorists on the subway?

-- Steve Hymon

Photo credit: Richard Hartog / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[Susan]

Correction, this morning it went to 3.85. Maybe I can keep veering away from the infamous Chevron... it's my new goal.

[Carter]

You know, your Skid Row comment is sort of ironic, because I've found that the Ralph's on 9th St. has some of the best crank I've been able to find.

[Cahwyguy - Daniel]

Umm, I think in Chicago it is the "El", as in "Elevated", vs. "L", as in "Take the L train".

[Susan]

It's Susan in Texas again, and I am no longer depressed. Your station is falling but my cheapo station near my permanent home north of Tyler dropped since I left Tuesday and got back Thursday night--we're back down to 3.87. I dare some of the lowest in the country? You've turned me into a station watcher.