Here is a look at some of the transportation headlines gathered by us and the Metro Library. The full list of headlines is posted on the Library’s Headlines blog, which you can also access via email subscription or RSS feed.
Sorry you have to watch a car ad before KABC feature starts!
Gas sends Angelenos flocking to mass transit (KABC)
With the price of a gallon of gas rapidly closing in on the cost of a Metro day pass — just $5 for unlimited rides — more Angelenos are finding the latter a good bargain. Longtime riders tell KABC that they’re seeing trains and buses busier than ever. The Sacramento Bee intriguingly notes that gas usage was down across the state even before the spike in prices, likely due to more fuel efficient cars hitting the road combined with the down economy. And the Washington Post reminds us that, nope, more drilling in the U.S. won’t actually reduce the price of gas. The amount the U.S. could produce by tapping every well is still only a blip on the global oil market, where fuel prices are set.
Ride along with Metro CEO Art Leahy (KPCC)
Venerable radio host Patt Morrison sat down with Metro CEO Art Leahy to talk about the state of transit in So Cal. Regular readers of The Source will recognize many of the topics covered: new late night service on the subway, transit projects in the works and federal funding.
An interview with the man responsible for L.A.’s bus shelters (LA Streetsblog)
Have you noticed some new green bus bunches around L.A.? Streetsblog’s Dana Gabbard sat down with the City of Los Angeles administrator who is coordinating their installation with the firm that has the bus bench contract with the city. One of the program’s primary objectives is to get more bus benches into the neighborhoods that currently have the fewest.
Categories: Transportation Headlines
Metro, you should also start looking at how some people are not using public transit or cars, but instead are now starting to drive mopeds.
A lot of students here in UCLA don’t own cars and never owned one because of high gas prices. But for us, public transit doesn’t work either because it’s too slow to get anywhere near here quick enough. Instead, we use mopeds.
Ads are all over campus where they sell scooters for less than $1000, cheaper than it cost us to get a laptop. They get 100 MPG in a tank of gas and they can get us anywhere in the campus and in the West Side. Maintenance on mopeds are much more simple than the complex structure of cars that do it yourself maintenance videos like oil changes and tire changes are all over youtube nowadays.
Even at $4.30/gal gas, it’s still comes out cheaper than paying $75 for a monthly pass and it’s much faster to get around because we don’t have to wait for the bus to arrive. And for us hungry college students who have to pay for expensive things likes books and rising cost of education, even the bus pass is too expensive. All we need it is to get around campus and go to places in the West Side. We can pay $75 for a monthly pass, or we can get around with less than $4.30 a week on an 100 MPG moped. Guess which one we choose? Unless gas prices reach $18.00/gal, the moped is still going to be the cheaper way and faster way to get around than the bus or the car.
Oh the Irony– I had to watch a new car advertisement before watching the news clip about increased mass transit ridership.
You should spell PATT Morrison’s name properly.
Fixed!
Steve Hymon
Editor, The Source