The liquor store at the corner of State and First Street removed its storefront advertisements (shown in photo above) after an inspection by the Los Angeles Police Department and the California Alcohol Beverage Control of liquor vendors. Photo illustration by Erick Huerta.

(This is the first in a series of regular news updates on Boyle Heights Streetsblog will publish.  For those not familiar with this slice of the city, we hope this news round-up will help provide more flavor and background for our Boyle Heights writing.)

Last week, I was kicked out of my house for fumigation.  The past weekend, I was up north for a friend’s graduation (Congrats Cindy Chen on getting your bachelor’s degree). Just because I was away, doesn’t mean that the news slowed down in Boyle Heights.

In the past couple of weeks, there have been liquor store inspections, Roosevelt High School was called a teen pregnancy “Hot Spot” and White Memorial Hospital broke ground on a possible addition to its facility. To catch up on the lost of time, I made it into this post, with some additional information.

“Hundreds of Boyle Heights Liquor Stores Get Visit From the ABC” reported in EGP News

Forty California Alcohol Beverage Control and Los Angeles Police Department officers inspected nearly 200 liquor vendors two weeks ago in response to complaints from the public over the high availability of alcohol in the neighborhood. While there were no citations handed out, according to a report by Eastern Group Publications, one liquor store has changed its look after the inspections. Community Blogger Erick Huerta made a before and after photo of a liquor market on the corner of State Street and First Street and posted it on various social media outlets (photo is shown at the top of the post).

Sergeant Marc Archuleta, the head of  the LAPD Vice Department at Hollenbeck station , said that businesses can only have 50 percent of windows covered with advertisements. If a store has a violation, the officers warn the business and allow them to resolve the problem rather than fine the store for a first offense.

(Click here for the full story.)

The Congress of New Urbanism awards the master plan for the  New Wyvernwood – Boyle Heights Mixed-Use Community 

While the Wyvernwood Apartments off of Whittier Boulevard have been publicly opposed, the master plan hasn’t avioded the spotlight in mainstream urban planning circles. The master plan, which was designed by the architecture firm Torti Gallas and Partners, received  an award at the 2012 Congress for New Urbanism conference.

From the CNU website describing the project:

The proposed project conceives the public realm first, establishing a robust system of interconnected parks and through-streets that a) provides an armature for connecting existing urban corridors to larger systems of public open space, including the nearby Los Angeles River and Hollenbeck Park, b) allows the development to contribute holistically to a greater Boyle Heights, and c) provides safe recreational opportunities in an under-served community.

The project has been 0pposed by Boyle Heights residents and by Jose Huizar, the City Councilman whose district represents the apartments.

NPR: “In L.A. Pregnancy ‘Hot Spot,’ An On-Campus Clinic”

Boyle Heights has been considered a “Hot Spot” for teen pregnancy, with rates two to three times higher than other neighborhoods. In response, Roosevelt High School partnered with Planned Parenthood in 2008 to have a clinic on campus. In 2008 there were 32 pregnancies.  The following year there were only three.

Also, Boyle Heights Beat first reported this story in December.

(Click here for the full NPR story)

Do the math. "Constellation A" assumes a station entrance at the NE corner of Constellation and Ave. of the Stars on property owned by JMB Realty. "Constellation B" assumes a entrance at the SW corner in front of the Hyatt Regency. Note that the station on JMB property would actually cost $38.7 million less than the one in front of the Hyatt. Table from the Century City Station Report from the Westside Subway EIR.

The headline was breathless, as many headlines in the Beverly Hills Courier often are. “Courier Exclusive Report: Century City Subway Station $38.7 Million Payoff to JMB,” blared last week’s lead story. Even by the sensationalist standards of the Courier, this one seemed a big story.

The gist of the Courier’s big scoop: Metro is planning to spend $38.7 million dollars more to purchase property for a Constellation Avenue Station on property owned by JMB Realty than it would for property located literally across the street.  Of course, as is often the case, the story isn’t factually accurate.

From the Courier Exclusive:

Although the disclosure is difficult to read, it appears that Metro will pay $38.7 million more for JMB’s property at 10131 Constellation Blvd. than a comparable site underneath Hyatt Regency Century Plaza, 2025 Avenue of the Stars.

The story plays right into the Courier’s narrative about the Westside Subway alignment.  JMB Realty and its ties to Mayor Villaraigosa have long been the culprit when discussion of why the Subway will probably go under Beverly Hills High School to a station at Constellation Ave and Avenue of the Stars rather than Santa Monica Boulevard adjacent to a golf course.

We should note that either of the stations discussed in this story  would require tunneling under Beverly Hills High School.  The purpose of the article is not to demand a station re-route, just to smear Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Metro and JMB Realty by claiming that the realty company will receive nearly $40 million more than the Hyatt across the street would if the station were built on its property.

This “payoff” seems the perfect story to continue the narrative of a realty giant colluding with a big city mayor to blow up Beverly Hills High School.

Except, of course, the story isn’t actually true.  As a matter of fact, the station on JMB owned property is actually $38.7 million less expensive to build than the one in front of the Hyatt according to Metro’s environmental documents.

Confused by the difficult to read document as many people are when confronted by hundreds of pages of government-speak, the Courier makes some pretty large assumptions that there are no differences in the cost between the two stations other than the real estate costs.  Using advanced research techniques commonly known as “reading the next page after the chart” Streetsblog was able to get to the bottom of why the Subway will cost 4,241,525,000 with a station on one side of Constellation and another $4,280,252,000 on the other.  Hint: it has nothing to do with the funds Metro would have to spend to buy property from JMB Realty.

In fact, the Century City Station Report actually makes clear that Metro doesn’t know what the exact cost of station construction will be because Metro doesn’t know what the real estate costs will be to purchase property.  Negotiations between Metro and land owners won’t begin until after the project completes the “Final Design” stage. In other words, Metro’s EIR says the exact opposite of what the Beverly Hills Courier says that it says.

The following paragraph comes directly from the Century City Station Report that is part of the Final Environmental Impact Report for the Subway.  The paragraph follows a pair of charts on pages 2-10 and 2-11 that discuss the estimated station construction costs.  The chart at the top if this story is from page 2-10.  The below paragraph follows a chart on page 2-11.

So what accounts for the difference in cost between the two sites if not for the imaginary payout to JMB Realty?  The main difference between Constellation A and Constellation B is the “laydown area” where contractors will store their equipment including the Tunnel Boring Machines (TBM’s).   For “Constellation A,” at the JMB lot, equipment would be stored at a 5.6 acre lot which Metro would rent.

For Constellation B, the equipment storage is catchier, and more expensive.  The below picture, again from the EIR’s Century City Station Report, shows the difference between storing construction equipment for Constellation A, the less expensive option with a station on JMB Realty property, vs. Constellation B.  Because of the location of the entrance, the storage lots are both spread out down the middle of Constellation Boulevard and at the eastern intersection of Constellation Boulevard and Century Park East

Of course, during final design, things can still change which is why Metro posted the disclaimer after its cost estimate charts.  For example, it’s possible that Constellation B is the superior station location, but the contractor prefers storing equipment as though it were the Constellation A design.  What we know for certain right now is that Metro is not proposing to pay JMB Realty $38.7 million more for their property than the Hyatt Regency across the street and that sometimes if a report is hard to understand, journalists should use a phone to talk with someone who understands what they’re reading.

Source: RAND Corporation

The brilliant thing about car-sharing is that it leads people to drive less by providing access to cars. It allows people to give up their personal vehicles (along with the gas, maintenance, parking, and insurance costs they entail) without giving up the ability to use the car once in a while when necessary. It diminishes the need for parking spaces, since one vehicle can serve several households. And it makes people think harder about the trips they take, since each trip constitutes a higher cost than in a personal vehicle, which come with high upfront costs but low per-trip costs, encouraging more driving just to get your money’s worth out of your investment.

But only 0.27 percent of U.S. drivers participate in car-sharing programs.

A recent study from the RAND Corporation estimates that that number could rise to 4.5 percent if policies were put in place to support car-sharing. RAND’s outer estimate of the potential of car-sharing goes as high as 12.5 percent of the 21-and-older population of major cities. The potential for greenhouse gas emissions savings is significant.

The RAND authors cite a 2008 survey showing that for every shared vehicle in use, nine to 13 private vehicles are taken off the road, and that half of car-sharing participants either sold a car or didn’t buy a new car because of their membership. Another survey found that average vehicle ownership per household fell from an already-low 0.47 to 0.24 cars after adopting car-sharing. Average vehicle ownership per household is 1.87 in the United States.

RAND attributes the greenhouse gas reductions from car-sharing to a) fewer vehicle miles traveled, b) fewer cars being manufactured, and c) more efficient vehicles being used more of the time. After all, car-sharing can avoid SUV syndrome, where people buy a big, heavy car for the one time a year that they actually go into the mountains with it, and then spend the rest of the year driving alone on highways and trying to park it in small spaces. Also, intensively-used shared cars will be replaced more often than private vehicles, meaning that more of them will have the most modern fuel-efficiency ratings. The report doesn’t mention the GHG savings if car-sharing results in the building of fewer roads or parking spaces.

The estimates of car-sharing’s potential market penetration are among the most helpful elements of the RAND report.

In the most optimistic scenario — 20.3 million car-share users, or about 36 times the current rate — car-sharing would reduce overall car emissions by 1.7 percent. A more realistic scenario of 7.5 million users, which would still require the widespread adoption of policies to support car-sharing, leads to a 0.6 percent emissions reduction. The authors provide a “cautionary note that estimates of growth in vehicle sharing have previously been proven wrong.” They cite a 1994 study that predicted that the market potential in Germany was 2.45 million members; “however, ten years later, the market stood at 70,000.”

On a per-person basis, car-sharing doesn’t cut emissions as much as transit. One person taking transit to work instead of driving can save more than two metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions a year, according to APTA, as opposed to the above estimate of 0.89 tons per person car-sharing. But car-sharing also works in tandem with transit, functioning best where people can rely on transit for many trips. Car-sharing remains a largely urban phenomenon, according to the RAND report, with the only non-urban success stories on college campuses or eco-communes.

The other major contribution of the report is that it suggests some ways to make car-sharing more attractive. They say it will never take off unless car-sharing is 1) cheaper and/or more convenient than owning a personal automobile, 2) profitable for providers, and 3) reaches critical mass in a geographic area. To make that happen, they recommend reducing impediments in insurance policies and tax codes and increasing provisions for “one-way, dynamic vehicle sharing,” and better ride-matching services. The recommendations also include the promotion of short-distance, low-speed “neighborhood vehicles,” like the golf carts senior citizens drive around retirement communities, and the promotion of driverless vehicles. The report doesn’t explain in detail how driverless cars would enhance vehicle-sharing.

Photo by SKD's LA Street Scenes via LAist

(Dana Gabbard is a Board Member of the Southern California Transit Advocates and an occasional contributor to Streetsblog.  When he opines, he does so on behalf of himself as a long-standing transit watcher.  Gabbard has written about the fare gate issue several times since Metro first proposed putting up gates in 2008 after years of being one of the larger “honor system” rail systems in the world.  Advocates howled that the gates are a waste of time and money, but Metro sticks to its guns.  After several field tests, the agency is now moving to finally lock the gates.  Many, including Gabbard, are still skeptical.)

In February the Metro Board passed a motion (see item #26) made by County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky:

… that staff return in March with a plan that would implement gate locking within 5-6 month, phased in on an aggressive schedule. Work to resolve fare media issues with Metrolink and the Municipal Operators and fare inspection issues with the Sheriffs Department.

Staff in March made a presentation at the Metro Board Executive Management Committee meeting on the steps necessary to implement gate locking.

Now Metro staff have prepared for this month’s Committee meeting a report on actions needed to lock the subway station gates by the end of this year.

One would first point out it is interesting that the original motion seems to contemplate going forward with the gating of the entire Metro rail system (to the extent that is feasible.) With nary a word of explanation staff have quietly downsized what is being attempted; locking the light rail stations has been set aside for now as Metro wrestles with the daunting task of just locking the Red and Purple Line stations.

Next, I find interesting the numerous mentions of Sheriff assistants as station agents, and that coverage may require nearly 60 more deputies than currently assigned to all the rail lines. This will not be cheap. In February 2011, Matt Raymond, the Metro executive in charge of both fare gate and TAP card implementation, estimated such agents would cost $20 million dollars a year. Despite the assertion by agency staff that the recent fare gate locking tests proved gate closing results in revenue generation, I have to question any claims the gating makes fiscal sense given the enormous cost for agents. Plus relying on the results of gate tests that were done in a very limited manner (and with a platoon of folks to oversee it) as being a realistic basis for going forward with the locking seems foolhardy.

There’s another onerous detail being overlooked.  Many Metro customers still don’t use TAP cards that will be required in a locked gate system.  TAP cards can be obtained at city offices and Metro Customer Centers and an extra ticket machine will be placed at the East Portal of Union Station. That is fine and well IF PEOPLE KNOW ABOUT IT. Buried in the report is the admission “nearly 40% of Red and Purple Line cash customers are not currently on TAP.” Also, such key constituencies as students, seniors and disabled will now need TAP cards to use the Subway.  Metro still has work to do reaching out to these groups. That seems to foretell that there will be confusion and difficulties when there is an “initial spike in demand for TAP cards.”

Metro is trying to evade responsibility for what could be any impending period of confusion and inconvenience by using innocuous sugar-coating phrases like “definite customer impacts” for  the result of requiring TAP cards at fare gates. Outreach from the beginning has been poorly handled and now it appears the solution to this failure is draconian measures forcing folks to get TAP cards by locking the gates. How customer friendly!

And incredible they are rushing forward despite still lacking a plan for dealing with Metrolink pass holders beyond vague talk of a “TAP alternative”. This is appalling!

At least the staff wisely dropped their hinted intention to deal with the problem of paper transfers issued by municipal carriers by no longer honoring them for accessing the rail system. Instead “Sheriff assistants (SAs) will monitor fare gates to ensure patrons with valid fare media may pass through gates”. What a high tech solution!

It is telling that their schedule of implementation puts the downtown gates last. I suspect they know issues relating to Metrolink and transfers will be most important for those venues and this will give them a chance to get the bugs out of the process of implementation by starting at the outer edge stations before undertaking the difficult task of dealing with 7th/Metro and Union Station.

And how about the new wrinkle that the gating may violate the California’s Transportation Development Act and therefore “additional legal clarification” is needed.  Sort of late in the process to stumble over this potential high hurdle, don’t you think?

From the start I have been convinced this was a bad idea. And the unfolding of the gating has only reinforced that perception. Yet doggedly the agency keeps pushing forward, seemingly unwilling to concede that it should admit gating just doesn’t pencil out and it is about time to tell Cubic to pull the damned turnstiles out of our rail stations and end this debacle. But I guess that is too much to hope for. S*I*G*H*

The Nationals' new stadium has turned a dead urban zone into a hotspot. Photo: NRDC Switchboard

But that doesn’t stop too many cities, and there are examples of places that have gambled on sports facilities and won big.

There’s a new member of that club now: Washington, DC. It’s been nearly 10 years since the city green-lighted a package of 30-year bonds for a new home for the Nationals baseball franchise in a depressed southeastern section of the city. Kaid Benfield at the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Switchboard blog reports that the investment is paying off:

According to developers in the area, building didn’t really become financially feasible there until the city committed to the ballpark. Today, the neighborhood’s new projects are about 30 percent built. In addition to the new commercial properties, the area’s residential population has increased from about 1,000 to more than 3,500 and should eventually reach 16,000.

It is especially heartening that even those originally opposed to the stadium like what they see. Neighborhood resident Naomi Monk was a prominent skeptic, arguing that the park would only be an eyesore benefiting millionaire players and businessmen, with nothing in it for low-income residents. But in March she told Fisher that “I have to say, it’s been for the betterment of the community. Our crime seems to be under control. The neighborhood looks 100 percent better. The new housing is a great improvement.”

I’m not going to make a broader point about the extent to which public investment in sports is a good thing. It’s likely situational and, though it has been enormously beneficial here in Washington twice (though in the case of Verizon Center the city paid only for infrastructure), and it also appears to have been beneficial in nearby Baltimore, the facts and circumstances vary.

Benfield reports that the tax issued on big businesses to support the stadium is bringing in twice what was expected. Plus additional property taxes related to new investment have added $13 million to the city’s coffers. Nice, for a change, to see a city enjoying a windfall at this moment in history.

Elsewhere on the Network today: Bike Delaware shares a League of American Bicyclists’ report showing that one in four collisions between cyclists and cars involve cyclists being hit from behind. Bike Portland reports the city’s first open streets event of the season attracted an astounding 28,000 people. And Transit in Utah says sustainable transportation advocates need to do a better job developing sales pitches and buzz words.

More headlines at Streetsblog Capitol Hill

Hawthorne quizes Jan Perry at the American Institute of Architects' mayoral forum earlier this year.

It’s hardly news to Streetsbloggers that Los Angeles’ transportation and development patterns have changed a lot in the past decades, or even just the past couple of years.  But when I looked down at the newspaper stand in a North Hollywood coffee shop yesterday, the Los Angeles Times top story caught me by surprise.  Written by Architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne, “Atlantic on the Move” launched a new series examining Los Angeles’ Boulevards and how they’ve changed and are changing.

Hawthorne writes:

The boulevard, in fact, is where the Los Angeles of the immediate future is taking shape. No longer a mere corridor to move cars, it is where L.A. is trying on a fully post-suburban identity for the first time, building denser residential neighborhoods and adding new amenities for cyclists and pedestrians.

In the process, the city is beginning to shed its reputation as a place where the automobile is king — or at least where its reign goes unchallenged. Cities across the U.S. followed L.A.’s car-crazy lead in the postwar era. This time around we might provide a more enlightened example: how to retrofit a massive region for a future that is less auto-centric.

In addition to the written articles, available on both the website and print editions; the online edition features an interactive map of Atlantic Avenue with video features on Atlantic Avenue and several of the top attractions of the twenty five miles of Boulevard that connect Alhambra to Long Beach.  The map and videos are exclusive to the Times’ website.  This is the first time since the hey-day of the Bottleneck Blog in 2008 that the Times is embracing the Internet medium as a place to do something different than publish articles for the print edition and news that isn’t important enough for the print edition.

While Hawthorne is one of the most respected architecture writers in the country, before he joined the Times in 2004 he wrote at Slate and Metropolis Magazine, this series could be a ground breaking one.  Never before has the charecter of Los Angeles’ streets been the focus of such a series, and never before has the Times focused so clearly on the impact of street design on urban life.

“Atlantic on the Move” sets the bar high for future pieces on L.A.’s changing Boulevards.  ”Sunset Boulevard” is next.  We can’t wait.

Customers assess César's wares at his place of business along Manchester Ave. photo: sahra

THIS PAST FINE AND SUNNY Saturday, I headed to South L.A. to see how the Anonymous Gun Buyback was going. In an effort to get firearms off the streets, the city had set up six sites around town where people could drop off their weapons — no questions asked — in return for gift cards. You could get up to $100 for handguns, shotguns, and rifles, and up to $200 for assault weapons.

Shooed away from the site manned by the LAPD’s 77th Division, I headed to the Watts site, where officers turned out to be very friendly and more open to chatting with me (once they ascertained I was not packing a weapon).

The day started off well, said the Lieutenant from the Southeast Area. People had been lined up down the street just before they opened. But things had slowed down considerably after that, he said, guessing that they had had about 100 people come through over the course of the day.

I asked about the value of doing a buyback, given that the guns turned in are not ones that were likely to be used in crimes. The people I saw turning in weapons leaned more towards the elderly end of the spectrum than that of the young criminal upstart, and they were handing over enormous rifles, not the assault weapons favored by some gangs.

“There is a law enforcement value,” said the Lieutenant. Beyond giving the police an opportunity to be a visible and positive presence in the community, taking the self-defense-type weapons out of circulation meant that grandchildren couldn’t accidentally shoot themselves and that the weapons couldn’t be stolen and used to commit crimes.

As far as gang members turning in weapons, the Lieutenant acknowledged that “the gangs need weapons to do their business” and that they could make a lot more money selling their assault weapons than trading them in for grocery cards. Meaning that it was highly improbable that any gang members would be stopping by that day to say hello and drop off their excess stock of Uzis.

I was thus not surprised to hear that, of the potentially millions of guns floating around L.A., the estimated number of “hot” weapons the Lieutenant got in that day totaled exactly one.

As such, it is unlikely that the handful of guns collected at the buybacks have contributed to the recent reduction in gun violence, contrary to Chief Beck’s claims. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the program is a failure. After all, someone turned in an anti-tank rocket-launcher last year. That’s a win, right? If the city genuinely wants to reduce the influx of weapons, however, it would be better advised to focus on addressing the activities in which guns play an integral role.

****

ON MY RIDE HOME from Watts, I decided to stop along Manchester Ave. and check out César’s extensive bike and tool collection. I have always wondered about the stories behind the folks that randomly set up the equivalent of a yard sale in a yard that is not their own. They proliferate on the weekends — there was another guy set up across the street from César selling many of the same things — and a number of them offer bikes.

Business was slow and César — a very amiable fellow in his early 20s — was feeling talkative.

He got most of his bikes from the yunqui, he said, meaning the junkyard. People often tried to sell him what he assumed were stolen bikes, including kids so eager to get rid of a hot fixie that they might ask for as little as $20 for it. He didn’t want to trade in stolen goods, he said. And besides, it wasn’t worth it. The police leave him alone if he can produce the receipts for the things he bought at the junkyard.

As he was explaining this to me, an older, heavyset gentleman with a somewhat down-trodden aura ambled up pushing an older model Cannondale Adventure 2 bike in questionable condition. He began by engaging César with questions about how much it would cost to fix the brakes and the like. His dismay at the answers made clear that what he really wanted was for César to take the bike off his hands.

The bike was his 22-year old son’s. The son had been whisked off to jail recently and apparently wouldn’t be back for several years. The father wasn’t sure what his son had done — neither the son nor any of his other seven children talk to him much, he said — but he knew he didn’t want the bike laying around the house anymore. Someone had already stolen a dog out of his yard and he felt no need to invite people to come back and steal something else.

César offered him $40.

Then, he stole a glance at me.

I just told her I don’t buy bikes off people, he said to the father in Spanish, nodding in my direction.

And, I don’t. But I make an exception in this case.

After the man left, César excitedly packed the bike into his over-stuffed van.

I’ll keep this one for myself, he said in Spanish. It’s a good one!

He wanted to start riding more and thought it was the perfect bike for the task.

I don’t ride much now, he said, but I lift weights.

I eyed up his skinny frame.

Well, they’re not very heavy — only 25 lbs., he said, catching my glance. But I do it every day for an hour. Here I am with my weights, he showed me a photo on his phone. Do you want to see a picture of my parents?

Then it was his turn to give me the eye.

You look like you ride your bike a lot, he said. And, I’m sorry, but I also think you might be “gabacha” (a gringa).

I’m sort of gabacha…, I answered, explaining my heritage and Spanish accent.

And, yes, I ride a lot. This is my car, I gestured down at my bike.

You don’t get tired coming down from Echo Park? Riding the bike the whole way?

No.

Oh.

He pondered this for a minute.

Suddenly, he nodded and clapped his hands, as if he had made a decision.

I’m going to have to fix up that bike.

Factoring in proximity to bike lanes, street connectivity, topography, and commuter cycling rates, the Bike Score algorithm rated Minneapolis America's most bikeable city. Image: Walk Score

The people behind Walk Score, the real estate rating service that goes by the slogan “Drive Less, Live More,” are out with a new rating system, based on hard data, that should prove useful to prospective city dwellers: Bike Score.

The company launched the Bike Score website today, using its new algorithm to rank the ten most bikeable cities in the country. (We covered their release of city rankings for transit last month.) Minneapolis ran away with the top prize with a 79 percent bikeability rating. San Francisco tied Portland for number two, despite the fact that hilliness was a factor. D.C. and New York also placed highly (while the NYC core rates very highly on Bike Score, the bike lane deserts outside the center city score quite low).

The staff of Walk Score is made up of a whole lot of bike commuters. No wonder they were excited to launch a new bikeability ranking. Photo courtesy of Walk Score

In other bikeability rating news, the League of American Bicyclists released its 2012 list of Bicycle Friendly Communities today. There’s a lot of overlap between the BFCs and the Bike Score winners, but they are compiled use vastly different methodologies. For one thing, you won’t find two of the League’s top three cycling cities on the Bike Score list because Bike Score, so far, only looks at cities with populations over 200,000. Sorry, Boulder and Davis.

Colorado and Montana did well in the League’s rankings this year. Missoula and Durango moved up to gold, and the Colorado towns of Gunnison and Aspen made it onto the list for the first year, rolling in at the silver level. Look for your city on their updated BFC list [PDF].

The League bases its BFC choices on somewhat subjective criteria. They look for the “five Es”: engineering, education, encouragement, evaluation & planning, and enforcement. Decisions are made by staff and external reviewers, in consultation with local stakeholders.

Bike Score, on the other hand, is based on pure numbers. Individual addresses are rated on a scale of 0-100 based on four factors:

• the availability of bike infrastructure (with on-street and off-street facilities weighted differently)
• the hilliness of the area (the one factor a city can’t control)
• amenities and road connectivity
• the number of bike commuters (because “biking is social” and there’s safety in numbers, explained Walk Score’s chief technology officer and co-founder Matt Lerner)

To then determine the score for the city, the individual address scores are used to compute scores for each block, and then the block-by-block scores are weighted by population density.

“For every location in the city, we add up the number of meters of bike lane, and there’s a distance-to-K function so the closer you have a meter of bike lane, the more valuable it is, and we don’t give you any credit after about a mile out,” said Lerner. “For every address, we do that calculation. It’s a new metric that is really about a specific location, not about the city overall. So what we’re really measuring is, for average person in that city, how good is biking.”

Note: The capability to score your own home isn’t available on the website yet, as it is for Transit Score and Walk Score, but Lerner says they hope to enable that soon so real estate agents can use Bike Score to advertise the homes they have for sale, as they do now with the other two. Walk Score has an Apartment Search function that allows renters to search by nearby amenities, distance to transit, commute time, price, number of bedrooms – and, of course, Walk Score. It interfaces with craigslist to show the complete ad all in one place with the walk/bike/transit information.

Right now you can plug in any address in the country and get a Walk Score for it, but even once Bike Score’s full functionality is rolled out, it won’t be so widespread. “With Bike Score we have to go out and get bike lane data from each city,” Lerner said, “so it’s more of a manual process.” They’re taking votes via Twitter for the next cities they should score.

Monday – Bike Week kicks off in L.A. in just a couple of minutes.  Join Metro and City executives and some of the city’s top bike advocates at Exposition Park at 10:00 A.M.  Get the details, right here.

Monday – When it comes to Bike Week, the City of Pasadena is second to none when it comes to programming great events, thanks in large part to our friends at CICLE.  Bike Week Pasadena kicks off tonight with the Tour de Pasadena.  Interested?  Get the event details here or visit the Bike Week Pasadena website on CICLE’s homepage.

Monday, Thursday, Saturday – Metro and Caltrans host another round of public meetings on the I-710 Big Dig project and other atlernatives to “close” the “710 Gap” in the SGV.  The meetings run through next week, so find the one closest to you at the official website.

Tuesday – It’s the bikiest non-denominational blessing event in Los Angeles.  Good Samaritan Hospital hosts the Blessing of the Bikes at 8:00 A.M. at 1225 Wilshire Blvd.

Tuesday – Oh Yes It’s Ladies Night.  Oh yes it’s on a bike.  Oh yes it’s Ladies Night.  It’s in Pasadena.  More details, here or visit the Bike Week Pasadena website on CICLE’s homepage.

Wednesday – Remember when Streetsblog panned the Expo Phase I bike lanes?  Half a year later, after some repaving, The Source talked the lanes up.  Here’s a chance to check the lanes out yourself in a group ride sponsored by Metro/LADOT/LACBC as part of Bike Week.  Let us know what you think.  Get the ride details, here.

Wednesday – In 2008, Pasadena close the Rose Bowl loop to motorized traffic for one evening.  It was awesome.  You can experience that awesomeness again with the Mayor’s Bike Ride as part of Bike Week Pasadena.  Get all the details here or visit the Bike Week Pasadena website on CICLE’s homepage

Thursday – You can find your “Bike to Work Day” pit stops at this interactive map created by Metro.  Long Beach has its own Bike to Work Day fun planned.  A handful of LACBC chapters host “bike from work day” as well.  We’ll have a place to post all your Bike to Work Day Media.

Thursday – Interrupting our Bike Week fun is the Public Hearing on the Westside Subway that Metro is required by law to hold at the request of the City of Beverly Hills.  I’m hoping they play the apocalypse video.  Get the details, here.

Friday – This one is easy.  It’s Bike to School Day.  Get on a bike.  Ride to your school.

Saturday – Bike Week Pasadena closes with a last ride and pedal party at Paseo Colorado.  Get all the details, here.

Sunday – Of course, Bike Week is a Monday-Sunday week, not the traditional Sunday-Saturday.  Bike Week’s unofficial end in Los Angeles comes when the AMGEN bike tour comes through Downtown Los Angeles.  This year, Amgen sponsors a Sunday “closed street” ride through five miles of Downtown streets.  It’s not quite CicLAvia, but it still sounds like a fun time.  Get the details, including registration, here.

Sunday – It’s Critical Mass for kids in Long Beach.  Enjoy Kidical Mass at 1:00 P.M. at Bixby Knolls.  Get all the details, here.

Sunday – At this point, your bike might be beat up after the long week.  Bikerowave sponsors a free class on how to fix your breaks.  Get all the details, here.

If we missed something, leave a note in the comments section and we’ll update.  If you want us to include a future event, email damien at streetsblog dot org.

This campaign season, opponents of smart growth policies are running against urbanism in greater Portland. Photo: The Oregonian

Even in Portland, a group called the Oregon Transformation Project is running candidates to overturn the region’s longstanding commitment to urbanism. Engineer Scotty at Portland Transport posits that the smart growth opponents are motivated by self-interested fear of the urban renaissance:

Some density opponents are staunch conservatives, motivated by cultural politics, free-market economics, or political solidarity with other conservative constituencies such as big oil. Many other density opponents come from the left — viewing big-ticket capital transportation projects (as well as urban renewal projects designed to encourage infill) as little more than corruption and cronyism, indistinguishable (other than in scope) from the antics of Wall Street banksters, with greenwashing being used to deceive a gullible public. But a common theme that motivates many of the critics on both the left and the right, is a dislike of density itself.

A billboard run by OTP compares a picturesque view of Mount Hood with a grainy, black-and-white photo of downtown Portland, with the words “CONGESTION DENSITY CRIME” lying under the latter. The implication being that if the current course continues, much of Clackamas County will soon resemble the worst attributes of Portland. There seems to be a fear that single-family neighborhoods all over the tri-county area will soon be overrun by apartment housing of the worst sort, and that middle-class communities will be transformed overnight into budding Rockwoods. In some cases, this fear is expressed in near-apocalyptic terms, with dire warnings about an urbanist tyranny literally forcing people out of homes and cars and into Soviet style block housing. (The term “Potemkin Village” gets used quite a bit as well — although the term originates from Tsarist Russia and has nothing to do with communism or forced living arrangements.)

For many people, public investment in new urbanism represents public disinvestments in where they live. One other geometric fact about density is that unless the local population explodes, density can’t go up everywhere. If the overall population stays more or less constant, and one neighborhood sees its density rise, then simple mathematics dictates that some other community will see its population decline. Property values and tax base will go down; and the quality of services will decline, leading to a vicious cycle of decay.

Given all of that, it’s not surprising that a backlash is continuing to brew. The recession hit many people hard, and when government elects not to maintain the status quo, it’s not hard to see how people feel abandoned or even threatened. People are attached to their homes, and will often go to great lengths to defend them.

Elsewhere on the Network today: Extraordinary Observations examines how college graduates cluster in cities. A View from the Cycle Path looks at average commuting distances across Canada’s largest cities. And Human Transit analyzes Tweets about transit agencies in an attempt to assess performance.

More headlines at Streetsblog Capitol Hill

Photo: Associated Press

The script is a familiar one to Angelenos. President Obama announces he’s coming to town for a fundraiser. Panic ensues on the television about the impact such a visit will have on car traffic. The president is flown as close as possible to the fundraiser and then is driven the rest of the way. He raises money. He vanishes.

Since L.A. Streetsblog is wrapping up it’s day early in anticipation of our fundraiser this evening, we thought it would be a nice time to challenge Streetsblog readers to think creatively. No, we’re not going to give you $500 to do it.

Given the recent presidential visit, it seems a good time to ask. In a perfect world, where would you want Barack Obama to visit next time he comes to town? What cause would you want him to highlight or part of L.A. would you want him to experience? What is the best image to help his campaign, or make you more likely to vote for four more years?

My pick? In the month leading up to the election, visibility is going to be important. For that reason, he should come to CicLAvia in October. We know he likes biking, the kids would love it, and Michelle would get a chance to make the point again that fitness starts with good transportation choices.

You got a better idea? Leave it in the comments section.

But CNU is also a movement and an organization that is embracing the need for fresh ideas. A sort of mini conference within the conference on Wednesday known as NextGen, has become an incubating dialogue for younger attendees to foster new ideas or approaches.

A packed house at the CNU Conference. Photo:Gary Kavanagh

It’s difficult to summarize exactly what CNU is and all it encompasses.  CNU is a gathering of very bright minds who give a damn about making our cities and towns more livable. Equally important is creating models to develop urban environments that are sustaining and viable, not just ecologically, but economically. Throwing in the most environmentally benign forms of transportation infrastructure itself isn’t good enough alone. The land use and return on investment served by that infrastructure must be in balance, not just in the short term, but over the long life of repair and eventual replacement of that infrastructure.

As of this writing I’ve been here for two days of CNU20, but I’ve consumed so many new things to think about it cannot adequately be reflected in today’s story.  Here are some things that stand out so far.

Pretty much everyone at CNU is approachable and not only willing but eager to chat, from that person who happens to be sitting next to you at a session, up to the renowned prolific authors or city builders. Whenever I made an effort, I could hop into a dialogue in the halls.  Jumping into any conversation you find interesting is actively encouraged. During “open source sessions,” with small break out groups, one of the few rules is to vote with your feet. If you aren’t either learning or contributing where you are at, walk somewhere else.

It’s also been a pleasure to talk further with Charles Mahron of the organization and influential blog Strong Towns, which has made a big impression on me in the past year.  If you‘re interested in America being a collection of financially viable places, and not a collection of dead end roads to bankruptcy, than you should be interested in what Strong Towns has to say about the balance sheet of our infrastructure investments.

In the Thursday session “Looking Forward: New Urbanism and The New World,” Daniel Solomon, one of the CNU co-founders and a prominent architect and urban designer, quite openly critiqued what he feels is an overly zealous effort to codify new urbanism into it’s own rigid orthodoxy replacing the old rigid orthodoxy. He referred to this effort as the “bureaucratization of virtue.”  In making this critique he takes a few jabs at fellow CNU co-founder Andés Duany, the following speaker, who then has to begin his talk slightly off script and on the defensive. Duany begins by agreeing with what Solomon said.  After begging the audience, “let me elucidate,” he makes a reasoned case for the proper application of coding while allowing flexibility within a larger framework. What was interesting to me about the exchange was that unlike so many organizations and groups of professionals these days, there appears to be a healthy amount of debate and self critique that is openly encouraged.

There is more to say about the experience at CNU, and it’s only half way through, but I also need to sleep at some point so I’ll save more for later. I’m also periodically live tweeting from sessions that I attend on my account@garyridesbikes if you’re interested in more bite size updates. The hashtag #cnu20 also ties into the twitter activity throughout the conference.

Spring Street. Photo: Joe Linton/Eco-Village

Yesterday, the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition released “2011 City of Los Angeles Bicycle & Pedestrian Count Report” and a separate study on bicycling on Spring Street in the Green Buffered Bike Lane.  The result?  Cycling in the city is on the upswing, as positive press, CicLAvia and new infrastructure are encouraging more people to embrace two-wheeled travel.

The stats from Spring Street, via LACBC

Nowhere is this more true than Spring Street.  Bike counts taken before and after the creation of the city’s first green lane and first buffered bike lane, show a 52% increase in cyclists on Spring Street.  This included a mammoth 250% increase in cyclists on weekends and a 161% increase in female riders.

LACBC conducted baseline counts on Tuesday, November 1st and Saturday, November 5th. The Tuesday counts were conducted from 7:00 A.M. to 9:00 A.M., 11:00 A.M. to 1:00 P.M., and 4:00 to 6:00 P.M. The Saturday count was conducted from 11:00 A.M. to 1:00 P.M. The after counts were conducted on Tuesday, April 24^th  and Saturday, May 28^th at the same times as the before counts.

“So glad to see people who bike in Downtown L.A. embracing the new lane,” exclaims Valerie Watson, the Chair of the Downtown Neighborhood Council’s Parks, Recreation and Open Space Committee.  ”(we’re) thankful to LACBC for offering this invaluable data that allows us to see these trends and apply this knowledge to future Downtown Bike Network planning.”

The survey brought mixed results on the impact of the lane on sidewalk riding. The number of bicyclists who used the sidewalk declined 10% after the bike lane was painted but rose 117% during the weekend.

“Issues with sidewalk and wrong-way riding remain, and are a constant complaint from residents and business owners DTLA,” explains Watson.  ”But with the coming installation of the Main Street buffered bike lane from 9th to Cesar Chavez, completing the north/south couplet with Spring, we hope to see a decrease in this kind of behavior that typifies an incomplete network.”

In short, Watson argues that readers shouldn’t judge the impact of new bike infrastructure on sidewalk riding until after there are more connecting buffered lanes.  Cyclists uncomfortable mixing with traffic are unlikely to merge on and off the sidewalk, even when the green lane is present.

From their city-wide study, the LACBC sees a connection between bike infrastructure and bike ridership.  As the city paints new bike lanes and Sharrows in the first year of the implementation of the new Bike Plan, volunteers counted a 32% increase in cyclists over previous years in the count locations.  Despite the sharp increase of female riders on Spring Street, the LACBC study did not find an increase in women cyclists city-wide.  Roughly one in every five cyclists counted were women.  This evidence supports national research showing that separated bicycle infrastructure has greater success encouraging new female riders than traditional infrastructure.

Of course, all of this evidence is just a snapshot of bicycling in Los Angeles.  LACBC encourages the city to be more proactive in doing its own bike counts year round instead of relying on data gathered whenever LACBC can muster the volunteers.  In addition to encouraging the city to increase the investment in bike lanes, bike paths and separated or buffered infrastructure, the Bike Coalition also wants the city to invest more time and funding in bicycle and pedestrian counts to track the impact of road changes and inform transportation planning decisions.

You can read LACBC’s blog for more on the report, or just read the report itself here.

The West Town Girls' Bike Club in Chicago's Humboldt Park. The neighborhood, once resistant to bike infrastructure, now embraces it. Photo: Grid Chicago

The perception of bike infrastructure as a sign of gentrification used to hold sway in Chicago’s Humboldt Park neighborhood too. But John Greenfield at Grid Chicago reports that attitudes toward bike lanes in this Latino and African-American neighborhood have shifted from resistance to enthusiasm:

People in Humboldt Park, a largely low-income Latino and African-American community on Chicago’s West Side, once opposed bike facilities as well. So it was a good feeling yesterday when I took my first spin on new buffered bike lanes under the giant Puerto Rican flag arches of the neighborhood’s Division Street business strip. I viewed them as a sign of how much attitudes about cycling have changed in Humboldt Park over the last decade. And as the city moves forward with the Streets for Cycling plan to install 100 miles of protected bike lanes within Mayor Emanuel’s first term, the story of the Division Street bike lanes offers a lesson on the need to engage local people in the process.

In 2003, the Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) installed bike lanes in gentrified, bike-crazy Wicker Park, located just east of Humboldt Park, on Division from Ashland Avenue to Western Avenue, the border between the two neighborhoods. The stretch of Division in Humboldt Park between Western to California Avenue, known as the Paseo Boricua (“Puerto Rican Way”) and defined by the flag arches, is the same road width. But Chicago aldermen have final say on whether bike facilities get built in their wards and Billy Ocasio, Humboldt Park’s alderman at the time, opposed extending the lanes into his ward, according to CDOT spokesman Pete Scales.

The Paseo, lined with Puerto Rican cafes, restaurants, bodegas and salsa clubs, has retained its character over the past decade, but times have changed since Ocasio vetoed the lanes. Wilson, who’s white, says he worked hard to get the blessing of local community leaders before opening West Town on the Paseo in 2009. Since then his organization has taught safe cycling and mechanics skills to hundreds of at-risk kids in Humboldt Park. The store also offers affordable repair services in a neighborhood that already had a vibrant cruiser bike culture as the home of the Chicago Cruisers, a mostly Puerto Rican club that organizes rides with dozens of members parading on classic Schwinns.

Elsewhere on the Network today: Transportation for America outlines its “Transportation Vote 2012″ campaign to bolster smart transportation policies in the upcoming election. Mobilizing the Region reports on how the Connecticut Legislature blew it this session when it came to transportation safety measures. And Walkable Dallas Fort Worth explains why the city’s grand plans for a central park are unlikely to succeed.

More headlines at Streetsblog Capitol Hill

Source: FRED

Everyone’s trying to figure out why, after decades of consistent growth, the amount Americans drive is leveling off and even declining. The decline started during the recession, to be sure, but was more dramatic than in previous recessions. As the economy began to get back on its feet, vehicle miles traveled (VMT) just barely ticked upward — and then fell again.

High gas prices probably have something to do with it. Young people embracing cities over suburban living — and valuing smartphones more than cars — might have something to do with it. It could be peak car – the theory that continued growth in driving simply can’t go on forever.

Joe Weisenthal at Business Insider found the trend notable enough to give it this headline over the weekend: “This Collapse In Automobile Usage Is Completely Unprecedented In The American Economy.”

Looking at VMT data now available on the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis’s Economic Research site, Weisenthal posted two charts that put the one above in a little bit of perspective. (Note that these look somewhat different from the first chart because they look at the change from year to year, not the absolute numbers.)

Source: Business Insider

The two lines — GDP and VMT — track pretty closely together until just now. The rate of change in GDP more or less holds steady, but the VMT line takes a major dip. This was what Weisenthal found so unbelievable: that the reduction in VMT could be decoupled from economic fluctuations. But then he remembered something else that’s seemingly decoupled from GDP these days: employment.

When the blue line dips, that means the "population not in the labor force" increases. Source: Business Insider

The graph shows a rough correlation between growth in the number of people out of the workforce and decline in VMT. Indeed, this has been called a “jobless recovery” so the growth in people commuting probably has not been as strong as the rise in GDP.

Streetsblog’s Angie Schmitt tackled this issue in a post two months ago and concluded that VMT was dropping despite job growth, and in terms of absolute numbers, that seems to be true. The chart above adds complexity to the picture but doesn’t discount Angie’s conclusion. High gas prices are still causing people to leave the car in the garage and take transit. Decline in exurban growth and strengthening preferences for walkable development mean trips get shorter and can even be taken without the use of the automobile.

It remains to be seen what will happen when or if employment fully bounces back, but there’s reason to believe the downward trend in miles driven could have legs.

Food Forward volunteers on a fruit pick at a local residence. photo: courtesy of Food Forward

Food Forward and Community Services Unlimited, Inc. (CSU) want to help you fill that void. You are invited to join them as they harvest lemons in South L.A. this Sunday.

The harvest — scheduled to take place at 11:00 A.M. at the home of a local resident — is part of a new program called the Tree of Life Harvest Corps. CSU and Food Forward joined forces to create the program with the goal of identifying and caring for fruit trees in the area, harvesting the fruit that would normally go to waste, and then distributing it locally through CSU’s Village Marketplace program. The picking excursions take place once or twice a month throughout South L.A., last 1.5 – 2 hours, and can yield a substantial harvest.

If you are interested in participating but don’t have a ladder or fruit-picking gear, fear not! They’ve got all the equipment you will need. All you have to do is reserve a spot by sending an email to csu.treeoflife(at)gmail.com at least 24 hours prior to the pick. You will be given the exact address at that time (as the location is a private residence); the site is in South L.A., near the Normandie Elementary School (at Normandie and Vernon Aves.).

If you can’t make the harvest this Sunday, there will be a tree pruning workshop on the 30th of May which you are welcome to attend. The program is also looking for volunteer fruit pickers and people who have fruit to donate. Please email the Harvest Corps at csu.treeoflife(at)gmail.com to RSVP for any of these activities or for more information about getting involved.

PREFER GARDENING AND COOKING TO PICKING? Check out CSU’s Garden Workshop from 9 A.M. – 12 P.M. Saturday, May 12th at their Expo Garden (on the corner of Menlo and King Blvd.). CSU will teach you how to plant Milpa, a Mexican and Central American traditional approach to growing corn, beans and squash together. Then they will teach you how to combine the ingredients in healthy recipes. To RSVP, call 323.299.7075.

The Streetsblog Fundraiser Series Is Back at the Eco-Village on May 11.

Tomorrow is the big day at Los Angeles Eco-Village (116 Bimini Place). Streetsblog is proud that the Eco-Village, the birth place of modern bicycle advocacy in Los Angeles, is hosting our annual spring fundraiser again this year. Doors open at 6:00 P.M. and the cost is $30 on a sliding scale to attend. Because our event kicks off Mother’s Day weekend, all mother’s who arrive with their child (or grandchild) are invited to attend at half cost.  You can get all the details for the event, here.

When we promoted out Santa Monica fundraiser back in March, we presented a top ten list of reasons to attend. In that tradition:

Top Ten Reasons to Attend Tomorrow’s L.A. Streetsblog Fundraiser at Eco-Village

10) New Streetfilm…Rob Adams is hard at work getting a Streetfilm on the “Great Westside Wilshire Transit Race” ready for tomorrow’s event.  If he succeeds, it will be the debut of a new film.  Even if Rob doesn’t get in under the wire, we’ll still have live music by Elson “Play Me I’m Yours” Trinidad.

9) Good Food, Good drinks.  Two Eco-Village chefs will be catering the event with some additional food donations from Eco-Village founder Lois Arkin and Los Angeles Walks founder Deborah Murphy.  As for drinks, I’ll be brewing iced tea in the back yard and we’ll have lemonade and water available.  Oh yeah, there will also be 120 cans of New Belgium Brewing’s finest on hand.

8) We love your mother.  There’s a lot of great fundraisers this weekend, but only one has a discount for mothers.  Ours.

7) Streetsblog Schwag? Want to buy a Streetsblog shirt or bag but don’t want to pay shipping?  Buy it tomorrow night and take it home.  All items sold at the fundraiser are sold at a discount.

6) It’s going to be fun.

5) We’re kid friendly!  We don’t just love your mother.  We love your kids, so we make all events kids friendly.  Sammy will be there.  He likes company.

4) Have we mentioned our auction?  You can win a bike tour for six people from Bikes and Hikes L.A., a weekend at Eco-Village, or prize bags from New Belgium Brewing, Streetsblog or even CicLAvia.

3) There.  Will.  Be.  Live.  Chickens.

2) Our attendance list on Facebook is a who’s who of the advocacy scene: Joe Linton, Aurisha Smolarski, Joe Anthony, Allison Mannos, Bart Reed, Rach Stevenson, Kris Fortin, Sahra Sulaiman and more!

1) It’s for a good cause…Streetsblog!

Thanks to our sponsors, and see you tomorrow!