MetroRiderLA

With the County Registrar of Voters posting its statement of votes cast by community, I’ll channel my inner Chuck Todd and go through how Measure R did, by the numbers.

• Out of the larger cities, West Hollywood had a superlative turnout for Measure R, with 84% of the vote. But Lynwood, South Gate, Bell, Santa Monica, Maywood, Huntington Park, Bell Gardens, and Cudahy all scored more than 75% for Measure R.
• Out of the Los Angeles council districts, District 1 (Reyes), 4 (La Bonge), and 13 (Garcetti) did the best, with the Hollywood/Echo Park district of Eric Garcetti pulling in 81% of the vote. Together, these Central Los Angeles districts voted four-to-one for the measure.
• The two Los Angeles City Council districts where Measure R failed were 12 (Greig Smith’s northwest San Fernando Valley) and 3 (Dennis Zine’s southwest San Fernando Valley).
• The only city where Measure R failed to get a majority? La Habra Heights, which has more in common with Orange County than LA County.
• Even the gated cities turned in good results: Rolling Hills pulled in 51%, Bradbury pulled in 55%, and Hidden Hills with 61% of the vote. This is significant since the gated cities have little or no public roads to use their Local Return share on. Avalon had 63% say yes, while the unincorporated community of Topanga, whose only public transit operates literally two months out of the year, gave 74% of their votes to the yes column.
• The Antelope Valley didn’t all vote no. Palmdale had 61% and Lancaster 56% voting yes, while Quartz Hill voted 46% in favor for the measure. Santa Clarita pulled in 53% for the measure, and Castaic turned in 54%
• Cities served by the Gold Line turned in about 60% for the measure, while cities served by the Wilshire subway pulled in 76% (Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, and LA Council Districts 4, 5, 10, and 11).
• Out of the cities of the opponents, Bill Bogaard’s Pasadena turned in 69% for the measure. Gary Delong’s district in Long Beach turned in 57% for Measure R, seven points less than Long Beach as a whole, while George Hunter’s Pomona council district turned in 71% for the measure, higher than the 68% yes vote for the city as a whole. Ara Najarian’s Glendale pulled in 64% of the vote for the measure, the same as John Fasana’s Duarte. For the entire City of Los Angeles, 72% voted for the tax increase.

You can play with the numbers here.

Jeff Kenworthy, co-author of Sustainability and Cities: Overcoming Automobile Dependence and professor of Sustainable Cities at Curtin University (Australia), will be speaking tomorrow (Wed. April 30th) at noon in the Metro Board Room at One Gateway Plaza (the Taj Mahal).

This special talk is sponsored by the L.A. Eco-Village, CRSP Institute for Urban Ecovillages, Sierra Club, Beverly-Vermont Community Land Trust, and So.CA.TA.

He’ll bring us up to date on all the latest research on rail in the major cities of North America, Australia, Europe and Asia comparing high, median and low rail cities with respect to a variety of quality of life issues, competitiveness with cars, comparative urban form, and economics. Lots of inspiring pictures on how to do things differently in Los Angeles. The presentation will help us see that urban rail systems are a critical element in building effective multi-modal public transport systems that create a ‘virtuous circle’ in public transport and compete more successfully with the car.

The talk also shows that cities that are more rail-oriented tend to develop better qualitative features of the urban environment such as more livable, attractive and congenial people-oriented public spaces.

This sounds like a very interesting event for those interested in urban planning, automobile dependency, and the future of rail in Los Angeles.

Elsewhere:

• The Ten Myths About Automobile Dependency by Peter Newman & Jeff Kenworthy [PDF]