Car-Addicted LA is Getting on the Bike-Train

Los Angeles is known to be a car-addled and car-addicted place but not for much longer. They have consciously set out to make their city more pedestrian and bike friendly. LA as also put efforts to make their transit better. The results are clear: people love to ride bicycles rather than put up with car traffic.

Angelenos have been among the most car-dependent U.S. commuters, with 67 percent getting to their jobs driving alone in 2009, compared with 24 percent for New York and 51 percent for Chicago, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. In Detroit, home of the U.S. auto industry, the figure was 71 percent.

Villaraigosa, a 60-year-old Democrat elected in 2005, championed a 2008 ballot measure that raised sales taxes in Los Angeles County by half a percentage point for 30 years, with the projected $40 billion in proceeds earmarked for rail lines, expanded rapid bus service, widening highways and adding carpool lanes. Twenty percent of the revenue was devoted to highways, with the largest share, 35 percent, for rail and bus rapid-transit lines.

Read more at Bloomberg.

LA Bans Puppy Mills; Pet Stores to Sell Only Rescued Animals

LA joins quite a few other cities in North America to ban the sale of animals from puppy mills. Puppy mills are horrible breeding facilities focused on profit at the expense of animal welfare and many people buying a pet don’t realize that pet stores get their puppies from such morally bankrupt places. Bans on puppy mills help cities deal with the vast quantity of rejected animals from people’s homes that need to be taken care of in city shelters.

The city council voted 12-2 in favor of a law that would require pet stores to sell only rescued animals. In addition to reducing euthanizations, the law seeks to put an end to puppy and kitten mills that keep animals in poor conditions and then ship them to pet stores.

The law would still allow individuals to buy directly from breeders.

If you’re going to take care of another being please think about all the ramifications it could have on your life.

Read more at the Huffington Post.

Goats Have an L.A. Plot

Sheep go to heaven and goats to L.A.?

It seems that way! Los Angeles has a team of goats mowing lawns instead of gas-burning lawnmowers. A natural way to keep the grass looking nice, plus free fertilizer.

He said his crew would work long hours over the next week to 10 days and “won’t collect a pension or charge for working overtime and won’t call in sick.” If any of them lose their appetite, his wife, veterinarian Liz Gonzales, will tend to them, he said.

Redevelopment agency head Cecilia Estolano said the goats were being rented for $3,000. The cost of hiring workmen to clear the 2 1/2 -acre hillside would have totaled as much as $7,500.

The brush-covered hillside lot, called Angels Knoll, is topped by a grassy park that is maintained by the city.

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