Prevailing wisdom on the San Diego Trolley is that no one uses it. That’s true-ish when we look at use citywide. But there are certain stations that see a lot of activity.
Andy Keatts crunched the data from MTS’s new automated passenger counting system and found four of the five busiest stations are transit centers where people transfer between lines (that’s partly because transfers are counted as separate trips).
The station at 12th and Imperial in East Village is the only one with stops on all three lines and is by far the system’s most active. The second most active station is the blue line’s stop in San Ysidro at the Mexican border.
The four least-active stations in the entire trolley system, meanwhile, are all on the green line, which runs from Santee through Mission Valley and into downtown.
Status Quo: Too Low. $13.09: Too High. Gloria’s Latest: Just Right.
The fight’s sure to continue, but at least one local business owner is impressed with Todd Gloria’s recent move to scale back his original minimum wage proposal. (Make that two, since another business owner who’d opposed the plan appeared with Gloria when he announced the change.)
In an op-ed, Dennis Stein, who owns six local UPS stores, writes: “With the proposed $11.50 an hour, we’ve finally arrived at a place where both sides can come together to say, ‘This is going to be tough for some businesses, and it’s going to be tough for some minimum wage workers, but it isn’t going to do us in as a city.’”
• As Gloria sells his minimum wage pitch, he’s taking pains to emphasize that small businesses could handle the change. One point he’s made to drive that home: Most small businesses – 80 percent, in fact – already pay their workers above the minimum wage anyway.
Lisa Halverstadt examined that claim further in a Fact Check and found it’s Mostly True. The 80 percent number comes from the only major survey of what small businesses pay their employees. The study surveyed businesses across the country, not just ones in California or San Diego.
• A competing minimum wage measure that was set up to be much more business-friendly might be on its last legs, U-T San Diego reports.
What We Learned This Week
• With a minimum wage hike looming, a local restaurant group is planning to disperse tips to back-of-house staff.
• San Diego crossed a grim hit-and-run threshold this week.
• San Diego Unified has a new budget, and a new principal for the troubled Lincoln High.
• The firm that’s performing the Justice Department’s investigation of the San Diego Police Department is quite cozy with two former police chiefs.
• National outlets are grossed out by San Diego’s sewage recycling project, but the water we’re already getting isn’t totally pristine.
Quick News Hits
• NBC7 checks in on the Horton Plaza expansion and finds it’s basically a big hole in the ground with costs rising and no clear picture of when progress will happen.
• A drone malfunction contributed to an accident on a San Diego-based Navy ship late last year. (U-T San Dieg0)
Quote of the Week
“You have people making decisions, on the board, who don’t use the system, because if they did with any frequency, they’d understand. I get that bathrooms are tough. They require a lot of attention, and there’s a cost associated with that. But if they’re not providing a service, they’re certainly not encouraging transit, which they should do, and they’re pushing out that cost to the surrounding community.” – Rudy Ramirez, and MTS board alternate, on why he voted against the agency’s budget.