Out of Gas

You're tank's on empty... but you can't find a gas station nearby at all. Doesn't it seem like there are fewer gas stations around these days?

That's because there are. According to the Los Angeles Times, the number of service stations both locally and nationwide continue to decline:

Time increasingly is running out for gas stations in California. More than half the facilities in business in 1981 had disappeared by 2002, according to the California Energy Commission.

"The number dropped from 21,000 to 9,400," though many of those closing had only a handful of pumps," according to the commission's Rob Schlichting.

Industry analysts blame the station flameout on soaring real estate prices, oil company consolidations and environmental issues.

L.A. Times quotes the info in a story about a Beverly Hills Chevron, operated on land leased by Caltech, that has been evicted. Caltech hopes to get more money from a new tenant; that brings the number of gas stations in Beverly Hills down to four.

Shuttered gas stations are a common sight; the Chevron on Hillhurst in Los Feliz recently disappeared as well. (The story doesn't mention our observation that more and more gas stations are also going independent-- goodbye Shell, Mobil or Chevron, hello "Art's Sunset Gas."

My favorite is the local gas station (on Sunset Blvd.) that was once a Texaco, but too cheap to completely change its name after going indie -- and now calls itself "Exaco."