West Seattle, Washington
03 Sunday
Last year, we caught up with the Seattle CROP Walk-ers as they strolled around Alki Point on a gray afternoon; for the ’08 Seattle CROP Walk today, the weather’s the same, but we found them heading east along Alki Beach instead, including the group shown above. The 3-mile walk raised money to fight hunger, with beneficiaries including the West Seattle Food Bank, the White Center Food Bank, and Northwest Harvest. Meantime, this may be a sign you could have a few more pennies in your pocket soon:
That’s the first sighting of $3.40-something gas in West Seattle this fall, found at Gasco (35th/Henderson). We believe it’s the lowest posted West Seattle gas price as of this moment, since the usual lowest-price spot, Arco, was at $3.53 when we drove by a bit earlier. Last but not least in this trio of WS Weekend Scenes, we wanted to share this photo by Steve Heck – click it to open a full-size version:
Steve’s wife Michelle Heck sent the photo with the explanation that it’s a “circumhorizontal arc,” photographed over Alki, looking southwest, Saturday morning.
In the last Cafe Revo update, proprietors Sean and Sofia Zadra Goff mentioned a mural would be painted on the south side of their Avalon/Luna Park building. Drove by today and noticed the mural’s in progress — no surprise it features a scooter! Not far away, a reminder outside Delridge Community Center:
Saturday afternoon’s health fair is part of a new effort to get the city Parks and Recreation Department more involved in helping people stay healthy. And a little ways further south on Delridge, the first sighting of a regular-gas price in the $3.60s:
Yes, we know Arco is usually somewhat lower, but some of the other stations aren’t too far behind – about 15 minutes earlier we noticed the California/Charlestown 7-11 and California/Andover 76 were both down to $3.72 for regular.
Just in time for Labor Day driving: Noticed some stations into the $3.70s – California/Andover 76 and California/Charlestown 7-11 at $3.79, for example, more than 50 cents down from two months ago.
Idyllic setting for the free Blue 55 concert east of the Alki Bathhouse this evening … the lawn right in front of the band was sparsely occupied but outside the photo frame, many more people were enjoying the music from the seawall and the sand. More outdoor music Friday – the second of four summertime Friday night concerts at Providence Mount St. Vincent (WSB sponsor), this time with Maia Santell – dinner and beer/wine available for purchase at 5 pm, music starts at 6. Back to tonight: Another outdoor party, this time in White Center:
JenV sent that photo tonight from Big Al Brewing, whose grand opening we mentioned earlier in the day. And another followup – after we posted the $4.01 gas-price sighting from California/Andover this afternoon, we got two reports of $3.99 gas elsewhere, and photographed this one (California/Charlestown) tonight while heading to Alki:
In the background, you see Charlestown Center – today was the day the leasing company had told us it would be “turned over” to its first tenants (a fitness center and hair salon, as reported here last week). No sign of them yet but we’ll keep an eye out. Speaking of fitness centers, we see Snap Fitness – coming to Jefferson Square – has posted job openings in the WSB Forum “West Seattle Jobs Offered” area (free to any business hiring for a job actually located IN West Seattle!); speaking of salons, Salon 08 on Genesee south of California has its grand-opening celebration Friday night.
That’s the California/Andover 76 station a short time ago; same price for regular at California/Charlestown 7-11 nearby. Looks like the next “below $4” sighting in West Seattle may not be that far away after all. Overall, though, seems we West Coast-ers are still the ones paying the most, according to this national update (Oklahoma has the cheapest average, $3.60/gallon).
… because what we would have come up with last night, if we’d done the usually-weekly survey of all West Seattle stations, would have been way outdated by late morning today. See photo at left (California/Andover 76); while most WS gas stations were still in the four-dollar-and-teens vicinity over the weekend, so far today most of the ones we’ve driven by have dropped into the four-oh-somethings. Let us know if you see someone drop below $4 before we see it (posted price, that is; gas was available at $3.99 at Admiral Safeway this morning, for example, for those who qualified for the dime-a-gallon discount and applied it to the $4.09/gallon price there).
Lots of changes in our latest West Seattle-wide survey of gas prices: The highest price in West Seattle as of late last night is seven cents lower than the highest price exactly a week earlier; one station has dropped its price more than twice that much; and four stations are now tied at the low end, while the highest price is not where you’d expect to find it. Text and map versions of the survey, ahead:Read More
After a couple weeks of stagnation, gas prices are dropping a bit, so we’ve taken our West Seattle-wide Gas Price Watch survey for the first time in 3 weeks. You can see the regular and premium prices at each station by clicking locations on the map above (we’ve added the newly reopened Roxbury station, so there are 21 West Seattle stations in all) — or read on for the text list, lowest price to highest, including comparisons going as far back as 12 weeks:Read More
While traveling around West Seattle this week, we haven’t noticed gas prices rising. So we’re saving gas tonight by skipping a week of our WS-wide price survey; check past editions here.
Only one of West Seattle’s 20 gas stations is still in the $4.40s, after a week where the majority of stations either cut prices a bit or kept them the same. See the latest prices, on our map and text list, ahead:Read More
Per this TV story, West Seattleite Tom Milne kayaks to work – 13 miles each way. Sounds like he saw the same humpback JoB reported in the WSB Forums the other day. P.S. Kayakers and would-be kayakers may want to check out the annual Eddyline Demo Day this Saturday at Alki Kayak Tours at Seacrest (9 am-3 pm)
The highest price in this week’s West Seattle Gas Price Watch — our weekly survey of posted regular and premium prices at all West Seattle stations (checked during late-Sunday-night drives and posted early Monday mornings) — is only two cents over last week’s highest price: It’s $4.45/regular at Lincoln Park 76 (photo left). More than half the other 19 West Seattle stations have the same price for regular, a rare sort of consensus – some are even unchanged from last week — one station is actually cheaper! See the latest prices, on our map and text list, ahead:Read More
The highest posted price for regular in West Seattle is a dime higher as of late last night than it was exactly a week earlier – though a different station now holds the “honor” of having the highest price. The map above locates each station – click and you’ll see current and past prices from our surveys; or, read on for the full text list plus who’s gone up the most in the past week and who’s gone up the least:Read More
We usually crop the rear-view mirror out of “taken from the car” photos. However, the above shot seemed to capture the flavor of our drive-by survey of West Seattle gas prices late last night. It shows the station that now has the highest WS price for regular – $4.33 @ 35th/Barton Exxon. Just ahead – the full West Seattle survey, which now includes a map as well as the text list of current and past prices:Read More
Actually, it’s been a one-year pump jump – see that nostalgic photo at left? Admiral Chevron, exactly one dollar cheaper, exactly one year ago today (here’s the WSB report from 6/2/07). Anyway, back to the present: We were just getting used to $4/gallon regular, when suddenly $4.20-something/gallon regular began to appear … so we surveyed the West Seattle gas stations again late last night for the specifics on what’s happened in the past week, including not only the highest and lowest prices, but also which station went up the most in the past week and which went up the least:Read More
That’s an SDOT crew giving a facelift to the California SW crosswalk at SW Findlay.
Not sure if it was SDOT or someone else, but there’s also been a “facelift” on that bridge column on the west side of the low bridge — and that covered the wolf art that’s been there at least since we posted about it almost a year ago. (Thanks to Patricia for the tip.)
When we did a West Seattle-wide gas-price survey last weekend, we mentioned we couldn’t include biodiesel prices because they’re not posted for drive-by viewing. The new Propel station at 35th/Barton has just changed that.
In The Junction, the Morton’s-to-Pharmaca pharmacy transition is almost complete. It’s scheduled to become official at the end of this week; as we reported two weeks ago, they’re offering freebies during the “grand opening.”
Ah, remember the good ol’ days when the stations were running out of “3” for their signs, not “4” (photo @ left taken at Delridge Exxon) … 12 weeks ago, we checked and reported the posted regular and premium prices from all West Seattle gas stations (sorry, we haven’t been able to include biodiesel as their prices are not posted on signage that’s easy to spot during a drive-by survey), as it looked like prices were about to start a steep rise. Five weeks ago, we repeated the survey; tonight, while out working on another project that was taking us to every corner of WS anyway, we did it again. Here’s what we found, with the 12- and 5-weeks-earlier prices listed too:Read More
This time last night, 35th/Holden Chevron was at $3.99/gallon for regular, which wasn’t the highest in West Seattle, since we’d noted earlier that Barnecut’s Shell was the first WS station to break $4/regular, at $4.03 by midday yesterday. In the past 24 hours, however, 35th/Holden has pumped that price up a full dime … as you can see at left. Don’t know if it’s the highest in WS at the moment as we haven’t done a full survey, but gave us a double-take.
Several stations are at $3.99/regular right now, but we were just in Admiral and spotted $4.03 regular at Barnecut’s Shell.
Looks like we’re in one of those periods when the folks who change the numbers on gas-station signs are getting quite the upper-body workout. Our informal barometer of the high end of WS prices — 35th/Holden Chevron, which we noted yesterday had broken the $3.90 barrier — is up 2 cents on all grades again this morning. (According to AAA, the citywide and national average prices went up about 2 cents overnight too.)
May not be the only one by now but it’s the first one we’ve seen on our morning rounds: 35th/Holden Chevron (often, but not always, West Seattle’s highest price for regular, as noted in our archived coverage of West Seattle gas prices). According to AAA, the citywide average is $3.83/gallon, up 28 cents in the past month, 37 cents in the past year, though this particular station/grade is 43 cents over the price we noted this time last year. (One last data point for fellow numbers fans: The Seattle average is 8 cents over the national average.)
7 weeks ago, we took a baseline check 
of the regular/premium prices at every gas station in West Seattle, when it looked like prices were about to start another relatively steep rise. Tonight, we went back for another WS-wide survey, 
just to take more of a macro look at what’s happened in those seven weeks. The lowest price for regular is still where it usually is, Arco at Delridge/Orchard ($3.47, left, up 22 cents in 7 weeks); the highest price is at the Shell on California in Morgan Junction ($3.71, right, up 24 cents in 7 weeks); and one gas price in WS has passed $4 (premium at Admiral Chevron, $4.05, up 22 cents). Here’s the full survey, regular and premium prices at each station, listed lowest-to-highest, followed by where that station was seven weeks ago:Read More
That’s the sign at 35th/Holden Chevron, about an hour ago. This may not be the only West Seattle station where regular is posted at $3.50 or higher, but it’s the first one we saw (and we did pass about half the other West Seattle stations in the 20 minutes before this sighting). We’re not planning another full roundup till the weekend — in the “baseline” one we did two nights ago, this station was at $3.46/regular, $3.69/super (the two grades for which we noted prices at all WS stations) — but we did want to make note of first $3.50 (higher than regular ever reached in WS during last year’s spring run-up).
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