9 ms·
Why isn't LA repaving streets?
- tjwebbnorfolk 9mo agoSo the city can't afford to comply with its own regulations, and instead of fixing the regulation, they find loopholes. I wonder if there's a lesson to be learned, here.
- streptomycin 9mo agoThe article says the city claims the biggest issue is federal regulations (the ADA) not city regulations. My neighborhood in NJ just got those fancy ADA compliant curb ramps last year, along with a repaving. It did take them much longer to install the curb ramps (like a week or two?) than it did to pave (one day) so I can imagine there is a significant cost, even if it's a smaller amount of materials.
- georgefrowny 9mo agoOne wonders if you could prefabricate kerb ramps and drop them in, rather than (I assume) casting them in place. Maybe they'd settle badly if vehicles drive over them, kick up in the opposite corners and become a trip hazard. The UK mostly skirts this by using tarmac and paving slabs instead of concrete.
- bombcar 9mo agoOr make the asphalt "ride up" onto the sidewalk itself, so the complicated part is made of asphalt. Likely this won't be terribly faster, and I did see the company near us using a machine that was building curb cuts directly.
- georgefrowny 9mo agoI looked up kerb cutting machines and it's interesting how much of the process is cutting through cast-in-place kerbs with special saws. There are hardly any of these in the UK, for example, and kerbs are nearly always made of kerbstones that are sunk into the ground. They have their own problems with sinking when driven on, and I imagine frost heave in areas where the ground freezes seasonally. But it does mean that a dropped kerb installation is quite quick. Most dropped kerbs are simple tarmac ramps rather than concrete castings here.
- bombcar 9mo agoThe ones I saw didn't actually cut the curb - they had arms that held out the form and "built" them in place. I was surprised, as the still-recent but earlier curb cuts had very obvious examples of actual cuts. It was similar to this, perhaps https://www.curbmachines.com https://www.curbmachines.com
- XorNot 9mo agoI wonder if you could just ignore ignore settlement by provisioning for hydraulic slab jacking instead? Include a built channel for injecting hydraulic grout a few months later once the settlements happened to correct it out.
- AlexandrB 9mo agoI don't think there's a way to do this without casting something to connect the pre-fab to the surrounding concrete sidewalk. Like how do you precisely cut out the existing curb so the prefab just fits (including elevation/slope) without excessive gaps or something? And if you're pouring concrete anyway, might as well pour the curb itself.
- lstodd 9mo agoWith prefabs you first dig up both road and sidewalk, set up pre-cut granite curbs (kerbs?) on a mild concrete foundation (negates sinking completely), then repour and repave sidewalk and road. Lasts many years in -20C winters +35C summers climate.
- bruckie 9mo agoVery few sites are going to be flat or square. I suspect prefabbed parts mostly wouldn't fit without custom adapters around the edges.
- nonameiguess 9mo agoDamn. I've been curious what the deal is with the rubber lego knob coverings on sidewalk ramps and here it is. I mostly notice because they're such hell for skateboarding, so it never occurred to me they'd be an ADA thing as I assume they're equally hard to navigate in a wheelchair, but apparently the idea is to provide a tactile warning that the street is nearby for people with vision impairments.
- cucumber3732842 9mo ago>I mostly notice because they're such hell for skateboarding, so it never occurred to me they'd be an ADA thing "Be hell for skateboarding" wasn't likely considered a bonus by the disability people because it would rally "those sort of people" to their (otherwise legitimate) cause.
- Someone 9mo ago> because they're such hell for skateboarding, so it never occurred to me they'd be an ADA thing as I assume they're equally hard to navigate in a wheelchair Why do you think so? Even the front wheels of wheelchairs are much larger than those of skateboards, and their main wheels typically are pneumatic (front ones, too, probably, but cheaper ones might skimp on that)
- gscott 9mo agoAccording to the cdc 1 million.people are blind and 7 million people have serious vision impairment. It would be cheaper to pay 60k a year per blind person to hire them a full time guid for waling outside.
- ahhhhnoooo 9mo agoOk, but curb cuts also positively impact wheelchair users, people with canes or walkers, people with injuries that require crutches or a knee scooter, parents with strollers, people with rolling bags, cyclists, delivery workers and more. They are widely understood to benefit many many people beyond just people with disabilities (so much so that their benefit has given a name to the "curb cut effect"). Also, $60k/year is a) not nearly enough to pay a contractor full time living wage and b) not enough to cover the greater than full time necessary to assist someone. Blind people need to navigate the world at all hours on all days...
- themafia 9mo agoIt can easily afford it. What the city can't seem to do is rid itself of corrupt employees and corrupt practices. These people talk a big game, but when it comes to basic office management, they're less than worthless. I wish I could vote to leave the offices empty. I honestly think that would improve things.
- HerbManic 9mo agoI do wonder if a little part of this is, they talk a big game, get into office and then see the details of full picture and realise they over promised. It is a nice theory but then they bring out the same rhetoric when seeking re-election. So yeah, corruption may be abound.
- downrightmike 9mo agoTypically taxes need to go up 2x to cover the costs. Most infra projects get done with Fed money because cities can't afford it. Also why home developers build the road and then hand it over to the city for upkeep. Its too expensive.
- antonkochubey 9mo agoBecause after the home is built, city starts getting tax revenue from its occupants
- magic_hamster 9mo agoThis is interesting for a completely different reason. It's the first time I see a web page disabling reader mode on my browser. When I enter reader mode, the page seems to recognize this and instantly reload, booting me back to the original page, which by the way seems unaffected by Dark Reader as well.
- elcapitan 9mo agofwiw, works fine in my Firefox in reader mode
- RandallBrown 9mo agoIt works correctly in Safari's reader mode
- djoldman 9mo ago> Mozee went into detail comparing slow concrete curb accessibility work to the faster asphalt street work. Per Mozee, “there’s approximately 14 ramps in a mile.” So for “one crew to build out those 14 ramps will take approximately three months.” In contrast, he said, “a paving crew on a good day … could pave that same mile in a weekend or one week, at most.” Why don't they asphalt curb to curb for a mile and then come back and do the ramps one at a time?
- mschuster91 9mo ago> Why don't they asphalt curb to curb for a mile and then come back and do the ramps one at a time? As someone who did a stint in this kind of construction: not possible, you'd still need to re-pave about 30-50cm worth of road, because curbstones are (usually) suspended in a bunch of concrete to avoid them getting dislocated by cars hitting or driving over them. The result will be a faultline from which you will get potholes in freeze cycles. The proper way is to do everything at once, leaving one slab of contiguous asphalt without faultlines.
- mdorazio 9mo agoWorth noting that LA does not have freeze cycles. I wonder what the pothole formation likelihood is as a result.
- kevin_thibedeau 9mo agoLA uses asphalt overlays on top of concrete. These have adhesion problems compared to monolithic asphalt over gravel.
- linkjuice4all 9mo agoLA is fortunate in that it doesn't suffer from freeze/thaw cycles and can put down a lot more concrete without worrying about expansion/contraction and water ingress. I've noticed that a fair amount of concrete sidewalk in Los Angeles appears to have been poured when the neighborhoods were first developed (as in post-WW2) and haven't been removed or updated since then (at least based on the date/contractor stamps). Again, the lack of freezing weather, wide streets that don't necessitate parking/loading on the sidewalk, and fewer tree roots to uproot/disturb the gutters and sidewalks means that the original infrastructure is still in use. More to the point - creating curb cuts is more than just customizing concrete forms. Oftentimes you'll need to regrade the surrounding area to reduce slope, move any in-ground utilities, and revisit any other updates to building codes (such as the bike lane stuff mentioned in the article). Not everything in/under the streets is owned by the same city/county/state/federal department/private org so that further complicates the work. If only the real estate speculators that settled this swampy valley had considered this stuff in the early 20th century...
- alt227 9mo agoIn the UK we call this 'Surface Dressing' and is a typical money saving meaasure to avoid the full cost of paving the road properly. It looks terrible and doenst last very long, so peronsally I dont see the point. https://www.somerset.gov.uk/roads-travel-and-parking/surface-dressing/ https://www.somerset.gov.uk/roads-travel-and-parking/surface...
- ajsnigrutin 9mo agoI would prefer that over here in slovenia.... instead, we can't repave a street without digging a few meters deep, finding ancient roman remains, and delaying the repair for many months... heck, even without finding roman stuff, we had an 800m long road closed for 2 years... So yeah, it's either potholes or road closure for a year++.
- carlosjobim 9mo agoThe point is for the road to be better to use. If it's cheap and fast, then there's no reason to wait to do it "properly" later. Do the quick fix first.
- alt227 9mo agoNope, thats the cheap way to save money in the short term. But it makes the roads much worse quality for a lot longer. The surface dressing rips and pulls up very quickly, and so the road is rough and full of holes for a longer period.
- mschuster91 9mo ago> In a presentation at the Jan. 28 City Council Public Works Committee (audio, slides), General Manager Keith Mozee attributed the shift to large asphalt repair to cuts to StreetsLA workforce. In the current and past year, StreetsLA’s staffing budget was cut 26 percent. At least they're admitting to the general public that the cause for the dysfunctionality is budget cuts. People can then vote accordingly for someone who campaigns on increasing the tax base.
- atleastoptimal 9mo agoUS cities over the past decade seem to be in a competition to see who can be the least competently run.
- beezlebroxxxxxx 9mo agoA lot of city governments no longer really focus on the day-to-day living experience in their city. Instead, they focus on property value and the discovery of increasingly palatable ways to limit or justify raising property taxes in order to stay in power.
- monero-xmr 9mo ago[flagged]
- hackyhacky 9mo agoUnlike Republicans, who win elections by promising to let their rich friends break the law and also promise free money. E.g. https://www.newsweek.com/tariff-refund-stimulus-check-donald-trump-payout-11605817 https://www.newsweek.com/tariff-refund-stimulus-check-donald... https://trumpaccounts.gov/ https://trumpaccounts.gov/ https://www.jacksonville.com/story/news/politics/2025/05/30/doge-dividends-american-taxpayers-check-elon-musk/83941012007/ https://www.jacksonville.com/story/news/politics/2025/05/30/...
- baggy_trough 9mo agoGovernments at all levels have accreted increasingly ravenous parasites who are on the verge of killing any effective functions of the host.
- jbm 9mo agoIsn't this just the end result of larger and larger portions of budgets going to interest payments?
- nomel 9mo agoI would like to see the relation between competence and strength of political alignment (as in, deviation from 50/50 red/blue vote for local government). I naively expect that less strongly aligned cities are run more competently, because the concept of "consequences" can exist. Where I am, there's a very strong political alignment, so no consequences at all. The same group of people will be voted for, no matter what they do.
- bahmboo 9mo agoGood infrastructure costs money. Citizens don't want to pay for it. The city workers have to figure out how to solve problems. Another fun one is talking about how much was accomplished decades ago when the streets were...decades newer. Go ahead and say it's mismanagement.
- herdcall 9mo agoWe pay 7.25% sales tax in California, the highest in the country. Plus, county taxes can go up to 3.5%, adding up to 10.75% total. It's not too much to ask for basic stuff like maintaining the streets when paying this kind of money. The roads in Orange County, where I live, are great though.
- simoncion 9mo ago> ...adding up to 10.75% total. That's not too far off from the total sales tax in -say- one of the largest metros in Alabama; Birmingham. Total sales tax in that city is 8.0%. [0] I can tell you from personal experience, that you get a lot, lot less for that money than you do in California. [0] <https://www.revenue.alabama.gov/sales-use/tax-rates/?_ador-sales-selected%5B%5D=9137&ador-sales-view-history=false&_ador-sales-view=submit https://www.revenue.alabama.gov/sales-use/tax-rates/?_ador-s...>
- jerlam 9mo agoCalifornia doesn't have the highest sales tax: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sales_taxes_in_the_United_States#/media/File:State_Sales_Taxes.webp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sales_taxes_in_the_United_Stat...
- enraged_camel 9mo agoYou seem to be confused. Your own link shows that California state sales tax is the highest in the country. Look at the blue bars.
- jerlam 9mo ago
- kylehotchkiss 9mo agoBecause it'll rain out next week and they'll fall apart again. Same problem in San Diego. Southern CA didn't really choose a great aggregate mixture for the winder rain we've gotten the past few years.
- everybodyknows 9mo agoMy experience is that once you get north of the city limits of San Diego, into either neighboring cities or unincorporated areas, the roads get a lot better.
- kylehotchkiss 9mo agoI'm in north county, and it's very OK! we've had a good resurfacing pushing on quite a few of the roads around me. But they're ripping a lot of it up to lay (much needed) fiber.
- casey2 9mo agoMost places in LA you could completely rip out the road and the surroundings would improve 10x I say expand the potholes from curb to grimy curb.
- mobilene 9mo agoWe do the same here in Indianapolis and my read is that it's about cost containment. Our tax base here really doesn't fully support city services. And then more people move to the high-tax-base suburbs for better services, and the cycle repeats and gets worse.
- boredatoms 9mo agoThis means that the divisions of administration are too small. Perhaps it should just a be county level or even state level concern
- catgirlinspace 9mo agoIndianapolis and Marion County are basically the same thing, interestingly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unigov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unigov
- mystraline 9mo agoTo be fair, Indiana is now a Northern South state. MAGA governor, doing MAGA things to the state run universities, demolition of decency, acquiescence to federal power when it should fall to the state. And the AG is attacking doctors doing legitimate surgeries (abortion) with criminal harassing charges. Brain drain is also significant around West Lafayette, Marion county, and Bloomington due to anti-immigrant activities. And even small towns like Spencer are getting ICE presence. Its becoming a place to actively leave, if you haven't already.
- TimorousBestie 9mo agoThese are all factual things that Indiana state government has actually done over the past 10-15 years. Not to mention the crippling higher education reforms and the state seizing control over tenure review.
- monero-xmr 9mo ago[flagged]
- kleiba 9mo agoBecause they're waiting for Arnie to do it for them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPqUtKQaJFk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPqUtKQaJFk
- stock_toaster 9mo agoMaybe roads would last longer if we weren't all being forced to buy super heavy SUVs just so automakers can skirt emissions and fuel economy requirements. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPm4de6-eTg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPm4de6-eTg
- atleastoptimal 9mo agoPeople buy SUV's because they want to avoid being injured in crashes (at the detriment of the other driver)
- Freedom2 9mo agoYet per capita, US vehicle occupants are more likely to be injured in general while on the road than Europeans. Perhaps the driving standards are just far too different.
- kgwgk 9mo agoThey also travel twice as much.
- atleastoptimal 9mo agoBecause US roads traffic control systems suck ALSO licenses are much easier to get, there is more of a tacit tolerance of drunk driving, and the lower rate of public transport makes more people forced to drive despite preferring not to, leading to less of a selective effect of drivers. We've consequentially paved over the issues (no pun intended) via creating a socioeconomic hierarchy of insulation from traffic injuries. Giant SUV's have become the mainstay of the upwardly mobile 30s suburbanite, who is immunized from the road hazards, collisions and dangers that would cripple sedans.
- NetMageSCW 9mo agoPer capita isn’t meaningful, try per mile.
- 9mo ago
- mjamesaustin 9mo agoThe amount we pay just to settle the liability claims for police misconduct is almost as much as our entire street services budget. LA government is an enormous corrupt police department with a few measly services slowly decaying as their funding gets cut.
- anthony_d 9mo agoReferences?
- stevenwoo 9mo agoRead Copaganda. The footnotes with references is very long and detailed for those inclined to read the sources, it reminds me of the MLA stuff we had to write in high school. There are many references to LAPD and LA county sheriffs with overlapping jurisdiction.
- t1234s 9mo agoI think they built the majority of the Eisenhower Interstate System in 15 years. Now we cant figure out how to pave roads.
- smetj 9mo agored tape, regulations, corruption, low pay, inflated prices, a gamed system. Although the topic is unrelated, I came across this the other day ... makes one think https://youtu.be/JTEJH-tKv9Q?t=910 https://youtu.be/JTEJH-tKv9Q?t=910
- dh2022 9mo agoThey retrofit Yorktown in 3 days instead of 3 months. The Japanese thought Yorktown was a different aircraft carrier-they could not imagine such a fast retrofit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Yorktown_(CV-5)#Battle_of_Midway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Yorktown_(CV-5)#Battle_of_...
- vrosas 9mo agoIt was 2 days, and they thought it was a different ship because they thought the Yorktown was sunk in the previous battle, not because they didn't think it could be repaired that fast (although that's probably also true).
- mrguyorama 9mo agoYour own citation says that the original estimate was at least 2 weeks, and further looks found that important components were undamaged, and most of the damage was easily patchable, like the flight deck and hull. Her damaged boilers were not fully repaired and she was not able to make full speed. This isn't that abnormal for 20th century warships. They were designed to be mostly flooded and still floating, had significant redundancy, and especially in the USA, massive efforts and training and resources were spent on damage control and management. The USS New Orleans Cruiser in WW2 had 150ft of it's front entirely blown off by an ammo detonation. One quarter of the ship just gone. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_New_Orleans_(CA-32)#Battle_of_Tassafaronga https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_New_Orleans_(CA-32)#Battle... (look at those pictures!) The spent about 11 days on a crippled boat, patching things up and putting out fires, and then she sailed backwards to a friendly port, and was eventually fully refurbished and refit. This wasn't some era of magical American super productivity. It's what these ships were designed to do in some way. They were built to be hit by rather large weapons after all, and attempt to survive. Look at what efforts it took to finally sink the Bismarck and the Japanese super battleships.
- egberts1 9mo agoShifty bureaucrats moving goalposts: not breaking out lane miles into patched fractional mile and full-width lane miles. You will see that patching is more labor intensive per asphalt wear time, thus incurring greater city budget expenditure on average basis.
- skrtskrt 9mo agoWe actually finally have a great city controller in LA, Kenneth Mejia, who has been working his but off (and literally getting sued by the city) for trying to un-screw the complete lack of accounting that has taken place in LA's budget. He's active on socials and would definitely be interested in a concept like this to correctly attribute and predict costs if you reach out.
- jlhawn 9mo ago3 things: Prop 13, Suburban Sprawl, and Bigger/Heavier Vehicles
- vrosas 9mo agoWe need to tax personal vehicals by the ton. And I mean like, punitively. Pickup trucks should cost $500K if they're not registered to licensed business.
- DauntingPear7 9mo agoProportionally to road wear
- scoofy 9mo agoI have been a Strong Towns follower/member for about 6 years. I really don't think people realize the world of pain we're signing up for by not actually fixing the underlying problem of lack of density and walk-ability and their effect on the municipal budgets of American cities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strong_Towns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strong_Towns I know municipal finance is about as exciting socks for Christmas, but if the Strong Towns thesis is correct, we've basically found ourselves in slow moving crisis, where city budgets start very slowly, but very surely, become unsustainable, and by the time anyone notices, it's mostly too late to do anything about it. Pipes cost money, repaving costs money, replacing your wastewater system costs money... lots of money. The fact that they only have to be replaced every 30-50 years doesn't mean the costs go away... they just disappear temporarily. Deferring that maintenance doesn't actually do anything except make the problem worse tomorrow. The idea that LA literally can't afford to bring it's sidewalks up to ADA code is insane. The idea that they're engaging in penny-smart, pound-foolish solutions is a strong signal that the city budget is already deeply broken, and likely is not fixable under the current paradigm of LA politics. California cities could trivially fix their budget problems by satisfying the demand for housing by adding density, but it seems they are determined to do nothing until the wheels finally fall off, and the city's budget crisis spirals out of control. Even then, I wonder if they will take the Detroit-route and declare bankruptcy before actually addressing the problem.
- throwpoaster 9mo agoOnce I became a Dad, getting socks for Christmas suddenly turned into one of the most thoughtful gifts possible. A self-care item. The flip was very sudden and surprising.
- scoofy 9mo agoI actually chose "socks for Christmas" as a metaphor because the types of people who like socks for Christmas are grown-ups, and grown-ups tend to actually view municipal finance as important and interesting.
- BariumBlue 9mo agoTo add to what the central city budget problem is - each new piece of street and road in LA has, on average, not paid for itself in terms of increased revenue from taxes or otherwise. So for each new street widening, new road, and piece of highway capacity, LA was increasing it's financial liability to revenue ratio. Add over decades all of the street and road construction that LA has done, and it now has a unsustainable amount of road maintenance it's responsible for compared to the amount of revenue it pulls in. I'm having a hard time finding numbers though so please correct me or add numbers if you can find them.
- crazygringo 9mo agoThe vast majority of the comments here seem to be completely missing the actual reason. I see people claiming this is about heavier SUV's, about people moving to the suburbs, governmental incompetence, that we "can't figure out how to pave roads", that this is corruption... ...just no. What this is, is that the federal ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) has required wheelchair access (curb ramps) along roads since 1990. To comply, "Measure HLA" is a citizen initiative passed in 2025, which forces the city to build curb ramps WHENEVER it resurfaces a road. But here's the kicker -- as the "Measure HLA" site explains [1], it promises "No New Taxes or Fees", claiming "improvements would be made during routine street maintenance". But because it DIDN'T raise additional funds, but is a much more expensive process, and the city doesn't have the money, the city is getting around it by doing "large asphalt repair" which is lower-quality but avoids having to spend the extra money and time (which they don't have) to implement the curb ramps and other requirements. All of this seems like an entirely predictable outcome when a law is passed that requires more work but doesn't pay for it. And in this case you can't blame a short-sighted legislature or a corrupt process -- it was a citizens' initiative. That promised voters they could have something for free, which isn't free. See this key quote: > Per Mozee, “there’s approximately 14 ramps in a mile.” So for “one crew to build out those 14 ramps will take approximately three months.” In contrast, he said, “a paving crew on a good day … could pave that same mile in a weekend or one week, at most.” So what exactly did people expect? I'm all for accessibility, but demanding it without paying for it is not the way. [1] https://yesonhla.com/ https://yesonhla.com/
- GorbachevyChase 9mo agoThis is very well thought out comment and that’s probably why there’s poor engagement with it. This is exactly the problem. The city has an unfunded mandate. The street department is triaging. The problem is best they can. I wouldn’t be shocked if city council members were directing this workaround so their voters would actually see some work getting done in their neighborhood.
- imtringued 9mo agoThis makes no sense. What you call "curb ramps" is a part of standard road infrastructure in Germany. They're basically everywhere in Germany. If the Los Angeles government can't figure out how to implement a practice that has been legislated for 36 years, then they deserve a kick in the balls that forces them to wake up. The fact that 36 years of neglect coincide in 2026 isn't the result of a law that happened to pass 2025. That law was passed because of the 36 years of neglect. The asphalt patching strategy is just one more last ditch attempt at ignoring the 36 year old ADA law.
- veryemartguy 9mo agoWe’re too busy paying billions of dollars to LAPD to do jack shit but cost the city tens of millions in liability payouts.
- veryemartguy 9mo agoDownvoted for the truth but it’s ok, I actually live in LA unlike most of the LLMs here.
- lyu07282 9mo agoWell you are the only person in this entire thread that even mentioned anything that would even be remotely threatening to people in power: Reducing funding to police who's only role it is to hold together society breaking apart on the seams by a structure that everybody internalized is as naturally true as gravity.
- almosthere 9mo ago[flagged]
- petercooper 9mo ago"large pothole" .. Oh sweet summer child, I can think of at least ten bigger than that in my small British town. It seems they're doing something in LA, even if asphalting over half the width of a road isn't ideal. Over here, we packing the potholes with loose material, only for it to all come out again within a few weeks. We've gone through several tyres (including one total blowout, cords and all) in the past couple of years, and pothole related callouts are up 18% in the past year apparently: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cddn0n3p2ppo https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cddn0n3p2ppo
- throwaway290 9mo agoRamps were kinda normal even in deep Russia 20+ years ago, I mean I wouldn't call them fancy and some were steeper than others but they were ramps, great when riding around on a bicycle hard to believe it's a problem for LA in 2026... 3 months to build 12 ramps?
- cglan 9mo agoI was going to say, how on earth does it take 3 months to build 12 ramps. Seems like there’s a much deeper dysfunction. Ramps should genuinely be able to be stamped out at scale. This is the type of thing China would do in a few hours
- DauntingPear7 9mo agoPerhaps it has to do with public-private partnership shenanigans or subcontractor incompetence?
- ElijahLynn 9mo agoTitle is a little bit misleading. Article says they repave part of the streets, just not the whole street, because of ADA ramps they would have to rebuild etc.
- nailer 9mo ago> Hadar noted the shift appeared to primarily be to avoid triggering adding missing curb ramps (for wheelchair access), Products from the disability industry are incredibly expensive. In London someone worked out it would have been cheaper to hire a full time human attendant for every person in a wheelchair than to pay for the city’s existing scant coverage ramps. Of you’re in tech , think of the overpriced web browsers supposedly aimed at disabled people from years ago and their “first boil the ocean” approach for web accessibility.
- cglan 9mo agoSorry, how on earth does it take 3 months to make curb cuts
- dmix 9mo agoEvery city seems to have budget issues. Municipal politics is such a mess, it never attracts any talent.
- notepad0x90 9mo agoControversial opinion: City roads shouldn't be for fast driving, they should be cobblestone. Safer for predestrians, easier to maintain, not rough on cars. It encourages pedestrian friendly city planning. You can somewhat walk in LA but it's damn shame how unfriendly it can be for pedestrians at times. I say shame because of the pristine weather, and people roll around sealed in aluminum boxes instead. trams and bicycles are ideal for it instead of cars. The bus system is ok by US standards too. Cut the LAPD and the LA sheriff dept's budget, demilitarize them and fund infrastructure with it instead. https://openbudget.lacity.org/#!/year/2025/operating/0/department_name/Police/0/program_name?vis=lineChart https://openbudget.lacity.org/#!/year/2025/operating/0/depar... Here is their budget chart, there are about 15 countries in the world with lesser budget and GDP. The LASD has a budget of about $4B, more than the budget of 30 countries. Even that comparison aside, look at how they keep increasing their budget. In the LAPD chart above, it is "field forces" (+$200M over 10 years) that keep increasing their budgets, so it isn't "just inflation", and the crime rates don't justify it either. But that said, I get it, LA has bigger problems.
- tenacious_tuna 9mo agothis is one of the core conceits behind why Strong Towns / Not Just Bikes / urbanism discourse in general makes the disctinction between a "street", which is meant for people to walk along, go to stores/restaurants/etc, and "roads", which are meant to efficiently move traffic from one part of the city to another. Combining them degrades the ability to address either point: efficiently moving traffic is inherently in conflict with being able to access businesses or having pedestrians nearby.
- notepad0x90 9mo agopublic transport is more efficient at transporting people than cars, public transport makes roads more walkable. If you have subways, trams and buses, you can have narrower and slower roads friendly to pedestrians.
- alexpotato 9mo agoThere was a great article a few years back that said the following: - rank cities by size - go down around the 150th on the list - that's cities like Knoxville, TN - in the 1950s/1960s they received tons of federal funding to build infrastructure - now that infra is falling apart but the cities themselves don't have the money to fix it and the government is going to bail them out
- fourseventy 9mo ago[flagged]
- roger110 9mo agoThe part about bike lanes is annoying. Whenever some city or district goes all in on bike lanes, the end result is almost nobody using those, and more congestion. It makes sense in like Manhattan.
- DauntingPear7 9mo agoIMO it’s like that Reddit post from a while back with the subway to nowhere in china. You need the infrastructure to encourage usage and buildout. It’s a chicken and egg problem. I personally don’t bike at my uni bc the state DOT decided it’s fine to have a bike lane between a right turn lane/bus lane and 3/4 lanes of traffic. On a state highway (truck route). Safe to say I don’t feel safe biking there, despite it being at the heart of the university. Plenty of people bike on the other side, where there’s a protected separated bike lane going the other direction.
- bradlys 9mo agoThe last time this topic was posted, it was pointed out that LA specifically says it'll cost $50k+ to do one ADA complaint corner of a sidewalk. $50k - that's during the repaving... Not come back and do it. Explain it however you want but a cutout on a corner of a sidewalk doesn't cost $50k unless you got something fishy going on... There's very blatant corruption within LA's government and no accountability. Your average American (which LA is full of) is too stupid to do anything about these issues.
- Merrill 9mo agoNow that the California refineries are shutting down, where does LA get asphalt to do the paving? Has the price gone up due to having to import it from the Gulf Coast?
- Rebelgecko 9mo agoThe city of LA runs its own asphalt plants, and there's a bunch of other companies selling it in LA County. A lot of the raw material is recycled from roads that are being torn up, AsphaltPro had an interesting article about it recently
- mvdtnz 9mo agoIt's very strange to look at how the world's richest country just can't do basics. I live in a country with way, way, way, way, way less money (any way you want to measure it from natural resources to gdp percent capital to average income etc) and things are far from perfect here but we get the basics right. You guys have so. Much. Money. How can you not pave a road properly?