Bass overhauls how L.A. handles street repairs amid miles-long backlog

A sidewalk that has deferred to the tree in West L.A. on Ohio Avenue.

Staff Writer

Oct. 16, 2024 Updated 10:07 AM PT

In an attempt to streamline and prioritize improvements to streets and public spaces ahead of the Olympics and World Cup, Mayor Karen Bass signed an executive directive Wednesday overhauling how the city departments plan and deliver infrastructure projects.

There are 28,000 miles of street lanes in Los Angeles, but try to get one fixed and you quickly learn about all the roadblocks.

The city spends $860 million a year on infrastructure, but doesn’t have a full single inventory of it, including a maintenance list. There’s a sidewalk repair request queue that’s thousands deep. The wait is in years, not weeks.

“This executive directive will create a path for delivering much-needed improvements to our streets, parks, and public spaces in communities throughout Los Angeles,” said Bass in announcing the directive. “I am directing the establishment of a multi-year investment plan to coordinate improvements and maintenance of our city’s infrastructure on display when we welcome the world for upcoming major international events, while leaving lasting benefits for decades to come.”

More than a dozen different departments and bureaus deal with the concrete, asphalt, street lighting, bike lanes, storm water drains and parks that Angelenos rely on. For years, the city has made unsuccessful attempts to untangle the byzantine bureaucracy that maintains the streetscape, in which a seemingly simple fix like repaving a corner can conjure up a web of departments, timelines, requirements, studies and objectives.

This directive aims to get everyone on the same page. It disbands a myriad of existing working groups and replaces them with a centralized system.

A single committee made up of general managers from nine city divisions will be tasked with coordinating the maintenance, delivery and development of street projects, including replacing copper wire that was stolen, fixing buckled sidewalks, creating bike lanes, repairing bridges and making pedestrian improvements.

While some mobility advocates say the order will do little without a massive increase in funding for repairs, others see it as a good start to improving the process.

It’s a “huge win,” said Jessica Meaney of Investing in Place, a nonprofit focused on quality of life issues that has pushed to streamline the system. “Los Angeles has been the only major city without a capital infrastructure plan for as long as anyone can remember.”

The committee will create a central inventory list, complete with a maintenance schedule and estimated lifespan and develop and identify funding strategies. Most importantly, the committee will prioritize capital projects.

“The only way, for instance, the city of L.A. knows when its streetlights are out, is if someone takes the time to do 311, and that is not the way to run a city of 400 square miles,” she said.

The lack of documentation makes it difficult to plan or create priorities.

The fragmented approach often plays out during construction and planning when departments aren’t tuned in to other departments’ plans, but must be ready to jump in. A street corner facelift might require that the Department of Water and Power be called in if there are lines running underneath. The Bureau of Engineering might be required to do design work. And so on. Each of those departments have different priorities and five-year plans. Many are competing for the same grants. The silos have historically grinded work to a crawl.

“One of the most exciting things I see that is outlined in this is sharing power and providing transparency and a process which we currently don’t have,” Meaney said.

Capital plans, she points out, are standard in other cities.

“This starts the process,” she said. “It’s not going to be easy to accomplish all the goals laid out in the executive directive, but it’s better than not starting.”

A 2022 report from her group highlighted the task. From July 2016 to January 2022, the city’s sidewalk repair program fixed only 120 miles of the 5,000 miles of broken sidewalks — eight years after the city settled a lawsuit brought by disabled residents who couldn’t pass the crumbled and uprooted walkways.

Advocates and those that have worked inside the city say the plan is a solid idea, but it falls short in addressing funding and the political realities that drive both small and large planning decisions.

“It’s a good thing to bring everyone together, consolidate a million committees and lead in one direction,” said Michael Schneider, executive director of Streets for All, who successfully pushed for Measure HLA. But “overall, I can’t really tell substance from nice-sounding words.”

HLA requires the city add wider sidewalks, bike lanes and make other improvements it recommended in its mobility plan every time the streets are repaved. But budget cuts have eliminated positions needed to carry out some of the mandate.

“Is this consolidated singular steering committee going to be able to move much faster or more efficiently than the existing system?”

Schneider said it’s impossible to tell.

“If the city really wants to accelerate, they need to better fund the Bureau of Street Services and the Department of Transportation,” he said.