Guest Editorial: LA Should Prioritize Citywide Sidewalk Repair

CITYWIDE-Contrary to what Angelenos have grown accustomed to, deep fractures and deterioration are not typical characteristics of sidewalks. 

Sidewalks are actually supposed to be usable and walking on them should not result in injury.

Yet, the city estimates that about 40 percent of its sidewalks need repairs. The longer the city takes to evaluate and assess the situation, the worse the problem will get. 

City politicians recently abandoned an attempt to convince residents to give them $4.5 billion to take action on fixing sidewalks and streets when they realized they had no support. 

Residents have every reason to disdain further efforts by the city to extract even more money from them. 

The problem has been years in the making, with City Hall cutting sidewalk maintenance while paying between $3 million and $5 million every year for lawsuits tied to sidewalk-use injuries, according to City Councilman Paul Krekorian. 

City Hall has consistently shown it doesn’t know what to do. As a result of years of underfunding and a failure to prioritize what should be a very basic function of local government, the city now faces over $600 million in repair costs. 

Last year, the city allocated $10 million to sidewalk repairs, but used very little of that. The remaining $7 million will now be shifted to the 2014-15 fiscal year sidewalk maintenance budget. 

The official explanation from city officials as to why they waited so long to use the allocated money is that they were unsure if some of it would go to cover costs of the sidewalk-related injury lawsuits.

In January, the Bureau of Street Services proposed splitting the money three ways to cover lawsuits, repairs and a 50/50 program in which the city would share with property owners the cost of repairs to sidewalks in front of their homes. 

This decision was ultimately stalled, and the city ended up spending $3 million of that original $10 million to fix sidewalks near public buildings like libraries. 

For the coming year, the city has allocated $20 million to sidewalk repairs. But further action to address the full scope of the problem has been slow. 

Last week, Councilman Krekorian proposed that the City Administrative Officer, the Bureau of Engineering and the Risk Management Unit of the City Attorney’s office issue a “report with recommendations for a city sidewalk repair program that will identify, prioritize and recommend for the repair of damaged city-owned sidewalks throughout all Los Angeles neighborhoods.” 

It is a bit odd that this still needs to be done – after all, there is a Bureau of Street Services. 

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One would think that department would have long been monitoring and assessing the problem, but apparently that is not how city government in Los Angeles works. 

Angelenos should demand better of local government, though it is also entirely understandable that so few even bother to pay attention to the actions of a local government that doesn’t have the decency to take care of something as simple as sidewalks. 

If City Hall wants to establish some credibility with the public, it should stop fiddling and get things done.

 

(This is a guest editorial, posted originally at LosAnglesRegister.com) 

-cw

 

 

 

CityWatch

Vol 12 Issue 59

Pub: Jul 22, 2014