Los Angeles is paving fewer streets, leaving more of them exposed to wear and tear, and potholes.


Los Angeles is contending with a spike in pothole reports brought on by recent rains.

In Janaury, the number of reports about potholes hit 6,707, a 49% jump from the prior month. But the rains are only exacerbating a more deeply embedded problem: Years of deferred maintenance have degraded the condition of Los Angeles streets.

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(March data is through the 17th of the month.)

The city’s Bureau of Street Services (StreetsLA) is paving a fraction of the miles it paved a decade ago. In the latter part of the 2010s, the city was generally repairing in the range of 700-850 miles of pavement, and 310 miles were repaired last year.

Less paving means more streets are vulnerable to potholes from rains and from normal wear and tear. This kicks off a vicious cycle: More resources need to go toward patching potholes than paving streets.

 

 

StreetsblogLA estimates the miles paved for the current fiscal year, which ends June 30, will be between 100-160.

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But there is an additional wrinkle: Reporting from StreetsblogLA‘s and The Future is LA illustrated that, since summer, StreetsLA appears to only be paving strips along the central portion of the street, not from curb to curb, as it has done in the past. By doing so, the city believes it’s dodging the Meaure ULA legal requirement to improve things like bike and bus lanes, as well as wheelchair ramps at intersections, every time it “paves” a street.

And just because people are reporting more potholes doesn’t mean that more of them are getting filled. Los Angeles is highly constrained when it comes to fixing streets.

In June, an official at StreetsLA told Crosstown that of the city’s 28 pothole trucks only 12 of them run daily. The others sit idle because of chronic staffing shortages. This week he said that StreetsLA is capable of surging resources temporarily when needed, such as after the recent rains.

How we did it: We analyzed MyLA311 data about pothole reports, as well as data on street paving from StreetsLA.

Have questions about our data? Write to us at askus@xtown.la.