I 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

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.

Maybe 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

We 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.

I think they built the majority of the Eisenhower Interstate System in 15 years. Now we cant figure out how to pave roads.

The 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.

US cities over the past decade seem to be in a competition to see who can be the least competently run.

So 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.

3 things: Prop 13, Suburban Sprawl, and Bigger/Heavier Vehicles

> 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?

Ramps 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?

In 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...

"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

This 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.

The 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/

Because they're waiting for Arnie to do it for them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPqUtKQaJFk

Shifty 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.

Most 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.

> 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.

Because they elected bass instead of caruso and it's mostly dei voting at this point.

Because 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.

We’re too busy paying billions of dollars to LAPD to do jack shit but cost the city tens of millions in liability payouts.

Good 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.