Don’t let the mayor’s budget make our streets even worse

By law, the city of Los Angeles must balance its budget every year. But Mayor Karen Bass’ current proposal to do so represents a dystopian nightmare for our streets, sidewalks and public transportation system. The city should correct this mistake as it evaluates the proposed budget in the coming weeks.

Angelenos already live with streets deteriorating faster than we can fix them, sidewalks breaking faster than we can repair them and streetlights going dark faster than we can replace them. A recent audit exposed the city’s utter failure to achieve Vision Zero, after promising 10 years ago to bring down traffic deaths. These things are happening under the existing fiscal year’s budget, which already made draconian cuts across the city. With further cuts, expect even worse service for everyday essentials.

The mayor’s proposed budget would result in a one-third reduction in staff of the Los Angeles Department of Transportation in just two fiscal years, and about the same at the Bureau of Street Services. If the budget is adopted, the Bureau of Street Lighting estimates a broken streetlight would be fixed two years after being reported.

Bass’ proposal would add money to the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles Fire Department, maintain the mayor’s homelessness initiative Inside Safe (though it failed a recent audit), and drastically cut investments in transportation, street services, parks, animal shelters, street lighting and even the zoo.

A budget is a reflection of values. Does the mayor’s reflect the values of Angelenos? Do we want to live in a city where we can’t safely walk to the park because the sidewalks are too broken and the streetlights are out, and the park’s hours have been reduced because of staffing cuts?

The proposed cuts are also short-sighted, targeting programs that generate more revenue than they cost or initiatives that save the city money. For example, in its first full month, cameras mounted on the front of Metro buses wrote nearly 10,000 citations to drivers illegally parked in bus lanes. This didn’t just speed up service for transit riders and make our streets safer — it also generated millions of dollars for the city.

Two years ago, state law authorized the city to put into place speed cameras — and mandated that the revenue generated by the cameras go toward fixing the streets along the corridors. In typical Los Angeles fashion, a year and a half later, we still have not implemented the cameras (though we are inching toward doing so by year’s end). That means we have not yet received any of the anticipated income or reaped the safety benefits of the program.

Now, the mayor’s budget proposes to save a few million dollars by eliminating 58% of the city’s Department of Transportation parking citation adjudication staff — the staff that looks at evidence from the cameras and actually issues the tickets. That would put us in a situation in which we might not be able to introduce the speed cameras at all and we may have to discontinue the bus lane camera enforcement program. The result — in addition to making our roads less safe — would be a net reduction of millions of dollars per year to the city. This is penny-wise, pound-foolish.

This proposed budget also increases the city’s liability payout risk. For the current fiscal year, the city budgeted $87 million for settling lawsuits. But L.A. is on track to spend $320 million on settlements by the end of this fiscal year. Although claims against the Police Department make up the largest share, the second-most-expensive department is Public Works. Nearly $54 million of those settlements stem from lawsuits claiming people were hurt because of our dangerous streets and sidewalks. If we try to save money by cutting back street and sidewalk maintenance even more, it will lead to these liability claims going up even more, in addition to the human lives hurt.

Keep in mind that Los Angeles is also about to be under a spotlight on the world stage. We are hosting eight matches of the World Cup next year and the Olympics in 2028. We shouldn’t be hosting world-class events on streets full of potholes, broken sidewalks and dark streetlights. It’s a terrible image for Los Angeles, and the coming fiscal year’s budget is our last chance to make progress before the events begin.

At a recent budget hearing, Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky — who chairs the Budget Committee — asked Deputy Mayor Matt Hale if there was a plan in the budget to get the resources needed to prepare for the Olympics. He responded: “The investments we’re making this year are headed in the direction of developing a plan.” These events are coming up fast. We don’t have time to just be “headed in the direction of developing a plan.”

Instead of cutting services key to making Los Angeles livable and presentable, Bass should approach the unions, clearly show the city can’t afford the raises she previously agreed to and renegotiate to save as many positions as possible. LAPD should put new rules in place so we don’t spend $100 million in a year settling claims from officers’ misconduct. And we should avoid cutting any programs that generate revenue for the city, such as parking enforcement and automated speed enforcement, or that save the city money, such as fixing infrastructure to reduce future liability payouts to people hurt by our broken streets and sidewalks.

Los Angeles is one of the world’s wealthiest cities, but our infrastructure is quickly looking more like that of a developing country. It’s never a good idea — and always more expensive in the long run — to let your infrastructure deteriorate. It’s an especially bad look when we’re about to host two major global sporting events. We can, and must, do better. The City Council has a chance now to fix the mayor’s budget proposal and reflect our values.

Michael Schneider is the founder of Streets for All.