Opinion: L.A., the city of broken dreams, er, sidewalks
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There it was in black and white — Monday’s glass-half-empty story in The Times: ‘42% of L.A. sidewalks await repairs.’
Or, put another way: ‘58% of L.A. sidewalks are just fine.’
But that headline, of course, doesn’t sell papers. (Come to think of it, what does sell papers these days? Or should that be: What does sell websites these days? Which doesn’t really have much of a ring to it, does it?)
I digress.
It’s no joke, these concrete paths that take Angelenos to and from where we park our cars, and on which we place our trash and recycling bins.
Rumor has it that some people actually try to walk someplace on them, but there’s little hard evidence of that.
Some trace the issue back thousands of years. As a little girl, my wife thought that all those Ice Age animals fell into the La Brea Tar Pits because they were unable to use the sidewalks along Wilshire.
I’m skeptical, but then again, some folks don’t buy evolution either.
The problem certainly goes back a while, though. As the story says:
Officials have been trying for six years to figure out how to fix the walkways without diverting money from what they view as higher-priority projects.
Really? Six years? No wonder the Occupy L.A. folks got to stay so long. By comparison, the eviction notice for them happened in a City Hall blink.
Another time-management problem:
Even if sidewalks miraculously stopped deteriorating, by some estimates it would still take nearly 70 years to fix them all at the current rate.
Which, again, sounds like a problem until you realize that that means 70 years’ worth of jobs. Talk about ‘shovel-ready’!
As always, though, it comes down to dollars:
City leaders are reviewing options that range from borrowing to pay for all or part of the work to just passing the responsibility to residents.
Hmm, let’s see: Borrow the money, which means the taxpayers are on the hook. Or pass it on to residents, which means, uh, those specific taxpayers would be on the hook.
Just hold on. We’ll think of the answer in a minute. Six years? Naw, shouldn’t take that long. We’ll have a committee study it. It is time for lunch yet?
It’s OK, though. The city is running a kind of job-creation program with the sidewalks.
[As Laurie Rittenberg, a deputy city attorney, said], the city spends $3 million to $5 million each year on trip-and-fall liability suits related to sidewalks.
Which is more than walking around, er, driving around money, even for Los Angeles.
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Don’t let that robot steal your job
— Paul Whitefield
