Most Palisadian drivers can name a local street or two that needs repaving. If you’re one of those drivers, you can now find out if the City of Los Angeles agrees with your assessment.
The Bureau of Street Services recently launched an online interactive map, which shows the condition of each street in the city.
Users can zoom into a specific area or search by address to see which streets are rated good to fair, fair to poor and poor to failed. Information about recent and proposed street projects is also available.
Keeping up with deteriorating roads has long been a problem in Los Angeles. Last year, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization called TRIP found that the roads in Greater Los Angeles are the most deteriorated in the nation. The study found that nearly two-thirds of roads in the Los Angeles area are in poor condition, and these conditions costs drivers $832 a year in vehicle maintenance.
According to the map, Pacific Palisades has numerous streets in the “poor to failed” category. Those include sections of Los Liones Drive, Las Casas Avenue, Grenola Street, Alcima Avenue, Galloway Street, Iliff Street, East Channel Road, Mesa Road and Corsica Drive.
Most main roadways, including much of Temescal Canyon and Sunset, were in good to fair condition.
George Wolfberg, a Pacific Palisades Community Council member, has been to several streets briefings, and he believes the bureau has done a great job with limited funding.
Because failed streets require total reconstruction which costs more money, the bureau has invested its money in preventing additional streets from reaching “failed” status.
“It’s a brilliant concept for an organization that is strapped for money,” Wolfberg said.
Of course, it also means those driving on “failed” roads may not get relief unless more funding is approved. In August, the City Council approved a study for a possible $3-billion street repair bond.
In 2005, a community council subcommittee chaired by Wolfberg prioritized paving requests in the Palisades. The subcommittee members visually inspected each street and ranked them in categories. At the time, their top priority was the 600 block of Las Lomas.
Wolfberg said most of the streets they highlighted in their report have been addressed in recent years. The community council has not undertaken such a comprehensive review since 2005.
You can see the map here: http://bss.lacity.org/NeighborhoodCouncils/Street_Assessment_Map/map.html.
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