Los Angeles is letting its streets crumble heres why

They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. In Los Angeles, the problem is that the roads aren’t getting paved at all.Last summer, the city essentially stopped repaving its streets. In the past nine months, Los Angeles has resurfaced just 9 miles of roadway — in a city with more than 7,500 miles of streets, many of them cracked, potholed, and crumbling.Why would a city in such obvious need of repair stop fixing its roads?Because in Los Angeles, basic roadwork has become too complicated, too expensive, and too legally treacherous. Mandates meant to improve streets have instead made the work harder to carry out.So officials have found the path of least resistance: avoid repaving altogether.It’s a master class in perverse incentives — and now it’s ending up in court. California Post News: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, YouTube, WhatsApp, LinkedInCalifornia Post Sports Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, XCalifornia Post Opinion California Post Newsletters: Sign up here!California Post App: Download here!Home delivery: Sign up here!Page Six Hollywood: Sign up here!A lawsuit filed this month accuses the city of deliberately redefining and downsizing projects to avoid triggering its legal obligations.At the center of the dispute is Measure HLA — the Healthy Streets LA initiative approved by voters in 2024. The law requires the city to implement its long-standing mobility plan — adding bike lanes, bus lanes, crosswalks, and other safety features — whenever it repaves a street.It sounds reasonable: If crews are already tearing up asphalt, why not make the streets more accessible at the same time?What the initiative’s supporters didn’t reckon with was how this requirement would reshape the city’s incentives. Those add-ons — curb reconstruction, protected bike lanes, new signal timing — can turn a routine resurfacing job into a multimillion-dollar project on a single corridor.  California's top news, sports ...