Photo by autumnlight, via Flickr creative commons
Let’s face the facts. The road conditions around much of Los Angeles County STINK.
When it comes to cycling in the region, there’s nothing worse than knowing you’ll inevitably be encountering one of the many potholes, bumps, cracks, and cratered manholes scattered throughout the area. Too often, they tend to ruin a perfectly good ride. Don’t believe me? Try speeding down Wilshire Boulevard on a bicycle, it’ll feel like you’re sitting on a massage chair … from hell.
In my opinion, potholes and cracks are a cyclist’s worst enemy. Not only do they make it dangerous to ride, but they make it stressful as well. They slow us down, force us to swerve left and right in traffic, and can lead to serious injuries and expensive bike repairs.
Imagine such a scenario: One moment you’re riding down a street with nothing but smiles, then KA-BAM! A wide enough crack on the road sucks your front wheel in and the next thing you realize, you’re flapping your arms like a distorted seagull having been launched into the air like a human cannonball. Then, impact. Ouch.
Fellow cyclist Lynn shows the injuries she received (right) after crashing from a pothole (left) on a night group ride.
I’ve had a few fellow cyclists, including myself get pretty banged up after our own unfortunate encounters with a pothole. With injuries ranging from minor scruffs to severe broken bones and deep road rashes, shabby road conditions are no laughing matter.
And, in addition to causing physical injury, our poor precious bikes suffer just as well from potholes. Hit one hard enough at a good speed and you’ll end up with a flat tube, a bent wheel, and/or in the worst scenario, a broken frame. Any carbon road bike owner would shudder at such an event.
So what can we as Angelenos do to improve our hazardous roads, which at times often resembles the streets of a war-torn city? How can we make our commuting less hazardous, and more importantly, help make commutes safer for other cyclists? Surprisingly, the answer isn’t really that difficult, but few seem to know how to follow up on it.
If you ever see a hazardous road condition such as a pothole that affects your commute, simply report it to the department within that city that handles street maintenance; for example the city of Los Angeles’ Bureau of Street Services via their online Service Request Form. If the hazard is within the boundaries of an unincorporated part of L.A. County, you can report it to the Los Angeles County’s Department of Public Works through this webpage.
If unsure of who to report to, you can always use the County’s online Service Locator to find the answer. However, anything reported through the County’s webpage is usually forwarded to the proper handler. As unbelievable as it may sound given the illusion of how dysfunctional and financially strapped our local government is, the report-it-and-we’ll-come-out-and-fix-it system actually works!
As of today, I’ve reported a grand total of 14 road hazards which range from deep potholes to wide cracks on the road, all of which I had to painstakingly avoid during my commutes. So far 11 of the 14 hazards have been fixed, and each report was taken care of within a month to three months of having reported on it. Not bad at all if you ask me.
So the next time you’re on your bike and have the unfortunate pleasure of biking into or coming across a road hazard like a pothole, don’t ignore it, report it. Do it for yourself and for your fellow cyclists here in L.A.
To report potholes in the City of LA, you can also call: 1-(800)-996-CITY or (213) 847-3200 or e-mail bss.boss _AT_ lacity.org.
For things like street lighting that is out, graffiti, signals with blown out lamps, etc. call (213) 473-3231 or 311 from a landline within the City.
“Metro…is well-planned and works efficiently.”
Best bad joke of the day to start the morning.
“To report potholes in the City of LA, you can also call: 1-(800)-996-CITY or (213) 847-3200 or e-mail bss.boss _AT_ lacity.org.
For things like street lighting that is out, graffiti, signals with blown out lamps, etc. call (213) 473-3231 or 311 from a landline within the City.”
And they’ll come around and fix it in 10 years because all the taxpayer funds are being directed to Metro projects leaving very little for Street Services. LOL
Great story, Jung. As a auto-to-train commuter and weekend (off-road) bicyclist, I appreciate that one or two nuggets of information you provide on your daily ride in to work. I recently reported a pothole on one of my streets in LA County and I thought sharing that information was an AWESOME tip for the general public, not to mention how dangerous they can be to bicyclists. We only tend to think of potholes in relation to our cars.
I did want to respond to the comments by the gentleman who connected Metro’s bus service to the pothole program.
Critics tend to lump ANY/ALL government agency into one monolithic entity which is totally incorrect. The city and county of Los Angeles, NOT Metro take care of potholes so I don’t see the connection or need to criticize Metro (or a contributor to the Source) for talking about a service Metro isn’t responsible for. It is sort of like criticizing your dog for not eating the cat food – they are both animals but are ‘nourished’ differently.
What’s next, taxing pedestrians for walking on the sidewalk?
Riding a bike improves Los Angeles’ terrible air quality (my son has developed allergies simply by growing up in this region), promotes a healthy lifestyle, will remove cars and buses from the roads improving traffic. A lot of the folks riding bikes own homes and already pay taxes to entities to take care of this County or City service.
The great thing about this forum, The Source, allows anyone with an opinion to weigh in and the community of readers can fill in the information gaps with facts and debate the merits of a topic.
“…will remove cars and buses from the roads improving traffic. ”
Doubt it. If anything, more people will inevitably just move from an all gas vehicle to an all-electric vehicle like the Nissan Leaf and hybrid vehicles like the Prius, and from bicycles to motorcycles and scooters.
We’ll what happens in ten years.
@Steven P,
City BoSS and Metro are entirely different and different funding pots. Therefore, your arguement about the time to repair is flat wrong.
From my personal experience LA’s street crews (and those of other citys) are quite responsive. If it is really bad, call the Council Member for the area. It will be fixed within hours.
@Just a person
Yeah, different pots, still the same source: our tax money. Where do Metro’s and City BoSS; source of money come from? They’re separate agencies, but if you trace the source, it’s the same tax dollars.
That’s like saying Arco versus Shell, different company therefore different pots so it don’t matter. The source, same: it comes from Saudi Arabia.
Let’s say we pay $1 billion in taxes overall through whatever means (sales taxes, property taxes, etc.) and that goes into the City’s revenue.
Someone has to decide how to split that $1 billion in tax revenue to different pots. Let’s say LACMTA, Street Services, LAUSD, LAPD and LAFD to keep it simple. Someone has to make this decision. Magic don’t happen where a fractional cents of taxes that I just paid for my burrito at Taco Bell automatically goes to education. Someone has to allocate the total tax revenue.
So how do you split the billion?
We can’t cut education so let’s focus 40% of it there. We can’t cut police and firefighters so let’s give them 20% each.
Ok, that leaves 20% to either LACMTA or Street Services.
Which is more important public transit or street repair? Who should get how much?
You want to say street repair is more important, then it’s going to be 5% Metro:15% Street Services.
If you want to say public transit is more important, then it’s going to be 15% Metro:5% Street Services.
Different pots, same tax source. Know how your taxes work.
The Los Angeles Bureau of Street Services released a report in 2008 on the overall condition of the 6,500 miles of streets in the city.
http://bss.lacity.org/State_Streets/StateOfTheStreets.htm
In 2008, the Bureau rated the overall condition of the streets at a ‘C’ level and their estimate was that there was a backlog of $1.92 billion in needed repairs. Since it would be very difficult to make this amount of repairs in one year, the report recommended $2.85 billion in maintenance and repairs should be made over a ten year period of time to bring the roads up to a overall average ‘B’ level. Taxing cyclists would not even make a noticeable dent in the amount of money needed to make these repairs.
So what about all those taxes on gasoline, where does that money go? There is a federal 18.4 cent tax per gallon tax that has remained this rate since it went into effect in 1993, even though the retail price of gasoline has almost quadrupled since then.
This Los Angeles Times article explains where most of the other 48.6 cents in gasoline tax goes:
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/mar/29/business/la-fi-gas-taxes-20120329
Who is paying for the bike lanes that have been put in Los Angeles in the last year? That comes from 15% set-aside that each city in the county receives from the local Measure R sales tax money. The city of Los Angeles decided that 5% of that should be applied towards creating cycling infrastructure and 5% should be for pedestrian safety improvements.
There are 2,600 miles center-line miles of non-residential streets in Los Angeles and only about 220 miles of them have bicycle lanes. The average cost for installing 50 miles of bike lanes in the last year was about $52,000 per mile. Most of these were put in without removing any space from motorists. So, in other words putting in bike lanes is encouraging people to get out of their cars and ride a bike outside of the travel lane for motorists. This frees up space for cars and trucks. If 5-10% of motorists switch to cycling, then this will have a impact on reducing the congestion level. I’d say that the low cost of bicycling lanes is a bargain for decreasing the congestion.
There should also be consideration of how people will get to transit. The obvious answer would be to walk, but that is only feasible for most people if the distance is 1/4 of a mile or less. Waiting for a bus is frequently slower and less convenient than using a bike. Which means that a bicycle could bring a significant amount of the passengers to a major transit hub. Creating a low-stress cycling network could boost the transit use, reduce the congestion by making it easier for children to bike to school, which would both reduce the need for school buses and having to get a ride from their parents. Again, freeing up space on the roads for vehicles while also reducing the amount of money spent on school busing.
Steven P: I wasn’t offering an assesment of how effective Metro is at carrying out its mission, and it’s dishonest of you to represent my comment as such. The point is that Metro’s responsibilities extend to all aspects of managing and reducing congestion and helping people get where they’re going. Bikes are one piece of that puzzle, and are thus an appropriate subject for Metro to be involved in. I personally wouldn’t be able to take Metro to work if I didnt have a safe and comfortable bike route to get the last couple of miles to my office. Or if there wasn’t a way to take my bike with me on the bus or train. Metro definitely has a role to play in making sure people like me are able to make those connections.
Julie R: If you want to talk about waste, let’s talk about the billions being sunk into projects that disrupt traffic for years on end to add a single lane of freeway, or that bring LRT lines to some of the least densely populated cities this side of the San Gabriels. Compared to those projects, the money Metro gives out for bike infrastructure is a rounding error.