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City Drops $3B Bond Idea for Street Repairs
Photo by Deborah Fitchett via Flickr
Sorry, Angelenos. Looks like our miles and miles of damaged and decrepit city streets are not going to get a big ol' $3 billion bandage anytime soon. Today the L.A. City Council dropped their plan to get a bond measure on the May ballot that would put the money towards fixing our streets.
The Council has opted instead to consider the proposed bond "in a future election year," according to L.A. Now.
The proposal was recently put forth by councilmen Mitchell Englander and Joe Buscaino. The proposed bond would have paid for an inventory of every city street and would include comprehensive online displays of what streets are being fixed and when. The funds would have come from an increase in property taxes.
L.A. has an estimated 8,700 lane-miles of damaged streets.
The bond, however, had not provided for any funds to go towards fixing L.A.'s broken and damaged sidewalks, which are themselves a $1 billion problem.
Englander and Buscaino say they intend to keep working on the bond proposal, and reach out to the public more on the matter before rushing it onto a ballot for a vote.
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