That run-down third-world look: Why California's city streets are such shambles

 Los Angeles has lost its capacity to repair roads based on rigid, costly, greenie mandates. Lemmings-like, big cities like San Diego and San Francisco have followed.

ne of the enduring mysteries of California is how a state as big and advanced as it is, with as huge a tax base and as high a tax rate as it has, can have roads that look straight out of Kolkata.

Shawn Regan at the Manhattan Institute has delved into the matter in one of the worst-hit cities, Los Angeles, where its 7,500 miles of roading are in a complete state of dispair and only nine miles of them have seen any repairs at all in the last year.

Writing in the New York Post, he asked:

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.

...

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.

 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. 

Faced with that reality, the city’s Bureau of Street Services landed on a simpler solution: Don’t repave the streets.

The results speak for themselves. In the two years since voters approved Measure HLA, the city has implemented just 300 feet of the improvements the law requires — roughly one city block.

It's not even wretched socialist Mayor Karen Bass who's directly causing this, it's the city's woke and gullible voters who voted this policy in, which mandates by law that for any street to get repaved after it becomes a gravel trail, it must install bike lanes, build handicapped-accessible curb ramps for the time of repair, bus lanes, crosswalks and all the other things that ensure complete accessibility, no matter what the condition of the street or how high the cost goes, which turns a simple street repairing of a few thousand dollars into a multi-million-dollar project just for the access ramps alone. If they can't get the full buffett of nice-to-have goodies for whatever the monstrous cost, then no street repairs for them. Regan points out that they are trying to work around this matter through something called 'major asphalt repairs' which means sending a truck around and dripping tar on the potholes, but it washes away in just weeks, and leaves the roads in the same shambles as before.

That's the law now in Los Angeles and that's why the city no longer repairs its roads.

Why bother, when just the first one in need of repair blows out the entire budget?

Not every city in California has laws this bad. San Jose, for one, has the nice-to-have lists but no legal mandate on installing all those goodies, which means the streets look like places normal people could live in -- Democrat gubernatorial candidate Matt Mahon, a former San Jose mayor who is running as a moderate and whose ads describe prioritizing nice-to-have things and need-to-have-things very likely was talking about San Jose's sensible roads policy, so he deserves credit for that.

But other cities are not so lucky. San Francisco has its own similar policy with other kinds of red tape which drives its costs skyward.

San Diego, where I live, has bad policy already known as the Mobility Master Plan, which has resulted in an eight-year-wait for any road or sidewalk repairs, and now is moving to pass a measure called the Streets Masterplan which is literally modelled on the failed Healthy Streets LA disaster, "but scaled for San Diego" as its organizers say. They are gathering petition signatures now for it, so that San Diego can follow Los Angeles, lemmings-like, off the cliff.

Its organizers posted this on Reddit:

It’s called the Streets Master Plan, and it would require the City to actually add safety and mobility improvements (like crosswalks, bike lanes, bus lanes, and accessible signals) every time they repave a street — instead of just laying new asphalt and calling it a day. Basically: no more “pave now, maybe fix later.”

This plan has teeth — it’s legally binding, includes yearly public progress reports, and gives residents the right to hold the City accountable if it doesn’t follow through. It’s modeled after LA’s “Healthy Streets LA,” which voters passed overwhelmingly, but scaled for San Diego.

Want that dumpside look L.A. has after two years of this? Then by all means, sign the petition.

It's bad already in San Diego, with trucks driving around with tar streams to repair the crumbling asphalt instead of just repaving the roads.

My street, for instance, which is on a cul-de-sac neighborhood and doesn't get big traffic, looks like this; I took this picture this morning:

Image: Monica Showalter

Reporting like Regan's helps voters understand why this state is so badly run.

And the fact is, the state is going downhill fast. Los Angeles became a roadway disaster in just two years after passing the proposition. San Diego already seems to be transforming into a run-down stereotype of a Siberian street, creating the same effect as Siberia's extreme weather does on its roads, just with its Mobility Master Plan being enforced on the books.

Google AI reported from its various sources that more than a third of the city's roads were in bad condition and that was three years ago:

Based on a 2023 assessment, San Diego's overall street network has a Pavement Condition Index (PCI) of 63, placing it in the "Fair" category, down from 71 ("Satisfactory") in 2016. While many streets are fair, a 2024 report indicated that 34% of the city's roads are classified as "poor," "very poor," "serious," or "failed," with nearly 600 road segments rated as failing 

Los Angeles is even worse, says Google AI:.

As of early 2026, the percentage of Los Angeles streets in good condition is estimated at roughly 60%, with projections suggesting a decline to a Pavement Condition Index of 56 next year due to a shift towards patching rather than resurfacing. The city's 7,500+ miles of streets face increasing deterioration, with repairs hampered by a significant budget deficit.

Key Findings on LA Street Conditions

• Declining Quality: The city’s Pavement Condition Index is projected to drop to 56 next year, a 4% decline within a single year.
• Repair Shortfall: Budget constraints are reducing the city’s ability to fully repave, leading to a reliance on patching.
• Pothole Surge: Intense rainy seasons have caused a surge in pothole complaints, putting stress on the roughly 7,500 miles of city streets.

Numbers like these say the cities are going downhill fast.

Regan has done yeoman's work in getting to the bottom of why California's streets are so disgusting and why changing this law is essential if the state is ever going to recover. If a city or state can't repair its roads promptly and properly, then what good is it?

The state is becoming one vast pothole fast, all because of its sounds-nice greenie and special interest policies which benefit only contractors.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2026/04/that_run_down_third_world_look_why_california_s_city_streets_are_such_shambles.html