Would $3 Billion Pay to Fix Your Street?

Now that the City Council has delayed action to put a $3 billion street repair bond issue on the May ballot, just which streets would be in line for repair in Venice and Mar Vista? Follow the links to find your street.

Los Angeles is more than 60 years behind in necessary street repairs, according to Councilmen Mitch Englander and Joe Buscaino who are proposing the bond issue. There is a good chance that your street is one of the nearly 9,000 miles of crumbling thoroughfares in need of resurfacing.

If approved, owners of a $350,000 home would pay $119 per year in added property taxes over the course of the 29 years it would take the city to pay off the debt. The tax on a property's assessed value would start low and increase as the city borrows more heavily to fund the street repairs, with the rate eventually declining as the city stops borrowing more money. A two-thirds popular vote would be needed for it to pass.

The delay came at the urging of Neighborhood Councils who bemoaned the lack of advance notice and discussion about the bond issue. It was announced last Friday in order to meet a January 30 ballot deadline. And City Council President Herb Wesson Wednesday agreed that the plan lacked public outreach to gain support from the city's 95 Neighborhood Councils.

A website has been launched to explain the need for the bond issue.

Englander and Buscaino say the bond measure is necessary, because the city cannot afford on its own the estimated $300 million annual cost to fix some 8,700 lane-miles of damaged streets. The city budget for the current fiscal year is running a deficit and legislators will be tasked with closing an estimated $216 million budget hole for the fiscal year that starts in July.

For more information, see:

• Effort to Repair L.A.'s Crumbling Streets Hits Speed Bump
• 2011 State of the Streets Report
• Neighborhood Council Street Assessments
• Los Angeles Emergency Local Street Safety and Traffic Improvement Measure

-- City News Service contributed to this report.