Potholes

According to a story posted today on KTLA's website, "Operation Pothole" will begin this weekend. Street repair crews will attempt to reach the goal of filling 10,000 potholes in two days. The story blames the proliferation of potholes on the recent storms, but anyone who has driven in the Valley during the past few years is painfully aware that, while storms may make things worse, our streets have been plagued with neglected holes for a very long time.

Residents can report potholes by calling 311 or 800-996-2489.
 

Will They Be Towed At Last?

A long stretch of Topanga Canyon Boulevard has received temporary no parking signs so that some kind of road work can be done. One section in particular has become notorious for the illegal signs that the city allows to park here. This morning, most of the signs had been removed. Someone had placed the no-parking signs prominently on the two that remained, probably hoping that the city really will enforce regulations and tow them away. We'll see what happens.

When I stopped to photograph them, I noticed that the license plates had been removed from both the trailers. Photographs taken in December reveal that these trailers did have license plates at one time. Without the plates, it will be difficult to identify the owners when -- or rather if -- the trailers are towed to make way for the road work. One can only hope that this will represent a meaningful financial loss to the scofflaws who put them here.

Yes, I photographed these same signs in December, six months ago. Despite repeated complaints by local residents to both Parking Enforcement and the Bureau of Street Services, the city will not do anything about this ever-worsening problem. Here you can see the weeds that have grown up around the anchor of one of the trailers, and one of the spider webs that is decorating the other one.

  

By the way, Carmen Trutanich, who claimed to oppose illegal signs and promised to enforce regulations against them as part of his campaign for city attorney, was sworn into office July first. It will be interesting to see if anything will actually change.

Gone But Not Forgotten

Last night someone informed me that the notorious political billboard had been removed. I photographed the trailer this morning.

I don't know who took the sign away, but it seems that it wasn't done in the usual way. Typically, these billboards stay parked in the same place for weeks or months at a time. Sometimes they are moved to a new location, and from time to time the billboards are replaced. I've never seen one of these trailers without a billboard.

I took this picture from my car. Note that if the billboard were still in place, it would be blocking my view of the pedestrian crossing sign. Also note the buildup of debris and trash around the tires.

Will we ever know who really paid for this, or who had it removed? Will there ever come a time when the city of Los Angeles enforces its regulations and takes action against these eyesores?

Street Repair

During the past several years, every street in this neighborhood has been resurfaced, except the one where I live. This has been very frustrating to everyone here. This street gets a bit more traffic than most of the others, because it offers a direct route between the neighborhood entrances at the top and bottom of the hills. Uneven, lumpy, pitted and cracked, it had reached the point where it was becoming hazardous. When I called the city to ask for help, they sent a pothole crew the next day, but they repaired only one pothole. Apparently they realized the scope of this job was beyond their resources. Several other neighbors had also called asking for repairs. Finally, we got our wish. Work started on Tuesday. Years ago a job like this would have taken several weeks (the notices we received form the city warned it might take as long as four weeks). But modern equipment (consisting mostly of enormous, specialized machinery on wheels, each vehicle driven by one man who is assisted by others on foot) makes the job go much faster. I was impressed by how much progress they were able to make in just a few hours each day. On Thursday, the first layer of asphalt was laid.

Update: November 25, 2008

I am no longer impressed. After making a lot of progress working just three half-days last week, the street repair crew has vanished. It would seem they are taking the entire week off as a Thanksgiving holiday.

Update: December 4, 2008

And now I wonder if they intend to come back at all. Here it is, Thursday, and nothing has been done this week, even though the no parking signs are still up (and being universally ignored).

Update: December 12, 2008

Lots of huge machines, lots of workers, amazing noise, vibrations that terrified the cats, rattled the dishes, and made me think just a little too much about earthquakes. But at long last we have a smooth street.