LOS ANGELES — City Controller Ron Galperin said Los Angeles’ trash-lined streets deserve more attention from the California Department of Transportation.
Pointing to a state audit that found disparity between the miles that residents of Los Angeles and Ventura counties drive and what they receive in maintenance services, Galperin has written a letter to Caltrans Director Malcolm Dougherty calling for action.
Dougherty did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The nearly year-old audit found that drivers in L.A. and Ventura counties account for 24 percent of all miles driven on state highways, but Caltrans spends just 14 percent of its $1.5 billion budget for roadway maintenance on the two counties.
“As someone who travels Los Angeles freeways frequently, I am appalled at trash-strewn conditions I observe alongside many of the roadways and ramps that Caltrans is responsible for maintaining,” Galperin said.
“I am even more dismayed that we Los Angeles drivers pay our fair share in fuel taxes to clean and maintain state roadways, but are not getting our fair share of services in return,” he said.
Fewer service requests are being honored on time in the two counties, the audit found.
Angelenos who log service requests with Caltrans for roadway litter or other issues are far less likely to get a resolution than drivers in Caltrans’ Bay Area and San Joaquin Valley districts. Eighty-six percent of L.A./Ventura requests are unresolved after 90 days, compared to 42 percent for the Bay Area and 4.3 percent for the San Joaquin Valley, the audit found.
Galperin asked for Caltrans to enact the recommendations in the audit and “adopt more relevant indicators than historical precedent in deciding how to disperse scarce maintenance funds so that Los Angeles’ drivers are no longer shortchanged.”