LA adds to its processes, confusion, and uncertainty due to a lack of a plan to spend nearly $1 billion each year on roads, sidewalks, trees, access ramps, bus shelters, and more.
Did you know that Los Angeles is the only major US city without a capital infrastructure plan?
The Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA) “recommends that state and local governments prepare and adopt comprehensive, fiscally sustainable, and multi-year capital plans to ensure effective management of capital assets. A prudent multi-year capital plan identifies and prioritizes expected needs based on a strategic plan, establishes project scope and cost, details estimated amounts of funding from various sources, and projects future operating and maintenance costs. A capital plan should cover a period of at least three years, preferably five or more.”
And the reason it matters to you: No one (I mean, no one) has a clear picture of where BILLIONS of public works and transportation funds have gone over the years, and there is no publicly accessible funding plan for past, present, or future investments. In short, without a plan, you can have the most extensive public works program in the nation, yet still have broken, unpassable sidewalks and no viable, reliable, or safe options other than driving.
From our research, we have found that in recent years, at least $700-$800 million of your local tax dollars have been dedicated to public works and transportation projects, all without a guiding vision that a capital infrastructure plan would provide. We lack this essential guiding document and funding plan, and as a result, we’re not meeting the needs of the most vulnerable, as we have no means to track where the money is being spent.
The truth is: creating such a plan isn’t a new idea. There is a pending motion from the Council President that can begin to address this.
Council File 21-0039 states:
“Public infrastructure is one of the most fundamental services the city provides… However, the way these funds are apportioned and implemented is often convoluted and divided between multiple agencies and city departments.”
“The City must take a more unified and holistic approach to planning for infrastructure improvements to ensure equity for all neighborhoods. This includes assessing deficits in the neighborhoods and creating a plan and prioritization list for addressing them. This type of assessment will ensure that the City can better coordinate between city departments with purview over public infrastructure.”
This is an opportunity for the City of Los Angeles to operationalize equity in its Public Works and Transportation departments. The City Council has publicly acknowledged it, and this is where the process gets mired in bureaucracy and, in some ways, a power struggle.
The Council President’s motion instructs the City Administrative Officer (CAO) to prepare a plan to reform the City’s Capital Improvement Expenditure Plan. This was requested in January 2021; as of September 2021, City Staff still has not provided the requested plan.
So, what can we do?
Here are our recommendations for the top 3 things the City of Los Angeles needs to do in the next year to move this critical and overdue effort forward:
1. Have the City Council and Mayor establish a clear, unified vision for the future of infrastructure functionality in the City. This is the required first step in creating a Strategic infrastructure plan. The role of the Mayor and City Council is to set vision and governance, and the role of bureaus and departments is to implement it.
This requires a single unified vision for Public Works and Transportation from policymakers. For example, the City’s Board of Public Works, manages the Bureau of Public Works, and yet their vision for the next 10 years must include that of other departments that touch the public right of way, like the Department of Transportation and LAPD. This should be grounded innot what the Bureaus and Departments do now, but what they could be doing.
2. Increase transparency regarding the annual funding available for infrastructure and its allocation throughout the City’s months-long budgeting process.
This can be accomplished by the Chief Administrative Office (CAO) providing a detailed accounting of funding across departments and programs involved in public infrastructure work, including:
- Bureau of Engineering
- Bureau of Street Lighting
- Bureau of Street Services/StreetsLA
- Bureau of Sanitation
- Department of Transportation
- Additional relevant programs or departments as identified
Note: While the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) also undertakes public right-of-way work, it operates under a distinct governance structure outside the City’s general services process.
The CAO should share:
- The total amount of City-controlled funds allocated to each listed department from FY17 to the present
- A breakdown of these figures by operating and capital dollars
- Total funding (since FY17), including funding sources (e.g., local, state, federal grants such as ATP and HSIP), for each of the following programs:
- Safe Routes to School
- Vision Zero
- Sidewalk Repair Program
- Urban Forestry (e.g., tree trimming, planting)
- Complete Streets (led by BOE)
- Street furniture, bus stop improvements, and access
- Street lighting
- Metro bus speed improvements and DASH service
- Additionally, the City should identify and share any currently unfunded strategies or programs that would improve departmental coordination or enhance outcomes related to public safety, equity, public health, or transportation in the public right of way.
3. Direct the Chief Administrative Office (CAO) to address the status of the motion reopened in June 2021 (Council File 18-0458) by Councilmembers Bonin, Blumenfield, and Buscaino. This original 2018 motion asked:
“We further move that the City Administrative Officer and the Chief Legislative Analyst, be directed to report with recommendations on existing street-related functions and divisions of other departments and bureaus that could be transferred to a merged streets & transportation department, to enhance efficiency and better deliver city services to the residents of Los Angeles.”
This motion is directly tied to the issues raised in Council President Martinez’s motion:
“The way [public works] funds are apportioned and implemented is often convoluted and divided between multiple agencies and city departments. The City’s infrastructure investment is done on an ad-hoc basis and often the critical infrastructure needs in low income communities are ignored.”
With national attention on infrastructure funding, the moment requires that the nation’s second-largest city create a transparent and accessible Capital Infrastructure Plan. This can only be realized with an accurate accounting of historic public works and transportation investments. We cannot continue to rely on funding windfalls or lawsuits that fall short in order to provide the basic city services that define our city.
