racing to the red light

As if affirmation were required, the New York Times of all places is offering more evidence that Los Angeles has some of the worst roads in civilized America.

The NY Times’ article is just another in a long series of [totally justified] media bashing of our sad city streets. But the real gem in this article is definitely buried all the way at the end, where Nazario Sauceda, the interim director of street services, is quoted as saying that the smaller, less-expensive projects tend to take priority over larger ones. His analogy is awesome:

“If I gave you $20 to eat for the next 20 days, would you go to Black Angus for one night or would you buy 99-cent tacos?”

Clearly Mr. Sauceda hasn’t been out to Black Angus in quite some time, because $20 isn’t going to buy you the kind of meal that I personally go to Black Angus for.

Following are a few snapshots from the streets directly around the offices of RttRL, taken at lunch today. And these aren’t even the worst places! It was too busy to get a shot of those.

If you hit some of these on a motorcycle, you’d have a wreck for sure. I’d be wary of that, if I were the City Attorney.