A Deeply Rooted Problem

Sidewalks--those humble, commonplace elements of daily life--are finally getting some attention and, in the city of Los Angeles, a place on the same November ballot as candidates for governor and Congress.

Sidewalks are those urban sanctuaries where you expect to be able to chat with a neighbor, push a stroller, teach your child to ride a bike, or go for a jog unimpeded by parked cars and other obstacles. But all over Los Angeles, sidewalks have become obstacles unto themselves.

In countless locations citywide--from Elysian Park to South Los Angeles, from Westchester to Van Nuys--broken, displaced concrete is literally rising up and threatening injury to pedestrians, wheelchair users, skaters, young and old, rich and poor.

The city of Los Angeles has about 10,000 miles of sidewalks, enough to stretch from here to Maine, back to L.A. again and over to Florida. Of those many miles, officials say, nearly half are in trouble, passive victims of intruding tree roots and other forms of wear and tear.

Frequent Complaints

Although crime and politics get the headlines, members of the Los Angeles City Council say they hear from their constituents about troublesome sidewalks about as often as anything else.

“Every council office I’m sure will tell you one of the most frequently raised complaints . . . is the problem with sidewalks,” said Councilman Mike Feuer, whose staff receives hundreds of sidewalk-related calls a year.

The City Council has been discussing how to pay for repairs to more than 4,600 miles of deteriorating footpaths for many years. Earlier this month, over the opposition of Mayor Richard Riordan and four council members, a majority of the council approved putting the sidewalk measure on the Nov. 3 ballot. If it passes, it will provide nearly $770 million to mend all damaged sidewalks over 20 years.

The funding, in the form of a special tax, would cost property owners an average of $21 annually, officials say. Proponents say these funds would also allow the city to comply with the federal Americans With Disabilities Act, which mandates construction of wheelchair-accessible curbs, among other things.

The special tax must be approved by two-thirds of voters to be implemented. Any concerted opposition could doom the measure, but proponents are optimistic about its chances.

Claims Cost Millions

“Right now my reaction is, hell yes, for $20 a year I’d be happy to contribute,” said Larry Rudick, president of a West Los Angeles homeowners group whose members have long struggled with sidewalk repair issues. “I’m really surprised on a couple of our streets that we haven’t had serious accidents.”

Citywide, there are plenty of accidents. Los Angeles spends between $2 million and $4 million each year settling claims brought by people who have tripped and fallen on ill-kept sidewalks. Of those that need repair, the vast majority are damaged by tree roots which, in their unending search for nourishment and space, break apart the concrete panels of sidewalks and force them upward.

In some places, broken slabs jut as much as 18 inches into the air. On streets lined by many trees with shallow, aggressive root systems, sidewalks eventually resemble undulating pathways over rolling hills.

“It’s truly a citywide problem,” said Greg Scott, director of the city’s Bureau of Street Services. “Sidewalks continue to deteriorate and tree roots continue to grow and there hasn’t been a comprehensive program since [the mid-1970s].”

City law holds property owners responsible for repairing sidewalks and other areas between their property and the street curb, except when damage is caused by city-owned trees, in which case the burden of repair falls on the city. But with no funds available for major concrete repair, residents are told they’ll need to pay for anything more than a patch job themselves.

“A lot of people around here probably don’t have the money to do it themselves,” said George Ruiz, who lives a few blocks west of Exposition Park on a street where tree roots have buckled the sidewalk. “I thought it was the city’s problem at first, because it’s city property, but apparently not.”

Passage of Proposition 13 brought an end to the city’s preventive root-trimming program. Years ago, the city cited property owners whose land was fronted by a damaged sidewalk, and if the owners failed to take prompt action themselves, the city would do the work and add the cost to the owners’ property taxes. Then, in the late 1970s, the city agreed to repair sidewalks for free, but funds for that program dried up in less than a year. Officials began the citation procedure again, until public outcry motivated the City Council to declare a moratorium on the practice.

These days, all the Bureau of Street Services has the money to do is patch sidewalks with asphalt, a temporary solution designed to decrease safety risks.

Often, the culprit responsible for heaving sidewalks is the ficus tree, also known as the Indian laurel fig. Popular as a street tree for its hardiness and glossy-leafed beauty, the species was planted throughout Southern California in the 1950s and ‘60s. Decades later, its roots are causing havoc.

The ficus and several of its willful-rooted brethren represent problems not only for Los Angeles, but also for cities from Glendale and Beverly Hills to Costa Mesa and beyond. In Los Angeles, ficus, carob and fruitless mulberry trees, among others, have been removed from the list of species acceptable for new plantings.

But they are still planted as replacements for trees that have been removed if property owners feel strongly about maintaining the look of their street, said Bob Kennedy, assistant director of street services in Los Angeles. Plastic “root barriers” surround these new plantings in an attempt to force roots to grow downward.

Untouchables

Joseph Miles is a South-Central resident who might be willing to tackle one of the trees on 101st Street, where he’s lived since 1969. The retired county worker sometimes uses a walker and finds it difficult to navigate the bump in his sidewalk, even though it has been patched.

“Arguing with the city is like trying to argue with the moon,” said Miles of his experience trying to get sidewalks and other holes fixed. “They’ve got a tree sitting out there and I can’t touch it. If I go out there and fool with the tree they can have me arrested.”

Arborists caution that cutting tree roots to even out a sidewalk jeopardizes the tree’s life. And removing a mature tree imperils the ambience of a street, robbing it of shade and beauty.

“Trees fall in the same category as puppies and kittens. People take an attachment to a tree that they’ve nursed and their kids have climbed on,” said Kennedy of the street services bureau. “They’re not going to let you touch that tree.”

A pilot program now being implemented by an organization called the Hollywood Beautification Team, in cooperation with city street officials, is making $48,000 worth of sidewalk improvements at 60 sites in Hollywood, West Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley. At these locations, tree roots and branches will be trimmed and unstable trees removed, all with the supervision of an arborist. With assistance from a masons union, the group is pouring new concrete after removing the old.

Except for a few small projects, the city is not funding any major sidewalk rehabilitation. But street services officials are studying where they might begin repairs if voters approve the special tax. They are comparing databases of trip-and-fall accidents, troublesome trees and locations requiring improvements mandated by the Americans With Disabilities Act to come up with a list.

Of the proceeds from the $769.4-million special tax, $171.8 million would go for curb cuts and other improvements required by the disabilities act.

Scott says that if the tax passes, the city will investigate various options such as “meandering” sidewalks, in which paths go around trees, sometimes extending onto private property, rather than barreling straight over the tree roots.

This approach has been used successfully elsewhere. In Pasadena, the city in some cases has acquired easements from property owners to create walkways that curve around trees. In other spots, they have narrowed sidewalks that compete with trees.

Tax Idea Opposed

Pasadena in the early 1990s spent $9.7 million over five years to repair sidewalks. After the project was completed, the onus for sidewalk repair shifted back to property owners, said Jim Valentine, principal engineer for Pasadena.

Some California cities, such as South Pasadena, have paid for sidewalk repairs using money raised through local special assessment districts for street lighting and landscaping.

Long Beach is experiencing a smaller-scale problem than Los Angeles, with a backlog of sidewalk problems that city officials estimate would cost $3.8 million to fix and maintenance needs of $6 million annually for 20 years. Currently, Long Beach spends only $270,000 a year on maintenance.

Members of the Los Angeles City Council are far from united on the special tax. Council members Joel Wachs, Nate Holden, Laura Chick and Rudy Svorinich voted against seeking the tax, and Mayor Riordan has said that he thinks the amount sought is too large and that the measure needs more scrutiny before being proffered to voters.

“This is the car capital of the world,” said Riordan spokeswoman Noelia Rodriguez. “There’s no question that there’s an infrastructure need. But on a priority list . . . streets come before sidewalks.”

No Easy Solution

The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn., a group devoted to property tax issues, is also opposed.

“Other cities have been able to manage their sidewalks and they’ve been under the same budget constraints everyone else has,” said Joel Fox, president of the Jarvis group. “We don’t think that all of a sudden this huge tax is appropriate to deal with this problem.”

He added: “There are neighborhoods in Los Angeles that don’t have sidewalks, but under this program as I understand it, all Los Angeles property owners are going to have to pay this tax, and that’s just not fair.”

But others defend the ballot measure, saying it was proposed only after years of careful study and after alternatives had been dismissed as unfeasible.

“The reason the price tag is $770 million is because we were told to come up with a number that would guarantee that everyone’s sidewalk would be fixed,” said Hilary Norton, chief of staff for Councilman Richard Alatorre, who will write the argument in favor of the ballot measure in the voter pamphlet.

Added Feuer, another supporter, “The general fund will never be able to fund the massive amounts of sidewalk repairs and curb-cuts required by law or as a matter of simple public safety.”

Everyone agrees, at least, that the rifts and valleys in Los Angeles sidewalks are a universal hassle that will not simply disappear from the city to-do list.

“The problem continues to worsen,” said Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas. “There is no self-correcting feature here.”

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Times correspondents Jack Leonard and Richard Winton contributed to this report.