Street Striping Fight Draws to End

A protracted dispute between Los Angeles city officials and a Sun Valley contractor has left at least 16 city streets without the required reflective striping that usually separates traffic lanes.

City transportation crews are racing to lay down the yellow or white lines on stretches of heavily traveled thoroughfares, such as Victory and Foothill boulevards.

The stripes--made of super-heated molten plastic poured onto the pavement--are designed to reflect light. Leaving the streets with no striping or with non-reflective paint stripes means the city could be held liable in accidents where a vehicle veers into oncoming traffic.

Even in cases where a drunk driver causes an accident, the city can be held responsible if the striping is found inadequate. In April, the city attorney’s office reached a $9-million settlement with a family injured in a head-on collision with a drunk driver who crossed over a section of Alameda Street where the striping had deteriorated.

“You have drivers trying to stay in their lanes at night with no guidance,” said Richard Koskoff, the family’s lawyer. “Innocent people who are driving reasonably safe can fall into a trap and be seriously injured.”

A backlog of striping work has been building for months, however, because of a disagreement between the city General Services Department and the stripe contractor. Purchasing officials, confused over whether Sterndahl Enterprises was the lowest bidder, told the contractor they wanted a five-year deal and then scaled back to a three-year deal. The department was questioned last week by the city Transportation Committee.

“We dropped the ball,” said supply director William Gamble. “We erred.”

Compounding the problem is the lack of communication between the Department of Public Works and the Department of Transportation, some city officials say. Public works, responsible for paving and resurfacing roads, is supposed to advise transportation when the roads need new striping. But transportation officials say public works is sometimes late.

“We don’t quite have enough time” to lay out how the roads should be striped, said Tom Swire, assistant general manager of the Transportation Department. “There are occasions when a street sits unmarked for two weeks.”

Greg Scott, director of the Public Works Department street maintenance bureau, said he was not aware of a communications problem.

Of the streets listed by the department as requiring work, 13 need white striping to separate lanes heading in the same direction. Three roads--Olive Street from 6th to 9th streets, North Main Street from Mission Road to Gibbons Street, and Soto Street from Cesar Chavez to 1st Street--were listed Friday as in of need yellow striping to separate traffic moving in opposite directions, Swire said.

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When the department finds its own work crews cannot get to a street quickly, it typically offers the work to a private contractor. But since late January, Sun Valley-based Sterndahl Enterprises has been in a bitter dispute with the city over its new contract.

City officials finally signed a three-year, $2.8-million contract with the firm Wednesday, one hour before the issue was due to come up before the city Transportation Committee.

Company president Dennis Sterndahl said he was disappointed with the city’s internal confusion over the contract.

“The threat to public safety should be their No. 1 concern,” he said.

Statewide, 7,056 injury or fatal accidents were caused by vehicles crossing onto the wrong side of the road in 1996, the latest year for which statistics were available, according to the California Highway Patrol.

“They’re our streets,” said Deputy City Atty. Mike Fox, who handles liability cases. “You put the lines down, it’s convenient. If you don’t have them, some people don’t have good judgment; they’re going to have accidents.”