A new policy to perform spot repairs rather than resurfacing entire streets lets the city skirt requirements to install accessibility and pedestrian infrastructure.
In an opinion piece in Streetsblog LA, Joe Linton outlines the case against a new Los Angeles policy dubbed “large asphalt repair” or LAR, which critics say “appears to be the city shirking its responsibility to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)” and Measure HLA, which requires transit, bike, and pedestrian improvements in street projects.
As Linton explains, the policy means that instead of resurfacing full streets from curb to curb, the city is now mostly resurfacing small portions of streets piecemeal. Because federal ADA law only requires accessibility improvements when a street is “altered” but not doing maintenance, LAR projects effectively eliminate the legal requirement for ADA improvements.
The change also impacts Measure HLA, which requires the city to add bus, bike, and pedestrian improvements with any projects that resurface more than one-eighth of a mile of street.
As numerous access activists have pointed out, making places accessible benefits everyone. A curb that is wheelchair accessible gets used by folks in wheelchairs, as well as folks with canes, with strollers, with shopping carts, and of course folks on bikes.
For Linton, large asphalt repair is “a scandal, a serious breach of public trust” that offers a “pernicious loophole.”
Read the full story: What’s So Awful About L.A. City’s Shift to “Large Asphalt Repair”
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