Comment by BariumBlue

To add to what the central city budget problem is - each new piece of street and road in LA has, on average, not paid for itself in terms of increased revenue from taxes or otherwise.

So for each new street widening, new road, and piece of highway capacity, LA was increasing it's financial liability to revenue ratio.

Add over decades all of the street and road construction that LA has done, and it now has a unsustainable amount of road maintenance it's responsible for compared to the amount of revenue it pulls in. I'm having a hard time finding numbers though so please correct me or add numbers if you can find them.