Fury as LA admits it takes 270 days to repair a streetlight
Outrage is rising across Los Angeles as residents confront a staggering 270-day wait for streetlight repairs.
The city is currently grappling with roughly 33,000 unresolved maintenance requests, leaving some neighborhoods in near-total darkness for almost a year, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The scope of the crisis was highlighted by FOX 11 reporter Matthew Seedorff on X, who shared an automated response from the city’s 311 system. “Theft and vandalism are driving a massive repair backlog,” the notification read, confirming the nine-month wait.
Copper wire theft has become a driving force behind the outages, accounting for nearly 40% of all cases. Thieves are stripping miles of cable from city infrastructure faster than crews can replace it, creating what city officials are calling a “theft epidemic.”
Infrastructure failures have become a key issue in the 2026 mayoral race. Councilmember Nithya Raman, who recently filed to challenge Mayor Karen Bass, has seized on the outages as evidence of systemic mismanagement. An urban planner by training, Raman has built her campaign on “fixing the basics,” warning that the city’s inability to maintain its streets poses a public safety risk.
In response, the City Council recently unveiled a $65 million plan to convert more than 60,000 streetlights to solar power in high-theft areas, bypassing traditional copper wiring.
Despite this effort, the Bureau of Street Lighting remains severely under-resourced, with only 185 field workers responsible for maintaining over 220,000 lights across the city.
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