July18 upkeep

Roads, they’re a mixed bag. The major freeways are a mixture of bitumen and concrete. The concrete freeways are of poor quality . The surface is littered with large un filled expansion joints and a surface that is near disrepair in some spots..The cambering  is incredibly bad on most of the bends . As you turn at high speed with the rest of the traffic you feel the car drag to one side of the lane with the slope running away from the bend.Add to the heavy friction of the grooved concrete and you can see why your tyres quickly wear down . It hasn’t rained in 3 months but I can only imagine how wet concrete reacts to breaking . As a result they’ve gouged grooves through the surface for your rubber to gain traction . It’s a shock to see a major modern city with its most important roads in such a poor state. There’s not much effort to beautify the surrounds. Grass and weeds on median strips and along edges are nearly waist high .The merging roads and freeways that often intertwine blur into each other with marked lines fading to nothing .The result is that serenity becomes white knuckle when you realise that you’re lane is no more ,and that a large semi is drifting across at 120 k and you’ve got to get across or your exiting the  freeway into Compton without changing lanes . This is a scenario that happens on most trips as merging freeways can mean you can head in a complete different direction without changing lanes , thus scrambling and hitting the breaks is an often occurrence .The speed limit is a loose guide and the traffic is usually travelling around 120ks in the 100 zone . No speed cameras here .LA is brown and dry and some parks look unkempt. Elysian Park is a place we went to on Sunday . It had spectacular views of Dodger Stadium , the Hollywood sign and LA itself , but a lot of this park looked like a scabby old hill that is used for homeless campers and dumping.I can’t believe that a prime site like this can be so unloved . Wouldn’t happen in Melbourne.Every place has its good and bad but I think LA could do a lot better with its upkeep.