ROADS TO RUIN; L.A. DRIVERS PAY MOST DUE TO BAD CONDITION.

Byline: Tony Knight Daily News Staff Writer

Every jarring lurch into a pothole, every tooth-rattling crash over bad pavement is costing drivers money in car repairs - and because L.A. drivers drive more than anyone, they are paying the most, according to a new study released today.

The average Los Angeles driver pays $1,831 over the life of his or her car because of damage from bad roads, more than four times the national average of $420, according to the study by two Washington, D.C.-based interest groups.

``Continually letting our inner-city infrastructure decay while we push new roads further out into the suburbs is penny-wise and pound-foolish,'' said James Corless, spokesman for the Surface Transportation Policy Group, which conducted the study with the Environmental Working Group.

Using the federal government's extensive database on road conditions and driving habits, the study authors found that 46 percent, or nearly half, of the urban highways in the Los Angeles area are in poor to mediocre condition.

California drivers spend an annual total of $1.19 billion in bad-road-related car repairs, well above the $931 million the state spends on highway repairs, the study said.

In the Los Angeles area, drivers spend a combined $676 million annually on bad-road car repairs while Caltrans spends only $200 million on repairs.

The study concluded that building new roads and widening existing ones only leads to more driver demand and, in the end, greater congestion.

``The states don't really care about existing communities,'' Corless said. ``They care mostly about building new roads and widening roads. They're not really so good at taking care of roads, and they're definitely not good at thinking of mass transit, bicycling, walking and ride sharing as alternative means of transportation.''

While the two left-of-center groups are pushing for more environmentally sensitive transportation development, in calling for road repairs they have come down on the side of their perennial political enemy, the American Trucking Association.

``We are very much in agreement,'' said association spokesman Jim Lewis. ``You can't turn your back on any new roads, but we certainly believe that this money ought to be used to bring these roads up to snuff.

``It's estimated about one-third of the nation's fatalities occur because of poor road maintenance and design. If you can buy a solution at some point, by all means buy a solution, because people's lives are hanging in the balance.''

The two groups released their study - with separate reports tailored for each metropolitan area in the country - to increase pressure on Congress, which is working on a new federal transportation act to replace the 7-year-old Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act, which expires at the end of the month.

``We know what people are interested in, and people are interested in how much they have to pay,'' said Bill Walker, a spokesman for the Environmental Working Group. ``And if in the process of hearing about that they hear that transportation law is broken and needs reform, so much the better.''

The study, based on more than 550,000 data records obtained from the U.S. Department of Transportation under the Freedom of Information Act, focused on urban and suburban highways - less than 3 percent of the road miles in metro areas, but which carry more than one-third of all traffic in the nation's cities.

The study found that while the L.A. area ranks ninth in percentage of bad roads, Caltrans is doing a better-than-average job of repairing roads in California. The state Department of Transportation is spending an annual average of $306,046 per mile on highway repairs, compared with a national average of $210,695.

Caltrans' Mike Miles, director of maintenance in the L.A. area, said money for road rehabilitation was increased last year and will stay at higher levels for the next five years.

He said Caltrans agrees with the study's findings of 46 percent of the urban highways in mediocre or poor condition.

``We have a five-year program to lower this number,'' Miles said. ``Ideally we would like to have no pavement that has any distress.''

The California Transportation Commission decided last year to commit more funds to road rehabilitation after realizing they had degraded too much, said commission Executive Director Robert Remen.

``There has been a major increase in funding for highway rehabilitation in California,'' Remen said. ``We're in the middle of that process now, and it will take some additional time to catch up. But the funding is being reserved for that over the next seven years.''

CAPTION(S):

2 charts

Chart: (1) Repair costs

(2) Bad roads