By David Garrick / San Diego Union-Tribune / March 28, 2026
San Diego’s budget crisis is expanding already-long backlogs for streetlight repairs, sidewalk fixes, graffiti removal and requests for stop signs and speed bumps — and things are expected to get even worse.
The backlogs have been sharply on the rise because budget cuts last July limited overtime hours in the Transportation Department and filling vacancies with new hires has been essentially prohibited since December.
And a $120 million deficit the city faces in the new budget for fiscal 2027 is expected to require across-the-board cuts instead of the $55 million funding increase transportation officials say is needed to shrink the backlogs.
The quality of city roads is also in jeopardy. Transportation officials say $248 million per year is needed to get city roads up to national standards, but San Diego now spends about one-third of that with no increases likely.
“We simply don’t have the resources or the budget to provide the level of service where we are making progress,” the city’s interim transportation director, Naomi Chavez, said this winter. “The same will happen in fiscal year 2027 if nothing changes. Without these resources, we continue to slip further and further behind.”
The steadily growing backlogs have reached startling levels: 7,142 for streetlight repairs, 8,285 for sidewalk fixes, 6,738 for road striping and signage jobs, 2,350 for stop signs and speed bumps and 6,765 for code-compliance issues like graffiti.
The streetlight repair backlog grew by 153 in February as crews fixed 342 streetlights while 495 new service requests came in. City officials say that backlog has been growing by an average of more than 1,900 per year.
They stress that the backlog would be far worse — about 8,500 instead of 7,142 — if the city hadn’t re-directed in October millions in parking meter revenue away from neighborhood groups toward streetlight repairs.
In the new budget, transportation officials are requesting a $30.5 million increase in funding to create a fully dedicated streetlight repair team with 32 new employees.
The sidewalk repair backlog grows by an average of 1,100 locations per year, and the average response time to requests has risen to about eight years.
And some notable success the city has had getting property owners to help fix sidewalks is now in jeopardy because of the budget crisis.
The city fixed more than 1,200 areas of sidewalk during the fiscal year that ended last June — triple the previous high from fiscal 2021 — thanks to a carrot-and-stick campaign launched in 2023.
City officials began notifying thousands of property owners that they could be liable for injuries caused by damaged adjacent sidewalks but that if they paid for the repairs, the city would waive the $2,200 permit fee.
Funding for that fee waiver expires with the end of the ongoing budget year in June — and transportation officials expressed pessimism the new budget will include $450,000 needed to keep the program going.
They contend the program comes with significant return on investment. It has spurred $1.5 million in private spending on sidewalk repair and prevented a hard-to-estimate number of sidewalk injury lawsuits.
In addition to that money, transportation officials are asking for a $7.3 million increase in funding to create a new sidewalk repair team with 18 new employees.
On stop signs, speed bumps and other traffic safety requests, the backlog grew by 487 requests from fiscal year 2024 to 2025 — a 26% jump from 1,863 to 2,350 in just one year.
In the new budget, the Transportation Department wants an increase of $6.7 million for a new “quick build” team to more rapidly install safety features such as crosswalks, flashing beacons, colored curbs and roundabouts.
Other budget requests from the department include $2.4 million to buy and install new signs announcing lower speed limits in neighborhoods across the city and $1 million for a comprehensive survey of the condition of all city streets.
Such surveys are supposed to be conducted once every four years.
The last comprehensive street survey, completed in 2023, showed that the city’s rating had dropped from 71, which is “satisfactory,” down to 63, which is “fair.” The national standard is 70.
While not a formal budget request this spring because of the city’s fiscal crisis, transportation officials have said repeatedly that even maintaining a score of 65 would cost an estimated $1.7 billion over 10 years — $1 billion more than the city is projected to spend.
And transportation officials say that without new sources of money for fixes, the overall condition of the city’s streets will steadily decline to a “poor” rating of 53 by 2035.
Councilmember Kent Lee said this winter that the dire predicament facing the city’s Transportation Department should have been the centerpiece of the campaign for a 2024 ballot measure to raise the city’s sales tax. That measure failed.
Lee said he was pleased to see a summary of transportation officials’ wish list but questioned why a department would ask for so many funding increases during a budget crisis.
Department officials said they want the public to know about the backlogs — and want the City Council to know the risks of litigation that come with some of the ongoing neglect.
Councilmember Marni von Wilpert said this winter she was frustrated that the budget crisis threatens to erase some recent progress.
“It’s hard to see that some of the backlogs we’ve finally improved may grow again,” von Wilpert said during the January meeting of the council’s Active Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.
Mayor Todd Gloria and his supporters on the City Council consistently waive developer fees in the false belief this will help address the homeless problem. The true problem is none of them understand the longterm infrastructure funding system created by post World War 2 governments to maintain, repair, and carry into the future street, sidewalk, storm drain, curb and gutter urban infrastructure. Once a developer hands over title to said infrastructure, the City Council assumes the care and support of those systems forever. Think about this when sidewalks are buckling from tree roots, asphalt is crumbling from gasoline spills, and vehicular accidents rip apart stoplights, light poles, and safety railings.