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When I wrote last week about one of my favorite mountain ranges — L.A.‘s sidewalks — I immediately began fielding questions.

People wanted to know about the scoring system that awarded just 15 points, out of 45, to John Coanda and his wife, Barbara, who uses a wheelchair because of ALS. The Mar Vista couple had applied to the city’s Safe Sidewalks program to have some busted-up sidewalk in front of their home repaired.

With several sidewalk hazards on both sides of their block, Barbara can’t safely make it down her street. So how is it possible that under L.A.’s “Sidewalk Repair Program Prioritization and Scoring System,” their meager 15 points means they could be waiting “in excess of 10 years” for help?

I have the answers.

The Coandas got 15 points for being in a residential zone. But they didn’t meet the requirements for getting two additional awards of 15 points. They do not live within 500 feet of a bus or transit stop. And they had not been in the sidewalk repair backlog queue for more than 120 days.

It is not clear, however, that moving up to a score of 30 will bring out city work crews in less than 10 years. Knowing what I know, I wouldn’t bet on it.

The scoring system exists because in a lawsuit settlement 10 years ago, the city agreed to spend $1.4 billion over 30 years to repair damaged sidewalks and other infrastructure failures that impede the mobility of people with disabilities.

But there’s a backlog. A huge backlog, in the thousands. At my request, the city disclosed on Friday that it’s receiving about twice as many new disability-access repair requests each year as it’s addressing. In addition, the backlog for disability access requests and from residents applying for a sidewalk repair rebate program stands at roughly 30,000, with about 600 repairs being made each year.

As I said in a previous column, L.A. might indeed be all buttoned up by the ‘28 Olympics, but that would be 3028, not 2028.

Cracked sidewalks, to be clear, are but a symptom of a deeper, decades-long breakdown at City Hall. Basic services have been sacrificed to pay for employee compensation and pension costs the city can’t afford, with homeless services adding to the budget crisis.

By the way, I heard from one reader in response to my suggestion last week that if you can’t wait 10 years or more for the city to fix a broken sidewalk, you can apply to the rebate program, which will cover a portion of repairs. Don’t bother, said Lori Lerner Gray, who owns a house in Silver Lake and applied two years ago, but finally gave up.

“There is a massive waiting list and it’s a very complicated procedure just to try to get on it, let alone speak with anyone to help,” Gray said. “Once you finally get into the program, it’s impossible to proceed because of permits, engineering reports and finally you are required to bring the entire area to ADA compliance on your own dime.”

She said she was told she’d have to pay to relocate a utility pole.

And sidewalks aren’t the only infrastructure problem, as other readers noted. The city is way behind on filling potholes, repaving streets, installing curb ramps, making park improvements and replacing broken lights. I recently wrote about all the blight around City Hall, including the graffiti-tagged monument and fountain that has been inoperable for most of the last 60 years.

Oren Hadar, a Mid-City resident who writes about housing and transportation on his The Future Is L.A. website, reported last year in a Times op-ed that city streets were falling apart because the city had switched from repaving entire roads to doing what it called “large asphalt repair.”

With the switch, the city avoided federal requirements to upgrade curb ramps on repaved streets, Hadar said. He told me that when he travels to other cities near or far, “I’m always jealous of everything. Sidewalks are in better shape or there are better bike lanes. … You could go to even Santa Monica or Culver City. You don’t have to go far to see infrastructure that’s better.”

Other major cities have had formal infrastructure plans for years, while L.A. has ducked and dithered. Finally, earlier this month, Mayor Karen Bass introduced the city’s long-awaited CIP (capital infrastructure program), and offered a brutal assessment of what went wrong.

“For too long,” she said in the executive summary, “information has been scattered across departments, buried in lengthy reports and budgets, and difficult to fully understand. These challenges have had real consequences, contributing to decades of underinvestment in our built environment.”

The summary reads like an indictment of City Hall leadership and the manner in which public spaces have deteriorated. With Bass running for reelection, voters have to decide whether her role in those failures is grounds for dismissal, or her campaign-season pitch for a new day should help earn her a second term.

The report, with backing by members of the City Council, cited “fragmented systems and data silos,” “no shared vision across city departments,” “growing maintenance deferrals,” “slow, inefficient capital planning,” no “project intake standards,” “highly decentralized and uncoordinated grants,” “resource planning and staffing misalignment,” and “opaque capital planning process.”

Way to go, team.

You could take many of those same critiques and apply them to the haphazard way in which city and county leaders have addressed homelessness.

However, the city’s infrastructure plan does offer a framework for assessing the damage and prioritizing projects, and using charter reform to create a public works director position with greater authority. None of this will happen quickly, and given the budget crunch, you might be wondering how any of this would be paid for.

The suggestions in the report include bonds, a parcel tax, grants, fees on tickets to concerts and sporting events, fees on taxi and rideshare trips, and much, much more. None of this will be popular, especially if the public is unconvinced that city leaders can be trusted with more money.

Urban planner Deborah Murphy, chair of the city’s pedestrian advisory committee, noted that L.A. has gotten grants or state funding in the past for specific projects and then, because of staffing shortages or other stumbles, failed to hold up its end of the deal.

“It kind of ruins our reputation for getting future money,” Murphy said.

Jessica Meaney, executive director of Investing in Place and a longtime advocate for the infrastructure plan, is thrilled that the city has finally taken this step.

“But the key question is: who is actually in charge of making it happen?” she asked.

It’s critical, Meaney suggested, for city leaders to push for charter reform that puts infrastructure authority under a newly empowered public works director. If the city gets this right, she said, implementation of the infrastructure plan “could finally show Angelenos the true scale of deferred maintenance, make trade-offs visible, and create a road map for better sidewalks, streets, parks, and accessibility.”

If the current fragmented authority remains in place, Meaney said, the headline would be:

“No one is in charge of your sidewalk and City Hall is determined to keep it that way.”

steve.lopez@latimes.com

YEREVAN, Armenia — European leaders on Monday said President Trump’s surprise decision to pull thousands of U.S. troops out of Germany is just the latest signal that Europe must take more responsibility for its security.

The Pentagon announced last week it would pull some 5,000 troops out of Germany, but Trump told reporters on Saturday the U.S. plans on “cutting a lot further.”

Trump offered no reason for the move, which blindsided NATO. But his decision came amid an escalating dispute with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who said the U.S. has been humiliated by Iran in talks to end the war it launched with Israel on Feb. 28. Trump has also expressed anger over European allies’ reluctance to get involved in the conflict.

European leaders meeting at a summit in Yerevan, Armenia, sought to both downplay the impact of 5,000 fewer troops in Germany while acknowledging that it provides a useful nudge for the continent to step up its role within NATO.

“I do not see those figures as dramatic, but I think they should be handled in a harmonious way inside the framework of NATO,” said Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said “there needs to be a stronger European element in NATO, I have no doubt about that.”

Tensions within NATO have mounted since the second Trump administration came into office last year warning that European allies would have to defend themselves and Ukraine in the future. Talks on ending the war there, now in its fourth year, have bogged down as the U.S. focuses on Iran.

Taken by surprise

The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said the timing of Trump’s announcement came as a surprise, even though there has been “talk about withdrawal of U.S. troops for a long time from Europe.”

Asked whether she believes Trump is trying to punish Merz, Kallas said: “I don’t see into the head of President Trump, so he has to explain it himself.”

Merz did not attend the European Political Community summit in Yerevan, which included about 30 European leaders, plus Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.

At a military exercise in northern Germany, the country’s defense minister, Boris Pistorius, said Berlin has not yet received “official confirmation of when and how this is supposed to happen, on what scale.” The reduction of U.S. troops “would not put into question NATO’s deterrence capability,” he added.

European countries and Canada have increased defense spending and military recruitment efforts over the last year in response to Trump’s threats.

NATO seeks clarity

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte also played down the significance of fewer U.S. troops in Germany, while acknowledging U.S. “disappointment” about the level of European support for the Iran war.

France and the U.K. have given U.S. forces limited use of bases on their territories to attack Iran. Spain has outright denied U.S. forces the use of its airspace and bases.

Rutte, who has championed Trump’s leadership at NATO despite the U.S. president’s criticism of a majority of the allies, said: “I would say the Europeans have heard a message.”

European allies and Canada have known since early last year that Trump would pull some troops out of Europe — and some were pulled out of Romania in October — but U.S. officials had pledged to coordinate any moves with NATO allies to avoid creating a security vacuum.

NATO spokesperson Allison Hart said over the weekend that officials at the 32-nation military alliance “are working with the U.S. to understand the details of their decision on force posture in Germany.”

Iran and trade trouble

With the ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran looking shakier, Rutte said European nations “have decided to pre-position assets, key assets, close to the theater for the next phase.” He provided no further details.

European leaders have insisted their countries would not help police the Strait of Hormuz, a key energy trade route, until the war is over.

“If the United States is ready to reopen Hormuz, that’s great. That’s what we’ve been asking for since the beginning,” said French President Emmanuel Macron. But he underlined that Europeans are not ready to get involved in any operation “that does not seem clear.”

Carlson and Cook write for the Associated Press. Cook reported from Brussels. AP writer Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report.

The smartest thing Trump can do for the United States is to adopt a “cake-sharing” strategy to cope with the arrival of a multipolar era. He wants to ensure that America still gets the largest slice of the cake, with its power base rooted in traditional energy—oil and natural gas.

This aligns well with “Cold War thinking.” From the perspective of oil reserves, the United States plus its friendly Gulf states accounts for about 55%–60% of the global total. If Venezuela—now under U.S. control—is added, the share rises to 72%–77%.

Spreading out the energy map, according to estimates by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Greenland holds approximately 39 billion barrels of oil equivalent (combining East and West Greenland). Cuba has 4–5 billion barrels.

Nigeria, a major oil-producing country in Africa, has 37 billion barrels of oil reserves. The Trump administration has threatened military action against it under the pretext of “persecuting Christians.”

Iran’s oil reserves stand at 2,086 billion barrels, accounting for 13.3% of the global total.

The regions Trump has singled out—Iran, Venezuela, Greenland, Cuba, and Nigeria—clearly show that he is deciding how to “share the cake” with China and Russia based on the traditional energy map.

Although reserves and actual output are two different things, for Trump this is irrelevant. What he puts on the negotiating table is merely a piece of paper for “bidding”—he doesn’t need to worry about minor details.

On the other side of the negotiating table, China’s chips are new energy and critical minerals. In the area of critical minerals, Iran, Venezuela, Greenland, Cuba, and Nigeria all possess rich potential, and all have varying degrees of investment and cooperation ties with China.

One reason Trump scorns “new energy” may be that, within his limited term, competing with China in the new energy field is simply impossible. In the traditional energy domain, however, the United States holds a significant advantage.

Successfully pocketing Venezuela has encouraged Trump to take risks in Iran. Originally, Trump wanted to approach Beijing for a major deal from the position of a traditional energy hegemon, but Iran’s fierce resistance has dampened his ambitions. The United States has been outmaneuvered by Iran, and Trump has postponed his visit to China.

Iranian President Pezeshkian publicly stated: “China is now also seen by the United States as its main enemy; we are just next in line. They want to take us down first, then deal with China.” Behind this statement lies the landscape of U.S.-China competition over energy and critical minerals.

It cannot be said that Trump is unrealistic—this “cake-sharing” strategy has its own rationality. Nor can it be said that Trump has overestimated America’s military strength, because he knows very well that the United States cannot even handle the Houthis, let alone Iran. One can only say that the success of the “decapitation operation” in Venezuela has inflated his sense of luck, and Israel has exploited this psychology to successfully lure Trump into risking involvement in Iran.

The United States and Israel jointly eliminated the appeasement faction in Tehran and greatly underestimated Iran’s counterattack capability. They wanted to control oil but ended up being controlled by Iran on oil export routes. This is a complete strategic failure, and its medium- to long-term damage to the United States far exceeds the energy sector.

We don’t even need to discuss the rise and fall of petrodollars versus petroyuan—just look at the new energy sector. This round of energy crisis has greatly heightened the global urgency for new energy development, and the countries and regions most urgently in need are precisely America’s allies worldwide, including the Gulf states.

America’s allies are mostly developed countries. They have long recognized that China is a superpower in new energy. Before the Iran war, the broader Western camp was developing new energy while trying to reduce dependence on Iran. Now, however, the sense of urgency has pushed these countries to rely even more deeply on China.

These countries and regions include France, Germany, Portugal, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the European Union, as well as India, Japan, South Korea, and Southeast Asian nations such as Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, and Indonesia. They are either industrially advanced or rapidly industrializing countries that heavily depend on stable energy supplies.

In the core area of the Iran war—the Gulf states—are also actively accelerating the development of new energy industries, with the solar industry as the key focus. China is the only source capable of providing cheap, high-quality equipment and products. After the war ends, Iran may also exchange oil for the components needed for new energy development with China, achieving economic diversification like the Gulf states and reducing reliance on oil exports.

China’s solar equipment originally suffered from overcapacity; now it stands to gain relief.

What revolves around the core issues of new energy is nothing more than industrial supply chains and critical minerals. In this regard, mainland China’s industrial strength needs no emphasis. In critical minerals, the Democratic Republic of the Congo—China’s deep cooperation partner—will see half of its cobalt mines belong to Chinese enterprises. Given that Congo holds the world’s largest cobalt reserves, China will possess an indisputable “cobalt dominance.” Cobalt is a key mineral for lithium-ion batteries.

In addition, graphite and tantalum are also dominated by China. Tantalum is a critical metal for capacitors, which are essential for stabilizing wind and solar power generation. Graphite is the anode material for lithium-ion batteries and an indispensable mineral for renewable energy storage systems and solar panel production.

Currently, renewable energy plus nuclear power accounts for 40% of global electricity generation, while fossil fuels still account for 60%. However, when looking at the global share of “capacity” (installed capacity) for renewable energy plus nuclear, it has already reached about 55%. Among this, renewable energy accounts for 49.4% and nuclear for about 5%.

“Capacity” refers to installed capacity—in plain terms, the theoretical maximum power generation. The actual global generation share of renewable energy is about 32%. The gap between theoretical and actual values exists because renewable energy generation is less stable than fossil fuels. Adding nuclear’s actual generation share (about 8%), the actual generation share of so-called low-carbon energy reaches 40% globally.

There is no doubt that the oil crisis will inevitably trigger a “green energy surge.” Looking ahead five years, the actual generation share of green energy will exceed 50%. Assuming nuclear can grow to 10% of actual generation and renewables grow by 8%, China’s additional revenue from the global renewable energy business in the next five years could reach the level of hundreds of billions of dollars.

From this perspective, China—which strongly supported green energy development from the very beginning of the climate agenda—did so not so much for carbon reduction as for industrial preparation in the name of energy security. Expanding the global new energy business is merely an added value.

Of course, the key technologies for manufacturing new energy equipment may be even more important than critical minerals. Last November, China imposed export controls on certain lithium batteries, key cathode and anode materials, and their manufacturing equipment and technologies. Given that China controls about 96% of global anode material production capacity and 85% of cathode material capacity, the impact of these export controls is enormous.

On April 15, according to Reuters, China has held preliminary consultations with solar panel production equipment suppliers and is considering restricting exports of the most advanced technologies and equipment to the United States. If true, Beijing is raising the stakes in new energy, waiting for Trump to come to the negotiating table in May.

Admittedly, Trump has no intention of developing new energy. However, considering that the Democrats may return to the White House in three years, Beijing is now blocking America’s path to new energy development, essentially laying the groundwork for U.S.-China competition three years from now.

If Trump’s energy strategy map on the table also included a new energy layer, he should realize that the setback in the Iran war has allowed the new energy domain to encroach upon the traditional energy domain, enabling China to expand its energy power without firing a single shot. As for critical minerals, the United States has made no outstanding progress—at least nothing sufficient for Trump to boast about.

Now, the “cake” being pushed in front of Xi Jinping is getting bigger and bigger. On the surface, Beijing has gained it effortlessly, but today’s harvest is mainly due to strategic 布局 made one step ahead. These layouts are often “low-profit” but highly effective investments, and new energy is merely one of them.

In an uncertain world, those who provide “certainty” win. Therefore, the winner of the Iran war is China—even if Beijing is extremely reluctant to admit it.