Let's put that number in context. San Francisco's annual budget is north of $14 billion. Thirty-three million dollars spread across two years works out to about $16.5 million a year — for a city with roughly 1,250 miles of streets, many of which look like they've been shelled. If you've ever driven down a stretch of SoMa or navigated the craters around the Bayview, you know the problem isn't limited to a few bad blocks.

The geographic focus on the northeast and southeast is interesting. These are areas with heavy commuter traffic, ongoing development, and — in the case of neighborhoods like the Tenderloin and Bayview — long histories of deferred maintenance. Prioritizing them makes sense from a triage standpoint. But it also means vast swaths of the city will continue to rattle your suspension and test your patience.

The deeper issue is how San Francisco got here. Years of bloated city contracts, sluggish permitting, and a bureaucratic culture that treats urgency as optional have left our roads in embarrassing shape for a world-class city. We spend more per capita on government than nearly anywhere in the country, yet basic services like smooth roads still feel like a luxury.

Credit where it's due: mapping out priority streets and committing real dollars is better than the usual vague promises. But $33 million is a band-aid on a problem that demands a tourniquet. San Franciscans deserve infrastructure spending that matches the taxes they pay — and a city government that treats road maintenance as a baseline obligation, not a headline-worthy achievement.

Fix the roads. Then fix the system that let them fall apart.