How fast — and how often — LA actually closes a 311 request

When you report something to Los Angeles through 311, how long until the city actually closes the request — and does it close it at all? We took every resident-facing request filed between August 21 and October 6, 2026 — 202,678 of them — and followed each one forward. Every case in that window has had at least two weeks to resolve, so this measures follow-through, not a backlog that simply hasn’t had time yet.

For most everyday requests, LA is genuinely fast. A right-of-way obstructions request typically closes in about 7 hours, and 32% of them close at all; the routine junk-and-graffiti workload that dominates 311 turns around in a day or two. Two numbers tell each category’s story: how quickly a closed case closes, and what share of the filed cases close at all.

The contrast at the bottom of the list is the real finding. Potholes & street pavement requests that do close take a median of about 20 hours — but follow-through is the sharper gap: only 12% of landscape maintenance requests filed in this window have closed at all, versus 32% of right-of-way obstructions requests. Speed and completion are different promises, and the city keeps them unevenly depending on what you ask for.

A few request types are missing from the table on purpose. Homeless encampments, Sidewalk problems, and Streetlight repair almost never reach a “Closed” status in the 311 feed within this window — they’re routed for outreach, referral, or long-horizon capital work rather than closed like a graffiti job. Reporting them as “0% fixed” would be misleading, so we leave them out rather than score a lifecycle the data can’t see.