LOS ANGELES — There was a time when what has become known here simply as the Rock — the 340-ton boulder that the Los Angeles County Museum of Art is installing as a major piece of outdoor art — was supposed to begin its nine-day trip from a quarry in Riverside, Calif., in August. With little fanfare, that date slipped until September. And then October. And now ... .

Well, Happy New Year. The boulder that is at the center of “Levitated Mass,” the work by Michael Heizer, a California sculptor, is all packed up — swaddled in white plastic — and ready to go, but remains stranded in its granite quarry 60 miles away from the museum’s campus. Art, so far, has been unable to overcome the bureaucratic tangle that is greater Los Angeles in the 21st century for an admittedly complicated task: moving a 21-foot-high boulder, set on top of a 196-wheel transporter built for this purpose, through 100 miles of roads in one of the biggest municipalities in the country.

The problem arose in September when, at what was just about the last moment, engineers determined that a bridge in Pomona might not be able to accommodate the weight of the rock. (And why take chances?) That meant redrawing part of a route that had been a year in the making. And that, said Michael Govan, the executive director of the museum, meant taking the rock through three new cities in Los Angeles County, requiring three new sets of negotiations, pleadings and applications for various permits.

Image Routes proposed for moving the artwork by Michael Heizer. Credit... The New York Times

“It’s quite a significant reroute,” Mr. Govan said.

“We traverse 21 cities and three counties over a 100-mile route,” he added. “You can’t think of another place in the country where it’s that densely covered. The real heavy lifting here is the bureaucracy and the permissions.”