San Francisco has the reputation as the city with streets so steep your ankles buckle and your brakes give out, but it's actually Los Angeles that can claim at least four of the nation's steepest streets. Mount Washington's Eldred Street, built in 1912, is the steepest in our city, according to Fixr (via Streetsblog), though the LA Times reported back in 2003 that a short stretch of San Pedro's Twenty-Eighth Street has a 33.3 percent grade. Eldred certainly carries its vertical angle for longer than Twenty-Eight, and the former has caused trucks to lose their cargo and made even the US Postal Service give up (mail is now delivered at the bottom of Eldred). Dead-end Eldred, which has 196 wooden steps that help pedestrians reach the nearby cross street of Cross Avenue, features some killer views of Mount Baldy and the San Gabriels. Nearly as steep are Silver Lake streets Baxter, Fargo, and Duane, which all have a 32 percent gradient.



