For all the usual gripes about torn-up roads and deteriorating pipes, L.A. voters remain hesitant about writing out a check. And who can blame them? If all the necessary repairs and renovations are carried out, the check could run into the hundreds of billions of dollars.

Consider the mixed message that came out of last week’s election. Voters said yes to spending money sprucing up libraries and the L.A. Zoo both popular and very limited initiatives that are easy to understand and campaign for. Local voters, along with the rest of the state’s electorate, also approved billions of dollars in bonds to upgrade and build new schools throughout the state.

But they also turned down measures to redevelop Exposition Park and repair the city’s decaying sidewalks.

And even if they all passed, none of these single-shot measures would make a dent on the area’s growing infrastructure problem. The question is, are voters willing to pony up the huge sums required to fix up the region’s streets, bridges, sewers and water supply?

And will they make those decisions in time to keep up with the area’s rapidly growing population?

“In the past, if we came out and told the public that we need to invest several hundred billion dollars in local infrastructure over the next 20 years, we would have been laughed away as crazy,” said Mark Pisano, executive director of the Southern California Association of Governments.

“But I think that’s beginning to change now, especially as we look at the recent election results. Infrastructure needs have now been put on the table. The public is willing to discuss this issue now, and political leaders from the gubernatorial candidates on down are willing to discuss it. This opens the dialogue and, as a result, we will be looking at the region’s total infrastructure needs,” he said.

“Each election cycle, the voters get smarter,” said Richard Lichtenstein, president of L.A.-based Marathon Communications, a public relations and advocacy firm. “They are discerning how and where government will spend money wisely and where they will waste money.”

The key to victory on infrastructure measures, Lichtenstein said, is in the selling. “The public is willing to pay for infrastructure improvements if you explain the need well, and there has been a trust built up,” he said.

On the zoo bonds, for example, the campaign centered on the need for improvements and showed that past investments in the zoo had been put to good use. The result: It garnered 80 percent support, one of the highest margins for a bond measure in L.A. city history.

Certainly, school bonds have done well in this and other recent elections. Virtually every school bond measure that was on the ballot in Southern California last week passed, including four in L.A. County totaling $416 million, a $1 billion bond measure in San Diego County, and the statewide $9.2 billion measure put on the ballot by the state Legislature earlier this year.

On the other hand, there was virtually no campaign for the $769.4 million sidewalk repair bond measure, leaving voters to wonder about the need and whether the money would be spent wisely. Both the L.A. Daily News and the L.A. Times came out against the proposal.

And, given the track record of mismanagement by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, it was little surprise that Measure A, the proposal by L.A. County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky to cut off sales-tax funds for future subway projects, passed overwhelmingly. Supporters of future subway projects on the Eastside protested the initiative, but realized its passage was virtually inevitable and didn’t bother to place an opposing argument on the ballot.

Actually mounting a campaign is no guarantee of success. The $46.5 million bond measure to rehabilitate the Rose Garden and municipal swimming pool and to partly finance construction of a new learning center at Exposition Park failed to garner the two-thirds support necessary to pass.

“The two-thirds hurdle is rather formidable,” said William Fulton, editor of the Ventura-based California Planning and Development Report. “It means you really have to play hardball politics to get things passed. Advocates for school projects have figured this out, getting architects and construction companies to contribute to the campaigns. Advocates of other types of infrastructure projects haven’t yet figured this out.”

No doubt the economic good times have contributed to the kind of generosity from voters that allowed school bond measures to pass. But political consultants say the success of these measures is due more to the fact that education, like public safety five years ago, is now the “crisis du jour.”

“Education is now at the top of everybody’s agenda. There is a widespread perception that the education system in California is in crisis, and the public has, time and again, supported funds for education,” said Allan Zaremberg, president of the California Chamber of Commerce.

Other areas of the state’s infrastructure have not generated that same sense of crisis, even though serious problems exist and are likely to worsen over time.

“People turn on their taps and water comes out. They don’t see a crisis in our water supply. But one is coming; it’s just more difficult to get people’s attention until the crisis hits,” Zaremberg said.

In many areas, the state’s infrastructure faces a two-fold problem: physical deterioration as the pipes, roads and bridges age, and the fact that the infrastructure itself can’t expand fast enough to keep up with the state’s growth. The resulting backlog of needed work is thus growing exponentially.

This “infrastructure deficit” is so big that it has finally caught the attention of the state’s business community. Last summer, the California Business Roundtable a group of many of the state’s large, blue-chip firms like Atlantic Richfield Co. and Hewlett Packard Co. issued a report calling for $90 billion worth of public investments over the next 10 years. About $42 billion of that would go to K-12 and higher education; another $30 billion would go toward transportation and housing.

The report identified about $60 billion in existing funds that can be used for these projects, leaving a shortfall of about $30 billion.

“Our members are telling us that adequate public facilities are absolutely essential to economic growth,” said Business Roundtable Executive Director William Hauk.

Locally, the figures are even more daunting, at least on a per-capita basis. A 1996 report by L.A. City Administrative Officer Keith Comrie said the city faces a $44 billion “infrastructure shortfall” by 2010. Almost $20 billion of that is needed for maintaining city streets and improving transportation, including $5 billion for maintaining hillside roads, $3 billion for street widening, and another $5 billion for transit projects.

The report also calls for another $9 billion to expand the city’s park system and $8 billion to maintain the city’s wastewater system over the next 10 years.

“Much of this infrastructure spending will be for maintaining and replacing existing systems,” Fulton said. “L.A. is a maturing metropolis, and, as such, it faces many problems that until now have primarily been faced by the older Eastern cities. And it’s really hard to catch up on these projects once you fall behind, as L.A. has since the passage of Proposition 13.”

But that’s not all. In its most recent 20-year transportation plan issued last year, SCAG is calling for an estimated $80 billion in transit improvements for Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties, according to Pisano. The transit plan includes expanding local airports, upgrading freeways, building commuter rail projects, improving the bus system and building dedicated truck transitways.

Pisano said the region’s other infrastructure needs including water supply and sewers also call for spending in the tens of billions, but SCAG has until now avoided putting dollar figures on them, in part out of fear of a public backlash.