311 system feeling pains

For years, 311 has been advertised as the way for Los Angeles residents to request service and file complaints with one call to City Hall.Daily News.

Now, it's a victim of its own success -- and budget cuts.

Four years ago, the system had 50 operators for 1.4 million calls. This year, 311 has half as many operators to answer an estimated 1.2 million calls.

The result is a system increasingly overwhelmed with calls -- and one that crashes when operators are unavailable to answer.