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Measure HLA two years in

On March 5, 2024, Angelenos voted to make our streets safer and more multimodal, by passing Measure HLA with a nearly two thirds majority.

On March 5, 2025, we published a blog post, talking about what happened in the first year since passage. Here we’ll reflect on the two-year anniversary of HLA passing.

Similar to last year, LA’s streets remain some of the most dangerous in the nation. More than 500 people have been killed in traffic violence since HLA passed, with many more thousands injured. LA continues to have the most pedestrian deaths in the nation with fatality rates higher than our peer cities. Commuters still waste hours in traffic, bus riders face delays and unreliable service, bike riders continue to get around on close to zero infrastructure, and Angelenos across the City struggle to navigate broken sidewalks.

The good stuff that’s happened in the last year:

  1. The city passed an implementation ordinance, which went into effect on August 18, 2025. This was an important step in providing specific guidance to city departments on how to implement HLA.

  2. City Planning passed an HLA Standard Elements Table, which sets specific implementation standards for each Mobility Plan Network type (you can view a map of the different networks here).

  3. Joe Linton (in his personal capacity) filed the first HLA lawsuit against the City of LA. In the lawsuit, Joe argues that the City’s implementation ordinance’s mandatory appeals process is illegal, as it makes it harder for Angelenos to dispute the City’s HLA compliance. He also argues that HLA applies to projects that the City undertakes with Metro (such as the Vermont BRT corridor, which lacks HLA’s required bike lanes). Lastly, he argues that the City has specifically violated HLA when it repaved Vermont Ave’s service roads but didn’t implement the required bike lanes. It’s good to hold the City accountable, and we’ll see what the court says.

  4. The City is advancing some projects on mobility plan corridors and exceeding HLA requirements. A good example is the City’s Pico Boulevard Safety and Mobility Plan Project; a Class II (unprotected) bike lane is required under HLA, but the City is choosing to implement a Class IV (protected) bike lane.

The bad stuff that’s happened in the last year:

  1. The City has completely stopped repaving streets! As a result, the City’s Pavement Condition Index (how the City measures the quality of our asphalt) is expected to drop from an average of 60 to 53, in a single fiscal year. The City seems to have stopped repaving streets because it can’t afford to comply with new PROWAG standards for curb ramps, but this is having a side effect of slowing HLA implementation to a crawl.

  2. The City has rejected nearly all HLA appeals filed under their (likely illegal) appeals process. Particularly egregiously, the City is often using an excuse that it’s “restriping without making other improvements” (which is a valid HLA carve out we put in to give the City flexibility) when it’s in fact not restriping, but changing the striping.

  3. The Mayor’s initial budget, released in April of 2025, would have devastated our streets, deeply cutting staffing at LADOT, StreetsLA, and the Bureau of Engineering. Thankfully, due to the work of Budget Chair Katy Yaroslavsky, all layoffs were avoided, but there were still deep cuts done to these departments’ budgets, which continue to have a knock on effect, such as the City potentially having to give back over $100M in grant funding it previously won from the state, because it can’t seem to deliver the grant-funded projects.

  4. The City’s overall fiscal condition continues to worsen, and we are paying out over $100M in lawsuits per year related to poor infrastructure.

  5. People continue to die horrific deaths in our streets; just in the last 30 days, a pregnant mother was crushed to death while riding a bike with her family on Pershing Drive, a street that had, and lost, road safety improvements. And an elderly driver hit a cyclist before crashing into a grocery store in Westwood, killing three people and injuring others.

Two years after HLA was adopted, the City is slow walking HLA implementation, and people continue to die in our streets due to traffic violence. Our City is starving for resources, and is letting our streets and sidewalks degrade faster than it can fix them. These things need to change for not just HLA to be implemented and the will of the voters respected, but also to provide Angelenos a quality city and the quality of life they deserve.