The Brief

If you parked in a bus lane or at a bus stop along Wilshire Boulevard or La Brea Avenue between February and March, you might have been among the first in the city of Los Angeles to get a ticket issued in part by automated cameras.

New AI-capable cameras installed on just those two L.A. Metro bus routes helped to issue nearly 10 times the typical number of bus-related parking tickets in the program’s first month.

More than 5,500 citations were sent to cars parked in a bus lane or at a bus stop along those two routes, according to data from the L.A. Department of Transportation — a startling jump from the 570 similar tickets issued citywide in a typical month.

The first phase of the Bus Lane Enforcement Program focused on the stretches of bus lanes for the 720 and 212 routes within the city of L.A. — in all, Metro has nearly 120 bus routes.

The fines are steep at $293 each. All together, the 5,500 citations total to more than $1.6 million in fines. Those fines are divided between Metro, which collects 75%, and LADOT, which receives the remaining quarter.

To put that into context: Since 2020, the city has collected $100 million to $110 million in parking fines each year, according to Crosstown L.A. The news site, an LAist partner newsroom, reported that parking enforcement costs now exceed revenue brought in by about $65 million.

The program’s goal, however, isn't to rack up citations or collect a lot of money, said Anthony Crump, who heads community relations at Metro.

“ What we're looking to do is discourage drivers from using those bus-only lanes for things other than right turns and making sure that our buses can go as fast as possible,” Crump said.

A car parked in a bus-only zone along the 720 Metro bus route.

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Kavish Harjai

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LAist

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How ticketing works

Cameras, two per bus, were first installed to windshields on 50 buses that carry passengers along the 720 and 212 bus routes in November 2024.

LA Metro paid a company called Hayden AI $10.5 million for the equipment and to facilitate the program.

One camera detects cars in bus lanes and records a video. The other camera takes a photo of the rear license plate. Information from each camera is sent to a traffic officer at L.A. DOT who reviews the recording and photo and then makes the final determination on whether to issue a citation.

If the officer decides the evidence doesn’t warrant a citation, images are destroyed within 15 days. If a citation is disputed, the images can be kept until 60 days after a final decision is made. Even if the officer decides to issue a citation, the images have to be destroyed within six months of the incident.

For the first 60 days of the program, cars parked in bus lanes along the 720 and 212 bus routes received warnings.

“That was basically a notice to people that you need to change your behavior because now we're beginning to enforce it,” Crump said, adding that Metro used social media and physical signage to inform riders that the enforcement program was about to start.

Violators started receiving tickets on Feb. 17.

The 720 bus route runs on Wilshire Boulevard from downtown L.A. to Santa Monica. The 212 bus shuttles riders on La Brea Avenue from Hawthorne to Hollywood.

The routes were chosen because they have bus-only lanes and also have a large number of riders, Crump said.

What’s next

The violations aren't limited to those areas, as a video released by LA Metro (above) documents.

On March 10, L.A. DOT and Metro extended the cameras to buses that service the 70 and 910/950 bus routes. Both routes run from El Monte through downtown L.A., and the 910/950 routes extend down to the harbor.

So folks who park in the bus-only lanes along those routes are receiving warnings until May 9. After that point, violators can expect to receive the $293 fines.

Crump did not say when or if the camera systems will be installed on other bus routes in the city.

Other cities in California, including Culver City and Sacramento, are implementing similar programs, made possible by a bill Gov. Gavin Newsom signed in 2021 that permits the use of cameras to aid cities in issuing parking citations.

Longer wait times for graffiti removal and streetlight repair. Fewer police officers per shift. Completely eliminating school crossing guards.

Those are just some of the service cuts the city of South Gate made earlier this year as it stared down a $9.4 million annual budget deficit and a looming fiscal emergency.

But none of that was enough to convince South Gate voters to approve an 8% utility user tax that would have been tacked onto a wide range of utility bills, including electricity, water, cable and phone service. Now, the city is gearing up for more cuts, including closing sports fields and the city pool for the winter months.

South Gate’s utility tax was just one of the many ways Southern California cities asked their residents to give them more money via local tax initiatives this November, with proposed taxes on everything from hotel stays to cannabis businesses.

And those early results suggest South Gate is an outlier: Of the 32 total local tax measures on the ballot in Los Angeles and Orange counties, all but six appear poised to pass, according to early results. (There are still several more days of vote counting to come.)

Eleven transient occupancy tax measures, which tax overnight stays in hotels or short-term rentals, passed in cities from Burbank to Los Alamitos. Most cities sought to increase their existing hotel taxes by anywhere from 1 to 5 percentage points, while Lynwood residents voted to establish a hotel tax for the first time.

Business-related taxes, such as taxes on business licenses or on certain businesses, also mostly passed, as did most parcel taxes in cities including Pasadena and Culver City.

But sales taxes saw more mixed results. Cudahy, San Gabriel, Orange, Santa Ana and Los Angeles all approved sales tax measures, while voters in Diamond Bar, Hermosa Beach and San Clemente all voted down their local sales tax proposals.

Most of those sales taxes focused on maintaining basic city services in communities facing big budget deficits, driven by the rising costs of insurance, maintenance and infrastructure projects, and employee pensions, among other factors. But in San Clemente, the proposed 1% sales tax would have specifically funded sand replenishment and other beach projects, along with wildfire prevention work. That measure appeared to be headed for failure, with just 36% of voters in support as of Wednesday afternoon.

Voters in San Marino approved an extension of their utility tax, and increased it from 5% to 6%. Last year, the tax provided almost $2.2 million in revenue.

City officials in South Gate had hoped for a similar boon, and projected the utility tax would bring in an estimated $10.4 million per year in general fund revenue, while raising total utility costs by about $39 per month for a typical household.

Leading up to the election, the city of South Gate pointed to other neighboring cities that have their own utility taxes, including Downey, Lakewood and Norwalk, where the tax mostly hovers around 5%. “South Gate is the exception, not the rule,” noted one city presentation that pointed to these other taxes in a bid to coax voters to go along.

Voters weren’t convinced. “I’m extremely frustrated that you now want to do electricity, water, sewer, cable, cell phone, gas. ... That hurts us. You’re passing that on to us and that is absolutely not acceptable,” said one resident at a City Council meeting on the measure earlier this year.

LAist has reached out to the city of South Gate about what’s next for the city.

The city of West Hollywood has approved an ordinance to create a domestic partnership registry for people in polyamorous relationships.

The domestic partnership registry extends certain legal protections for people in the city, including visitation rights to hospitals and jails in West Hollywood and some tenant protections. The registry doesn’t replace the state’s marriage or the state’s domestic partnership laws.

“It's a landmark ordinance and really puts and continues to elevate West Hollywood as a city that is here to support queer people and queer families as they evolve in their needs,” said Chelsea Byers, a West Hollywood City Council member. “I think that's a real joy that we can bring to people — that they can live in a greater sense of being seen and understood.”

How it works

To file, people in a multi-partner relationship will submit a form in person that will be provided by the City Clerk’s office — all members of the relationship will have to provide identification to the clerk.

The ordinance also offers an option by mail, if the signatures are notarized.

The ordinance builds on historical precedent

In 1985, the city became the first city in the nation to create a similar domestic partnership registry for same-sex couples. Similar to that registry, people outside the city can also register.

“This new law not only gives polyamorous unions legal recognition, it also gives people permission to imagine a future together and to plan their lives openly,” said Christina Fialho, president and founder of Rewrite the BiLine, an advocacy group for bisexual people and nonnuclear families, who advocated for the ordinance.

Several cities in Massachusetts have also passed multipartner domestic partnership laws.

Among the sweeping victories by Democrats on Tuesday were wins in several congressional districts that Republicans had redrawn explicitly to boost their party ahead of the midterms.

Republicans were bracing for some losses this election cycle, so last year President Donald Trump urged his party to take the extraordinary step of engaging in mid-decade redistricting efforts.

As of Tuesday night, many of those efforts had failed.

That included in Florida, where multiple Democrats — Kathy Castor, Pia Dandiya and Jared Moskowitz — won in redrawn districts, according to race calls by the Associated Press.

In North Carolina, Democratic Rep. Don Davis held on to his 1st District seat, even though Republicans in the state redrew it to be more competitive for the GOP. Trump would have won the redrawn 1st by nearly 12 percentage points, according to the Downballot.

Trump would have won by even more in Alabama's redrawn 2nd Congressional District, which Democratic Rep. Shomari Figures held on to, according to the AP race call.

Republicans in Alabama redid the state's congressional map after the U.S. Supreme Court further weakened the Voting Rights Act earlier this year.

And in Texas, which was the first state to redistrict at Trump's urging, a few of the redrawn districts had gone to Democrats.

Republicans redrew their maps with the expectation that the coalition of voters Trump won over in 2024 would support them this cycle. In Texas, Republicans were banking on gains made with Latino voters in new maps.

But many of those voters shifted their support to Democrats this year.
Copyright 2026 NPR

Nationwide election results came at a relentless pace Tuesday night, each more of a Democratic upset than the last. But you may not have known if you were attending the California Republican Party's election night event in Garden Grove.

In the dimly lit Hyatt ballroom where gubernatorial longshot Steve Hilton and his supporters gathered, the news channels were off, the music was turned up and “Don’t Stop Believin’” blasted throughout.

Minutes after the polls closed at 8 p.m., the Associated Press called the governor’s race for Democratic favorite Xavier Becerra.

Around the room, the occasional person glanced at their phone to sneak a peek at the growing GOP carnage. More of the crowd instead looked at each other or toward the empty stage, where a lectern stood in front of a photo of the Golden Gate Bridge at sunset.

Not long after, Hilton took the stage to concede the race — which had always been heavily favored against him in a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans 2-to-1.

“Maybe this isn’t the best year to be running for office as a Republican,” Hilton told his supporters, alluding to the election results that would soon lead the Democratic Party to win so big in the House and the Senate that many dubbed it a blue tsunami. “We see what’s going on around the country.”

Hilton knew the odds were long. He’d tried a number of tactics to win over California, including a suggestive advertisement suggesting voters should “Just Try” voting for him. He’d done his best to separate himself from President Donald Trump, who backed his campaign. He also attacked Becerra for staying largely out of the limelight since making it out on top of a chaotic primary.

None of Hilton’s appeals made a significant mark on the result, which trailed at around 36% of the vote as of Wednesday afternoon.

Standing outside the ballroom, Matt Shupe, a spokesperson for the California GOP, conceded it was challenging terrain for Republicans this year across the country — and always in California.

“It’s pretty typical that the party that's not in power gains some seats, so I think that was pretty expected for the most part,” he said. “We'll plan on bringing the fight more intensely than ever in 2028.”

By 9:30 p.m., people were headed to their cars to go home.