The Brief

Los Angeles has failed to meet its Vision Zero goals.

That's the conclusion of a newly released audit, which found the city's long-running effort to eliminate traffic deaths by this year has been impeded by a lack of cohesion across departments, insufficient political support and an imbalanced approach.

In 2015, the city adopted Vision Zero, a policy framework from Sweden with the principle that no one should be killed in traffic. Then-Mayor Eric Garcetti set benchmarks for reducing traffic fatalities over a decade, culminating in the final goal of getting to zero traffic deaths by 2025.

The opposite has happened. Since the program’s adoption, traffic fatalities in L.A. have increased. In 2024, 303 people died in traffic fatalities in L.A., according to preliminary LAPD data reviewed by LAist.

“Eliminating traffic deaths is an ambitious goal but remains the correct one,” a spokesperson for the Department of Transportation said in a statement to LAist. “LADOT will continue to pursue and promote policy changes along with the most effective engineering design principles and continue to invest in proven treatments that make our streets safer.”

What’s the audit?

Following direction from the L.A. City Council in 2022, the office of the City Administrative Officer spent $500,000 on an independent contractor to evaluate the first seven years of Vision Zero.

The office of the City Administrative Officer and Department of Transportation wrote a report accompanying the audit, which was released Friday, with recommendations for the L.A. City Council “to relaunch the Vision Zero Program with a more deliberate and collaborative approach.”

What did the audit find?

While the Department of Transportation leads the city’s Vision Zero work, nearly every related project requires the participation of other agencies, including Engineering, Street Services, the LAPD and more.

In his directive establishing the program, Garcetti envisioned a Vision Zero Steering Committee made up of representatives from departments citywide to coordinate the implementation of traffic safety projects.

By mid-2018, that committee had stopped meeting, the audit found. The reduction in participation resulted in the loss of a “useful forum to collaborate on Vision Zero goals and nothing quite replaced this level of interaction,” the audit said.

The last time the Department of Transportation revised its action plan, the document that coordinates projects across city agencies, was in 2018.

The audit identified 56 “actions and strategies” from that plan that were meant to be completed by the end of 2020, including projects focused on street design and lighting and Vision Zero education campaigns.

Half of those projects remain incomplete as of the end of 2023, the audit found.

According to interviews the audit is based on, “the level of enthusiasm at City Hall” for Vision Zero has decreased since the program was launched.

“Some of the reasons cited include the pandemic, conflicts of personality, lack of total buy-in for implementation, disagreements over how the program should be administered and scaling issues,” the audit said.

Without political support and lack of communication from council members about the program, Vision Zero becomes less effective, the audit said.

“As a governing body, this city does not treat traffic violence as the public health crisis that it has become,” Damian Kevitt, the executive director of Streets Are For Everyone, told LAist.

The audit also noted that traffic enforcement in L.A. has fallen because of LAPD staffing shortages and concerns of over-policing.

“There has been a pattern observed over the years in terms of declining [driving under the influence] arrests and total citations related to safety,” the audit stated.

The audit also pointed out that the city overly focused on infrastructure and engineering, to the detriment of public education and regular monitoring of the program’s progress.

Mayor Karen Bass' office and the LAPD did not immediately respond to LAist's requests for comment.

Cyclists ride across the Sixth Street Bridge in Los Angeles in 2022.

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Trevor Stamp

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For LAist

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What’s the status of traffic fatalities in L.A.?

In 2015, the year L.A. launched Vision Zero, around 240 people people died in traffic collisions, according to state data. The number has not fallen below 280 in any year since.

And by 2024, it had increased to 303, according to an LAist review of LAPD data.

Progress on reducing traffic fatalities nationally has slowed over the last decade. The problem became worse during the pandemic, likely due to an increase in riskier behaviors, according to UC Berkeley transportation safety researcher Matthew Raifman.

Over the last decade, traffic fatalities in L.A. grew faster than the national average. His findings are based on data from 2023, which is the most recent year national data is available.

The city has more pedestrian and cyclist fatalities than the other four most populated U.S. cities, Raifman told LAist.

“That’s deeply problematic because [walking and biking] are an important mode of transportation and something that we're trying to incentivize in many American cities,” Raifman said.

A safer future?

Since the audit was completed at the end of 2023, the city's Department of Transportation identified a new network of streets that see an outsized number of collisions resulting in death or serious injury based on updated data. The department also evaluated the effectiveness of interventions to make streets safer, which the department’s spokesperson said will be used to guide future projects.

The city is expected to have automated speed cameras installed on dangerous streets by the middle of next year as a result of state legislation signed in 2023. The audit points to the success similar cameras have had in helping to reduce traffic fatalities in other cities.

The spokesperson from the Department of Transportation said city officials will “pursue additional changes in legislation" to ensure consistent enforcement and accountability for risky driving behavior such as running red lights, driving under the influence, distracted driving and excessive speed.

At the end of 2024, Bass directed the city to establish L.A.’s first Capital Improvement Plan, a long term planning document that nearly every other major U.S. city uses to prioritize and allocate funding for infrastructure projects. The city is still very early on in developing this plan, but it could help alleviate some of the coordination and planning woes the audit found.

One candidate wants to suspend a host of state environmental policies that boost the price of gas. Another wants to suspend the 61 cent-a-gallon state gas tax.

Amid a spike in gas prices fueled by President Donald Trump’s war in Iran, at least two Democratic contenders for California governor are capitalizing on the moment to push for policies they say would give drivers a break.

Recent proposals from former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan reflect how Democrats are trying to use rising gas prices, a potent election-year issue, to distinguish themselves as prioritizing the cost of living.

Their Republican opponents have been saying the same for months.

Villaraigosa is calling for a moratorium on a variety of state greenhouse-gas reduction rules that he called “failed policies.” They include carbon emissions limits at refineries, standards to reduce carbon in fuels and other rules he blames for forcing refineries to close. Such policies collectively add about 50 cents to the price of each gallon of gas, state estimates show.

Villaraigosa has received several campaign donations from the fossil fuel industry, including from Chevron, Marathon, the state’s largest oil and gas producer California Resources Corporation, and executives of two Kern County drilling companies.

Mahan supports temporarily suspending the state gas tax, but in an interview said he wouldn’t rule out also curbing some of the state’s refinery regulations.

Both candidates are lower-polling moderates, and their proposals are similar to ideas the two top-polling Republican candidates have been pushing.

Republican Steve Hilton has promised to lower the price of gas to $3 a gallon statewide by cutting the gas tax in half and eliminating policies that reduce emissions. Chad Bianco would do away with the gas tax altogether. Both Republicans would expand in-state oil drilling and keep refineries open, a goal Villaraigosa and Mahan also share.

Top-polling Democratic candidates Katie Porter, Tom Steyer and Eric Swalwell have not weighed in on what they would do to mitigate gas prices. Steyer and Swalwell on Tuesday night both dismissed the proposals of Villaraigosa and Mahan as unserious. Steyer's spokesperson Danni Wang said he would rather focus on making "sure oil companies aren’t reaping excess profits" while Swalwell's spokesperson Micah Beasley said he would prioritize keeping refineries' fuel inventories stable as the state transitions to clean energy. Porter's campaign did not respond to inquiries.

Democratic strategist Andrew Acosta said the ideas from Villaraigosa and Mahan could help the moderate Democrats boost their campaigns’ affordability bona fides, but he questioned whether they will make a difference in a crowded race in which voters are not yet paying much attention.

The latest polling shows Mahan and Villaraigosa tied with just 3% of likely voters’ support, but a quarter of those surveyed remain undecided on a candidate. Both have been dwarfed in ad spending by self-funding billionaire candidate Steyer, and Acosta said the gas proposals won’t gain traction if the candidates don’t spend big to promote them on TV.

“It could be a ploy, or good politics. Will anyone hear it? I don’t know,” Acosta said of the gas proposals. “It’s a little harder to get anyone’s attention just on the race itself, let alone this issue.”

Why are California's gas prices so high?

As candidates blame taxes and climate rules for high gas prices, experts point to a more complicated, less politically convenient reality: The recent spike is largely driven by a global oil shock tied to the war with Iran, not state policy.

Nevertheless the war increases a deeper vulnerability for California, where gas prices climbed above $5.50 a gallon Tuesday compared to nearly $3.80 nationally: As refinery capacity declines and reliance on imports grows, global disruptions can trigger higher prices in California than anywhere else.

“The current increase is almost entirely due to global oil markets,” said Paasha Mahdavi, a UC Santa Barbara political science professor and energy policy expert. “The problem, though … is that our starting point is so much higher than nationally.”

State analyses show California’s higher gas prices come not only from taxes and climate programs but also a large remaining “mystery surcharge,” an unexplained markup oil companies add to gasoline prices.

That unexplained premium averaged about 41 cents per gallon between 2015 and 2024, costing drivers an estimated $59 billion, according to the state’s petroleum market watchdog.

“Gas prices are much higher in California for reasons that have to do with the market for refined gasoline,” said Michael Wara, a Stanford legal scholar who focuses on climate. “It's something that is in the control of the industry.”

The oil industry blames California policies.

Prices “are higher in California because of taxes and compliance costs, but also because state policies have driven refineries and crude production out, said Jim Stanley, a spokesman for the Western States Petroleum Association, in a written statement.

Stanley declined to comment on Villaraigosa’s proposal for a regulatory moratorium.

Villaraigosa’s call to “overhaul” the state’s air resources board and for “an immediate moratorium on costly regulations overburdening California refineries” is a familiar refrain.

The air board’s climate programs — including the low carbon fuel standard and the state’s cap-and-trade program, recently rebranded as cap-and-invest — have faced repeated political and industry pushback, especially as regulators consider updates that could affect refinery costs.

Those climate policies raise fuel costs but have also generated billions for clean energy and transportation programs.

California's air board has faced mounting criticism over both programs — the fuel standard drew opposition from Republicans, the oil industry, and even environmental justice advocates when it was revised in 2024, and this year oil companies, some Democratic lawmakers and Villaraigosa have warned that tightening cap-and-trade rules could accelerate refinery closures.

A touchy political issue 

An even easier target in campaign promises is the gas tax, which lawmakers voted to raise in 2017.

It has risen by 20 cents per gallon since then, to 61 cents, and generates nearly $8 billion a year — the vast majority of state funding for highway and road repairs.

It’s also been a touchy issue for Democrats, especially in swing districts.

Porter, running as a Democrat to flip a GOP-held Orange County congressional seat in 2018, backed a failed Republican-led ballot measure to repeal that gas tax increase and ran ads declaring that “I oppose higher gas taxes.”

The move cost her a labor endorsement — unions generally support the tax because the revenue pays for projects their members work on — but it helped her head off claims that she supported the hike as she ran as an economic progressive.

Two Democratic lawmakers have lost their seats to Republicans in recent years after criticism about the gas tax.

Now Mahan, a Democrat, is pitching a gas tax holiday. He suggested that it last for the “duration of the war,” with a ballpark goal of keeping average prices below $5 a gallon.

“I would leave it to the experts in Sacramento to set that limit, but I think something around $5 is reasonable,” he said.

Asked how he would pay for road and highway repairs in the meantime, Mahan said he would find other funding elsewhere in the state budget.

Ryan Cummings, chief of staff at the Stanford Institute of Economic Policy Research, said he’s skeptical a suspension would save drivers because it’s possible gas companies would pocket some of the savings.

But he also warned against any governor removing the tax without providing alternative funding for road maintenance; reinstating a tax in the future would be seen as raising the price of gas by 60 cents a gallon at once.

If history is any guide, voters would likely balk at that: In 2003, facing a recall, then-Gov. Gray Davis tried to reinstate a vehicle license fee that the state had lowered for years. Opponent Arnold Schwarzenegger leapt to attack him for tripling the “car tax,” a move that observers agree helped him oust Davis.

“Taking the gas tax off is an easy thing to do,” Cummings said. “Putting it back on is extraordinarily difficult — and essential.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

Dennis Block, a prominent Los Angeles lawyer who once boasted about filing thousands of evictions every year, is facing new disciplinary charges from the California State Bar.

Some of the allegations stem from a case LAist covered in 2023, in which Block submitted a filing in eviction court that cited non-existent case law.

Block didn’t appear in court to explain how the brief was created. But legal experts told LAist at the time that the document appeared to have been generated by artificial intelligence, which is known to produce faulty information.

The charges filed last Thursday build on previous charges filed against Block late last year. The new charges allege that by submitting the filing, Block “failed to perform with diligence” and “committed acts involving moral turpitude, dishonesty, and corruption.”

If the charges against Block are proven, the State Bar proceedings could lead to him facing suspension or — in the most serious outcome — disbarment.

Block referred LAist to his attorney for comment on the charges, but they didn’t respond for this story.

The backstory on a ‘fabricated’ court filing

Over the course of nearly 50 years as an attorney, Block established his eponymous firm as a go-to resource for L.A. landlords seeking to evict their tenants. But recent actions by the State Bar have called into question his treatment of clients.

In December, the bar filed a series of disciplinary charges against Block, alleging he wrongly collected “non-refundable” fees, failed to account for client charges and didn’t return property in a timely manner after a client fired him.

Last week, the State Bar filed a new round of charges. Some are similar to the previous allegations. But two of the new counts relate to the 2023 filing, which led to $999 in court sanctions against Block’s firm.

A judge at the time said the filing contained “an entire body of law that was fabricated.”

Lydia Nicholson, the attorney who was defending the tenant involved in the underlying eviction case, said the charges against Block are appropriate.

“Tenants are already so vulnerable in these court cases,” said Nicholson, who works with the Los Angeles Center for Community Law and Action. “And to have that added step of basically just trying to lie to win is even worse.”

The dangers of using AI in court

Ari Waldman, a UC Irvine School of Law professor, said AI tools can be helpful for gathering background information about particular areas of law. But he said lawyers who use the technology to draft and file briefs without critically assessing the results should be disbarred.

Reacting to the new charges against Block, Waldman said, “No responsible lawyer should ever use AI to replace critical thinking, analysis and basic research.”

Daniel Yukelson, executive director of the Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles, a landlord advocacy group, defended Block. In an email to LAist, he said the disciplinary charges are still only allegations — not proven facts.

“Mr. Block has shown himself to be very knowledgeable of rental housing regulations and he is a wonderful educator and presenter on the complicated regulations our members are forced to comply with,” Yukelson said.

During the 2023 sanctions hearing, an attorney from Block’s firm blamed a recently hired lawyer for producing the fabricated filing. He said she no longer worked at the firm.

But by signing the filing himself, Block vouched for its accuracy to the court, according to the State Bar.

Since the 2023 case, Block has dabbled in other uses of AI. During his regular YouTube briefings for landlords, he has often included imagery that appeared to have been created with AI tools.

He opened one 2025 video with a dance pop song titled, “The Tenant From Hell.” He described it as an “original song by Dennis Block, with a lot of help from artificial intelligence.”

As allegations of sexual abuse of minors by farmworker labor legend César Chávez become public, local officials are sharing their shock at the news.

L.A. County Supervisor Janice Hahn said in a statement she was horrified to learn of sexual abuse detailed in a New York Times report published Wednesday.

“For those of us who grew up admiring the farmworker movement, today’s news is heartbreaking. But as in any other civil rights movement, men were only half the story,” she wrote. “The abuses of one man will never diminish the extraordinary sacrifices, accomplishments, and legacy of the women of the farmworker movement. It’s time we put them first.”

Hahn is calling for L.A. County to change its March 31 public holiday named in honor of Chávez to “Farmworker Day.”

The New York Times reported allegations that Chávez abused girls for years. In an interview included in the report, Dolores Huerta, Chávez's United Farm Workers co-founder, says he sexually assaulted her in 1966, and years earlier had pressured her to have sex on a work trip.

Meanwhile, Mayor Karen Bass said: “I am keeping Dolores Huerta, Ana Murguia, and Debra Rojas in my heart, and I honor their strength and that of every woman and girl horrifically harmed by those in power.

“The sickening reality is that what Dolores, Ana, and Debra endured is not isolated, nor is it of the past. Real progress requires more than moments of reckoning – it demands sustained action to dismantle social, cultural, economic, and political structures that have hurt women throughout our history."

Nonprofit California Rising is also advocating for Cesar Chavez Avenue to be officially named Dolores Huerta Avenue, saying "public spaces must reflect values that honor and protect communities."

"Deeply troubling and sickening"

L.A. City Councilmember Monica Rodriguez said in a statement that while the news is devastating, it’s important to be honest about history in the fight for justice.

“Today is a reminder that movements must extend beyond their leaders and be grounded in their missions, and it is our collective responsibility to foster environments that protect the vulnerable, challenge silence, and uphold the safety and humanity of all,” she said.

In Orange County, Anaheim City Council member Natalie Rubalcava said "We do not diminish the movement by telling the truth — we strengthen it. We honor it more fully when we recognize all those who contributed to it and ensure that our values today reflect both justice and compassion.

For too long, we have placed icons on pedestals without fully reckoning with their failings and any harm they may have caused."

Rep. Luz Rivas, who represents the Northeastern San Fernando Valley, said the allegations are "deeply troubling and sickening".

In a statement, she said, "I absolutely condemn these actions and commend the bravery of those who came forward to share their stories, including Dolores Huerta. They deserve to be heard and supported.

“Today’s reporting is painful for generations of us who grew up knowing Cesar Chavez as a household name and learning about his contributions to the labor movement. However, we must acknowledge that a person’s legacy does not excuse the harm they caused or overshadow the trauma victims have carried for decades."

This is a developing story and will be updated.

In a step backward for transparency, the Los Angeles Police Department has delayed its release of previously-available crime data for more than a year.

Multiple organizations have requested the data after the LAPD stopped regularly releasing the detailed location of most L.A. crimes and the department’s online crime map quietly went dark in early 2025.

Court records and email correspondence shared with LAist show that SpotCrime, a crime mapping and alert provider, filed one of the first public records requests for the unpublished data in February 2025. LAist and nonprofit research organization RAND also submitted separate requests in the following months.

None of the organizations have received that data, despite public records requests and a lawsuit filed by SpotCrime asking a court to order its release.

According to court documents, SpotCrime alleges the LAPD has wrongfully withheld the crime data and engaged in an “unlawful pattern of delaying tactics” to prevent the release of public records.

LAPD still does not have a date for when the data would be made public, according to department spokesperson Norma Eisenman, who declined to comment on pending litigation. Court documents show the department has denied all claims of wrongdoing.

Why the records matter

The LAPD changed how it reports crime data on the city’s open data portal in early 2025 to no longer include location information down to the city block where crimes were reported.

Roland Neil from RAND said this kind of block-level data is very important for criminal justice researchers.

“ One thing, which is a major focus of the discipline of criminology over the past two decades, especially, is the fact that most crime tends to concentrate in a very small part of the city," Neil said.

He said that just 5% of what researchers call “micro places” — like city blocks or intersections — can account for half a city’s crime. Neil said that makes the block-level data critical when it comes to understanding exactly where crime is happening and determining what could be done to intervene.

The LAPD stopped providing this block-level data when it transitioned to the federally-mandated National Incident-Based Reporting System, or NIBRS.

Neil said local law enforcement agencies across California saw disruptions over the past few years as they each moved over to the new system, but some police departments were able to keep providing regular, detailed location data as they did before the switch.

San Francisco transitioned to the new system at about the same time as L.A., Neil said, and he can now search that city’s public website for information on crimes that happened just the day before with location data down to the nearest street intersection.

Meanwhile, RAND is still waiting for the LAPD to release its block-level data from months prior.

Jason Ward, director of the RAND Housing Center, told LAist he filed a records request for those records last October.

“They’re not saying no,” Ward said, “they’re just taking a very long time.”

Ward said he understands that the LAPD has limited resources to work on records requests, but he questions why the department would risk being seen as less transparent by allowing a delay in the release of information that used to be readily available.

He said he just wants the LAPD to continue providing what they had already been releasing for years: “accurate, geolocated crime data.”

This data isn’t just important for researchers.

Paul Nicholas Boylan is an attorney representing SpotCrime in the company’s lawsuit against the LAPD. He told LAist there are few things he believes to be as important to the public interest as crime data.

“It allows the public to decide whether they live in a safe space,” he said. “It allows them to determine whether or not law enforcement is doing a good or bad job.”

Why LAPD says the data hasn’t been released

Boylan said he has practiced First Amendment law for decades, but has never seen another case where an agency has taken so long to release public data without providing substantial justification for the delay.

The LAPD told SpotCrime in August that the records were unavailable, according to court documents and email correspondence reviewed by LAist — but not because the department didn’t have them.

“The data is not user-ready simply because that the raw data needs additional processing,” the department wrote to SpotCrime. The LAPD message also said the data would be published on the open data portal “as soon as practical.”

Seven months later, the data has not been released and Boylan is skeptical of the department’s argument.

Other agencies like the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department made the same transition to NIBRS, he said, but no other agency has taken as long to solve this problem.

He said there could be legitimate reasons any additional data processing has taken more than a year, but that it could also be due to incompetence or an attempt to hide information that could reflect poorly on the department.

SpotCrime has also argued that they never requested “user-ready” data, according to court records and emails reviewed by LAist. The company told the LAPD their request was for raw data, and additional processing they did not ask for was “not a valid reason for denying access.”

LAist was given a different explanation for why the records could not immediately be released.

The department initially denied LAist’s May 2025 request for detailed crime data in October, claiming the data in its raw form is exempt from disclosure because it “has the potential to lead to misguided public policy discussions or unjustified public panic.”

David Loy, legal director for the First Amendment Coalition, told LAist at the time that he had never heard of such an argument. He said if taken seriously, it would “destroy” the entire California Public Records Act.

The LAPD has not directly responded to LAist’s request for clarification on the claim that the data is exempt for such a reason, but appears to have abandoned the argument. The department told LAist on March 11 that “the Department continues to repair, sanitize, and review” crime and arrest data that may be released.

Boylan said he expects more answers to come out in court.

Whatever the LAPD claims is the reason for the delay, he said, “they're going to have to prove it.”