The Brief

The Los Angeles Department of Transportation launched a website this week that the public can eventually use to monitor the city’s implementation of Measure HLA.

What is Measure HLA?

The goal of Measure HLA is to speed up progress on Mobility Plan 2035, a policy the city approved a decade ago that identified networks of streets to improve with protected bike lanes, pedestrian signal improvements, bus lanes and other enhancements.

Measure HLA requires the city to implement Mobility Plan upgrades when it repaves at least one-eighth of a mile of a street specified in one of the networks.

What’s its status?

More than a year after it passed, an ordinance has not yet been adopted. The L.A. City Council still has to approve an ordinance drafted by the city attorney.

What is the website?

The site centers on an interactive map. It is a required component of Measure HLA and shows all the work being done on the networks specified in the Mobility Plan. Those networks are distinguished by which mode of travel — including cycling, walking or using transit — the plan’s improvements prioritize.

How to use it

Using the panel on the left-hand side of the dashboard, you can filter projects by name, lead agency, location and type of mobility plan network.

On the right-hand side of the screen, you will see information panels for each project. The information attached to each project depends on whether it’s exempt from the requirements of Measure HLA.

Exemptions?

Not all projects on Mobility Plan network streets trigger the improvements Measure HLA requires.

For these projects, you’ll see the city’s reasoning for why it believes Measure HLA doesn’t apply.

All of the projects currently shown on the portal have Measure HLA exemptions.

Once the ordinance is adopted, the website will feature a button that you can use to contest information listed for a given project, including the city’s listed reason for an exemption.

What if Measure HLA does apply?

When you click on the information panel for a project that does involve a Mobility Plan improvement, you’ll see how work will affect the availability of parking spots, accessibility to transit and volume of people who can travel through the corridor per day, among other information.

You will also be able to see safety statistics, including how many people experienced serious injuries or died as a result of traffic collisions on the portion of road the city is working on.

Why did the city launch the website now?

Measure HLA requires the city to “provide publicly accessible information regarding Mobility Plan projects.” April 9 was set as the deadline for the publication of the website since it marks a year since the ordinance went into effect.

In mid-March, the cast and crew behind a new play about the life of labor leader Dolores Huerta and the rise of the farmworker movement were preparing for their debut.

Then, on March 18 — the last day of the production’s tech rehearsal — the New York Times published an investigation into United Farm Workers co-founder Cesar Chavez detailing allegations that he sexually abused and raped girls and women. Huerta wrote in a statement that Chavez had coerced her into sex on one occasion and forced her to have sex on another. She said she got pregnant each time and hid the pregnancies.

“Hearing the news and reading it, I was in absolute tears,” said director Sara Guerrero. “I didn't know what to expect.”

She wondered if the play, ¡Sí Se Puede!, would be pulled before it had a chance to begin.

“What would be the best way to continue to elevate this woman who endured a lot?” Guerrero said.

The answer Guerrero and the rest of the cast and crew landed on reflects a struggle for many since the allegations against Chavez were published. How do you square the gains of a movement that humanized and improved the lives of farmworkers — led by a man who inspired generations of activists — with the harm done by that same leader?

The origin of '¡Sí Se Puede!'

Today, Center Theatre Group is most known for the shows hosted at its flagship downtown L.A. theaters and in Culver City, but decades ago, the organization toured.

“We have to exist outside of the institutions, otherwise we’re not part of the global citizenship,” said Jesus Reyes, director of learning and community partnerships. “ There's so many young people and older people who have lost touch with art … So it's also our responsibility to put it out there.”

Director Sara Guerrero (left) and Playwright Eliana Pipes stand in front of the set for "¡Sí Se Puede!." Both have longstanding ties to L.A.'s theatre community.

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Center Theatre Group commissioned an all-ages play about Huerta from writer Eliana Pipes in March 2025 to kickstart a pilot program that would bring shows to lesser-known regional venues.

Pipes devoured documentaries, books and conducted her own interviews with people connected to the farmworker movement.

“There's this perception that farm work was only done by men,” Pipes said. “But… there were women on the fields, there were women on the picket lines, and there were women in leadership in the United Farm Workers movement.”

A necessary pivot

On the day the New York Times' investigation published, Guerrero got together with Pipes and others from Center Theatre Group to discuss how to move forward.

“ What really stood out to us was that we had always intended to elevate the story and call to action of Dolores Huerta,” Guerrero said.

The United Farm Workers' grape boycotts depicted in the play are credited with helping the union win contracts with growers and eliminate the use of certain pesticides.

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The decision: Chavez would remain a minor character — albeit with fewer lines. Pipes re-typed the play and drove to the final rehearsal at East Los Angeles College. She pulled over once to cry.

The cast performed a dress rehearsal for an audience of ELAC students.

“There were some tears, there was a lot of laughter and celebration, and I think it felt really healing for everybody to get to celebrate her, especially in this moment,” Pipes said.

El Teatro Campesino

¡Sí Se Puede! also highlights farmworker leaders like Larry Itliong, who’d organized Filipino farmworkers for years before Huerta and Chavez started working with Mexican laborers. Filipino farmworkers, historically less visible, started the 1965 Delano Grape Strike and Itliong later became a leader in United Farm Workers under Chavez.

The language of the play — English, Spanish and Tagalog — and the production design reflect the culture of the farmworker movement, incorporating a style of skits performed for farmworkers from the backs of flatbed trucks.

“El Teatro Campesino was not just entertainment, but it was also an organizing tool,” Pipes said. “The actors that they put on were meant to educate farm workers on the fields about their rights and incentivize them to join the strike.”

This El Teatro Campesino workbook belonged to Pipes’ grandmother who met Huerta through United Farm Workers meetings hosted at Santa Monica’s Unitarian Universalist Community Church.

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The style of El Teatro Campesino is big and theatrical. The politician character's devil mask is also a nod to the archetypes often found in the style's skits.

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Pipes was also tasked with translating the complexities of the farmworker movement into a narrative appropriate for all ages.

Sometimes that meant taking a few creative liberties with the character’s personal traits, like swapping Itliong’s trademark cigar for a lollipop.

More difficult was acknowledging the sometimes violent backlash the farmworkers faced. For example, a police attack on United Farm Worker demonstrators in San Francisco in 1988 left Huerta, then 58, with a ruptured spleen and fractured ribs.

“I think sometimes TYA — theater for young audiences — and for families has a reputation for being sort of toothless or apolitical,” Pipes said. “This piece does have something to say and it says it loud and proud. And even though it's in an age appropriate way, we never shy away from acknowledging the injustices that women face in the movement.”

“¡Sí Se Puede!" opens by asking the audience to think about the origin of their food before diving into the history of farm work in California. Juan De La Cruz plays several roles in the show, including a grape harvester.

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The "capitalist pig" is another archetype of El Teatro Campesino. Sol Joun plays the grower and several other roles in "¡Sí Se Puede!"

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In one scene, a TV broadcaster interviews Huerta and Chavez  at the terminus of the 1966 farmworker march from Delano to Sacramento.

“ I'm here at the State Capitol with Cesar Chavez and his secretary, Dolores Huerta — could you grab me a cup of coffee sweetheart?” the broadcaster asks.

When Huerta asserts herself as a co-founder of the union, the broadcaster calls her Chavez’s “sidekick.”

“It's so hard not to be heard,” Huerta’s character reflects after the interview ends. “Even in my own movement, some of the campesinos can't stand listening to women  and I try to pick my battles, but God, sometimes it feels like I'm battling a fight on two fronts.”

How audiences are reacting to the show

Center Theatre Group retains the right to produce the play in the greater Los Angeles area, but the play is available for anyone to produce elsewhere.

“ I would love to see it across the country, and particularly in places that have a long history with the farm workers movement, like Arizona, Texas,” Pipes said. “But I would love this play in every city, in every state.”

At the end of the show, the actors asked everyone in the audience to close their eyes and think about their personal answer to "What is the change you want to make in the world?"

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The show’s initial 10-show run included libraries, recreation centers, schools and Boyle Heights City Hall.

The Toxqui family drove from Pomona and sat front and center for the April 2 show.

Mom Noelle said her great-grandfather worked in the orange groves.

 “It's something that's important to me and my own family history,” she said. “[I have] the desire for my kids to understand the fights that have happened before them and that will continue to happen.”

Izel Toxqui (center), 8,  said she felt inspired after watching the show. Her 4-year-old sister Ameli said she liked how Huerta helped people get food when they were hungry. “Ese parte me gusta que cuando ella estaba luchando por sus derechos,” she added, saying she liked that Huerta fought for their rights.

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Ruffy Landayan came to support friends in the cast, but left with a deeper understanding of the farm worker movement he “barely” learned about as a San Bernardino high school student.

“[The play is] about history, but it also felt very current because it is really current,” Landayan said. “That's when I realized the power of theater.”

The show also affirmed the experiences of people familiar with the movement.

Raul Cardona has worked with El Teatro Campesino since the 2000s and is a community organizer in East L.A.

“ There's a place for everyone in the revolution,” Cardona said. “If you don't belong to an organization, find one that you stand with and become part of it. The work needs to be done and it's not gonna do itself.”

Long Beach is inching closer to a deadline when they’ll have to kick hundreds of formerly homeless people off of a federal housing assistance program. On Wednesday, a top homelessness official estimated 375 households will lose their benefits as of October, leaving them at risk of sliding back into homelessness.

The deadline is looming after Congress decided against authorizing new funding for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Emergency Housing Voucher program.

The pandemic-era program, launched in 2021, distributed about 70,000 Emergency Housing Vouchers — or EHVs — across the country. Long Beach received 582, and originally expected them to run through 2030, but local officials say rising rent costs drained the funding more quickly than anticipated.

When funding runs dry, Long Beach will be forced to end EHVs for the 500 local households that still rely on them, according to Homeless Services Bureau Manager Paul Duncan, who gave an update on the program Wednesday at the city’s Homeless Services Advisory Committee meeting. Duncan said 125 households will be given a new type of HUD voucher meant to ease the shock of losing EHVs, but that leaves 375 in the lurch.

How will Long Beach pick who gets kicked off?

“That’s a bigger question at this moment that we have not gotten to,” Duncan said.

For now, all EHV recipients have been moved to the top of the waiting list for Housing Choice Voucher, commonly called Section 8, but there’s no guarantee they’ll receive one before the deadline.

Duncan said the city plans to give recipients at least 60 days’ notice before their rental assistance runs out.

This has left many EHV recipients in limbo, including a single mom named Wiley who showed up to the meeting where Duncan was speaking.

Wiley is a single mother who has been using an Emergency Housing Voucher since January 2023. She’s studying at LBCC and has an internship to become a radiology technologist in Long Beach on Wednesday, April 2, 2026.

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Wiley, who declined to give her last name out of fear that speaking with the media could hurt her chances of receiving a new voucher, said her EHV has been instrumental in keeping her in stable housing.

She was laid off from her health care job shortly after getting her voucher. The rental assistance she receives — 30% of her $2,000 rent — helped her save enough money to sign up for classes at Long Beach City College. She’s nearing the end of an internship to become a radiology technologist, a job that specializes in conducting X-Rays on patients.

For months, while juggling a full class load and a 24-hour-per-week internship, Wiley has been emailing “all kinds of city, state [and] federal representatives” hoping to get a straight answer on what will happen when funding runs out for EHVs.

After Wednesday’s meeting, she left without a clear picture of how she will be affected.

When the biggest band in the world was getting back together to make a new album after a nearly four-year hiatus, what made them choose Los Angeles?

“In terms of having space to be creative,” BTS vocalist V says in the Netflix documentary BTS: The Return. “L.A.’s kind of like an amusement park.”

Rapper RM adds: “L.A. gives us space to experiment — different energy from what we’ve done before.”

“I think you can really settle into the creative process [here better] rather than maybe other cities like New York or London,” BTS: The Return director Bao Nguyen (The Greatest Night in Pop, Be Water) told LAist.

“There's a certain, for lack of a better term, ‘chill’ that helps allow you to be creative,” Nguyen added. “Walking outside and seeing the sun and just feeling that experience, I think you can really let ideas marinate, while in some other cities it feels like a pressure cooker at times.”

(L-R) Jimin, j-hope, Suga, and Jin in "BTS: The Return."

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The documentary chronicles the weeks the band members spent in L.A. in the summer of 2025, living together again for the first time in many years — after some members completed mandatory military service and others pursued solo projects — writing and recording their new album Arirang at Conway Studios (host to artists ranging from U2 to Kendrick Lamar).

They also made time to do some very L.A. things — like watching the sunset on the beach in Santa Monica, sitting in traffic (stars, they’re just like us!), eating In-N-Out and going to a Dodger game (or actually, the not-so-relatable experience of going to a game to throw the ceremonial first pitch).

Here are some highlights from Nguyen’s interview with LAist about the making of BTS: The Return, condensed and edited for clarity.

How a 2021 BTS concert at SoFi helped inspire the doc

Bao Nguyen:   I was supposed to go see them at their Rose Bowl show but, because of the pandemic, that was canceled. But they had a run of SoFi shows in 2021 [their first in person since 2019] before they left for the military. I was lucky enough to get tickets to one of those shows, and it was an experience that really changed my mind about BTS and sort of their cultural importance. 

I love going to live concerts, but to go to a BTS concert was definitely the loudest thing I've ever been to — in the best way possible. Just the connection that they had with the fans and how the fans knew every lyric, even in Korean, was so astonishing to me.

And they have these sort of long dialogues with their fans, and they're able to create such intimacy in this massive stadium. 

[Then at their 2022 farewell concert in Busan] they were talking about their upcoming military service, and you could tell that the crowd was getting very emotional as well as the band. And for me, as a filmmaker, as a storyteller, I immediately thought of The Odyssey. Like, "Oh, BTS is sort of like Odysseus about to go into the military. And ARMY [the acronym for the band’s fandom, “Adorable Representative M.C. for Youth”] is like Penelope, longing for the return of their heroes, in many ways."

I pitched this idea to the label and they were somewhat interested at first. I think it was a bit too philosophical maybe for the type of documentaries that BTS has done in the past, but once the group came out of military service, the label contacted me again and said, "Would you be interested now in doing a film about them?" And I jumped at the opportunity.

The origins of ‘Arirang’

In the documentary, the executive creative director of Big Hit Music, BTS’s label, pitches the band the idea of taking inspiration from another group of young Korean men, 19th Century international students at Howard University, who sang what would become the first known recordings of Korean music in the world in 1896 — including the well-known Korean folk song “Arirang,” which dates back to the 13th Century.

What didn’t make it into the doc, Nguyen shared, is that the spark of the idea came to Big Hit by way of a friend of his, L.A.-based stylist Jeanne Yang.

Bao Nguyen:  Boyoung Lee, who's their creative director, had sort of developed that idea from a friend of mine, Jeanne Yang, a stylist who actually helped style the group for their photo shoot.

Jeanne approached James Shin at the label about this really fascinating story about the first Korean music recording in America through these seven young men — happened to be seven, coincidentally — going to Howard University.

So there were just natural connections, and I think that ignited the group’s creativity — like, "OK, ‘Arirang’ can be sort of this framework and anchor for the entire album."

And you can see through the film, how they sort of navigate and negotiate that. It's interesting because each of the seven members have different opinions on it. So it's not a monolith. But I think the spark came from the label, and then, as with any artistic collaboration, it's a conversation with a lot of different people to get the final piece of art.

Other ways that L.A. shaped the film (and how they pulled off that beach scene)

Nguyen said he knew he didn’t want to record formal sit-down interviews with the band members for the documentary in an effort to have the film to “live in the present moment as much as possible,” but found that he naturally ended up finding quiet moments with each of them during their chauffeured commutes to the studio each day.

Bao Nguyen:  I love being in my car because I love the quiet time and reflection I can get sitting in traffic, or hopefully in motion.

So at first I was thinking these car rides would just be these pensive and reflective moments, not even capturing them talking at all. 

But it was when the members were in the car that they just started talking and they just wanted to get things off their chest. It was a really unique perspective into what they were thinking because, for the most part, they're surrounded by people all day, but in the car, they're by themselves and they can really think and talk about what they want to achieve that day, or coming back home, they can talk about what happened.

So I used the routine habit of driving in L.A. and tried to make it as cinematic and meaningful to the story as possible.

\(L-R) j-hope, Suga, Jin, RM, Jung Kook, and Jimin in 'BTS: THE RETURN.'

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The technique of giving the band members their own camcorders to capture footage themselves, Nguyen said, partially came about because of a desire to capture their experiences of life outside of the studio without drawing too much attention with a camera crew.

The one scene where the band was recorded by the documentary crew out in public in L.A. (that wasn’t a controlled public-facing event like at the Dodgers), was a day they spent at a house on the beach in Santa Monica, and ventured out with chairs to watch the sunset and play soccer.

Bao Nguyen:  The beach scene was interesting because I wasn't sure if we were gonna have sort of a "Beatlemania" moment, but kudos to our production team who really planned it well. We found a very quiet part of the beach, we checked it the week before at that time to find out how quiet it stays.

There were people just sort of stationed at different corners of the beach to make sure nothing went crazy. … And luckily, another benefit of shooting in Los Angeles is that people kind of mind their own business. If they're at the beach, they just want to be at the beach. 

There were some people who kind of got a hint that something was going on, I think more because of our cameras, but our producer, Jane Cha Cutler, told people we were just shooting a wedding party or bachelor party video, so people would not think anything was happening.

BTS: The Return is available now on Netflix.