LA’s DIY crosswalk guy is trying to win over the mayor’s office

This story was originally published by The LA Local on Jan. 29, 2026.

Jonathan Hale has been painting crosswalks at some of the city’s most dangerous intersections for over a year, turning neglected streets into quiet acts of protest and prevention. That work led to his arrest last fall on vandalism — a moment caught on video that went viral.

So far, the city isn’t pursuing a misdemeanor charge, and the incident gave Hale a chance to present his vision for a safer Los Angeles to Mayor Karen Bass’ office. Now, he’s proposing an unusual way for the city to make his guerrilla crosswalks legal: permitted painting parties.

“We’re arguing for a legal mechanism. We should be able to permit street closures, as if you were permitting a block party, and then we can actually do the thing,” Hale told The LA Local. “We can make these (crosswalks) while the street is closed. We can add these compliance lines, and it would be like some sort of city-sanctioned street art program. We really want this to be like an alley oop for the city.”

He met with the mayor’s office to discuss this proposal in December as the lead of the pedestrian advocacy group People’s Vision Zero. His ultimate goal is to find a legal pathway for residents like him to paint crosswalks.

His group’s name is a play on the Vision Zero initiative, launched by then-Mayor Eric Garcetti in 2015 to eliminate traffic deaths over the next decade.

“I got the idea because I’m a pedestrian — we all are,” Hale said. “I started painting crosswalks to see whether this could be a way to raise awareness around the issue and create lasting change. It’s gratifying. You get to be outside and meet people in your community and organize.”

In their proposal to the mayor’s office, People’s Vision Zero presents a “block party” model for installing crosswalks, led by residents who could follow specific state standards, as a low-cost way to address dangerous streets while working with city agencies, rather than waiting years for formal infrastructure projects to move forward.

“I think they see the momentum in the moment,” Hale said about the city. “We really want this to be like an alley-oop for the city. But I think it’s going to be unbelievably hard. It’s going to require the coordination of so many different bureaucratic organs. But we want to do it.”

Sergio Godinez, a spokesperson for Mayor Bass, confirmed that the mayor’s office has met with Hale and city departments “to explore solutions that are innovative and will expedite crosswalk installations across Los Angeles.”

“Mayor Bass believes that streets and sidewalks should be safe and accessible for all Angelenos, no matter how they travel,” Godinez said. “The City will continue to install crosswalks that comply with federal, state, and local regulations.”

Hale argues that Los Angeles’ official Vision Zero program has failed to meet its goal. In 2024, there were 303 traffic deaths in Los Angeles and 290 last year, according to the latest data from the Los Angeles Police Department.

Hale started his advocacy work with the activist group Crosswalk Collective LA, which taught him most of what he knows about crosswalks, including how to design them within city code and use them to raise awareness about safer streets.

“We would love to see some sort of official sanctioning of this within guidelines,” Hale said. “That would be the ultimate goal because crosswalks alone aren’t going to change anything. We’re just adding a crosswalk for drivers to more easily see pedestrians, but that’s not going to solve traffic violence on its own.”

For years, various groups have been calling attention to Los Angeles’ most dangerous intersections. They called out the city’s slow response, such as the intersection of New Hampshire Avenue and 4th Street in Koreatown, where a driver killed 9-year-old Nadir Gavarrete last summer. The city installed a temporary traffic circle, signage and crosswalks years after securing funding and after the boy’s death.

The High-Injury Network from the Los Angeles Department of Transportation, a map of streets with disproportionately high rates of collisions and fatalities, makes it easier to identify these dangerous areas. Activists like those in the Crosswalk Collective have emphasized the urgent need for both community-led interventions and meaningful city action to make streets safer.

The group has drawn increased attention on Instagram in recent weeks after Hale was arrested and cited in December for painting a crosswalk in Westwood. In the video that went viral, Hale is seen being handcuffed by an officer as bystanders shout, “Let him go, he’s not doing anything.”

Hale was cited for “vandalism on city property” and received a misdemeanor for the offense that was later dropped.

Not long after, Hale also started building benches that he wants to place around the community.

Michael Jenkins, an attorney and lecturer at USC Gould School of Law, said that since the city of Los Angeles owns the street, nobody can make a permanent marking on it — only the city government can authorize that.

Jenkins added that crosswalk installation is governed by a formal city process and professional traffic safety standards, not individual judgment. “Governments don’t install crosswalks willy-nilly. They don’t just do it based on a whim,” he said, noting that traffic engineers evaluate whether a crosswalk is necessary and appropriate based on established criteria.

As a result, residents “cannot simply decide in their judgment that they believe the street is dangerous to pedestrians and then paint a crosswalk on the street” outside the required approval process. Those who painted an unauthorized crosswalk largely conceded their actions were illegal, Jenkins said, describing it as civil disobedience or political protest, but added the action was “obviously not allowed.”

For now, Hale has paused painting crosswalks, but he hasn’t stopped advocating for safer streets.

Crosswalks alone won’t solve the city’s pedestrian safety problems, he says, but he thinks they can make a meaningful difference — and he has other ideas as well.

“Imagine using something like daylighting — the red-curb areas near intersections — and adding planter boxes to narrow them. That would make the intersections themselves narrower and safer,” Hale said.

Hale can envision a safer version of Los Angeles. He just needs to convince the city it will take a group effort.