Morning Brief: Safer Streets On The Ballot, Teacher Shortage, LA Filming Boom

Good morning, L.A. It’s April 21.
Stick to the plan, a simple ask. 

The plan? L.A.’s traffic strategy for making its streets safer and more accessible for all.

The askers? Healthy Streets LA, a coalition of safety advocates and community groups. They want to hold the city accountable as infrastructure needs continue to fall by the wayside and its streets get deadlier and deadlier.

“In 2015, 186 people were killed in crashes on city streets. Last year, the death toll was 294, according to city data,” writes my colleague Ryan Fonseca. “Pedestrians make up the largest share of victims, with 132 people killed by drivers while walking last year. That’s up 50% from 2015.”

So, Healthy Streets LA is taking to the streets and voting with its feet. The coalition is working to gather signatures from 93,000 registered L.A. voters by May to get a measure on the November ballot. The measure would compel the city to follow its own mobility plan whenever it repaves a street, something it rarely does, according to the group.

The city has two initiatives to make the streets safer Vision Zero and Mobility Plan 2035, both in place since 2015. Healthy Streets LA organizers say the city has implemented just 3% of the improvements outlined in its street safety plan since 2015..

“At that rate, it would take them over 200 years to fully implement a 20-year plan,” said Michael Shneider, one of the petition organizers and founder of Streets For All, a street safety advocacy group.

Keep reading for more on what’s happening in L.A., and stay safe out there.

What Else You Need To Know Today

• Yesterday was 4/20, a holiday celebrated by marijuana consumers worldwide. But for some in the industry, it was a day to reckon with the carbon footprint of cannabis. And figure out ways to shrink it. 
• LAUSD is responding to a critical teacher shortage by calling on former educators to head back into the classroom for the last eight weeks of the school year. 
• New Mexico officials nailed the producers of Rust with the “maximum fine allowable by state law” for serious safety violations that led to the fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins by Alec Baldwin. 
• A driver suspected of striking and killing a cyclist in Griffith Park over the weekend has been charged with murder. Authorities allege the man was drunk at the time of the collision.
• In West Hollywood, a consortium of cannabis businesses say they’re cool with customers being potheads, but kindly request they not be buttheads. 
• Rapper A$AP Rocky was arrested yesterday at LAX in connection with a non-fatal shooting last November. 

Before You Go...Filming Has Never Looked So Fine In Los Angeles

Talk is commonplace in L.A.’s creative world. Execution, a little less common.

I used to be more of a talker, less of a doer, at least when it comes to my passion projects. Then my brother gave me Like Brothers, a book penned by filmmaking pair extraordinaire, Mark and Jay Duplass.

The phrase I always think back to is “The cavalry isn’t coming.” In short, it means if you’re holding back from producing that short film because you’re waiting for a big-money backer to discover you at your local coffee shop’s open mic, that’s folly. Make what you can now.

The Duplass brothers are still making things with the best of them — and at an incomparable time in Los Angeles. Filming in the greater L.A. area is at an all-time high — read all about the cinematic boom right here.