Voters approved Measure HLA. Now the city needs to agree on a plan

L.A. voters last year decided that the city must carry out street improvements that prioritize cyclists, pedestrians and transit. But the city has yet to decide how it wants to implement Measure HLA’s mandate.

A plan that lays out how the city will stay compliant with the voter-approved initiative was scheduled to be discussed between the City Council transportation and public work committees Wednesday morning. But committee members voted to delay the discussion after a fiery back-and-forth about the controversial Venice Dell Housing project took up all the time the lawmakers had.

While it wasn’t discussed, amendments to the HLA plan proposed by Councilmember Heather Hutt, who chairs the transportation committee, were announced at the top of the meeting. Keep reading, and we’ll explain the latest.

Wait, what’s HLA again?

Around a decade ago, the city approved Mobility Plan 2035. The plan specifies networks of streets where the city wants to make upgrades, like protected bike lanes, enhanced bus stop shelters and wider sidewalks.

In 2022, frustrated with a lack of progress on the plan, advocacy group Streets for All successfully campaigned for Healthy Streets L.A., or Measure HLA. The initiative passed with nearly two-thirds of the vote in March 2024.

Basically, the measure requires the city to implement Mobility Plan 2035 upgrades when it repaves at least one-eighth of a mile of a street specified in one of the networks.

“The Mobility Plan is just that: It’s a plan,” said Eli Lipmen, the executive director of Move LA, which endorsed the initiative. “It’s a vision for where we can go, but there’s no actual path to get us to achieve that. That’s really what we tried to drive home with ‘Yes’ on Measure HLA.”

The “No” campaign was led by a group called Keep L.A. Moving and the union representing L.A. city firefighters, which said HLA would worsen traffic and emergency response times.

The city is also required to develop a public-facing dashboard detailing the progress of HLA projects.

How’s it going to work?

It’s not clear yet how the city will carry out the voter-approved initiative. Wednesday’s meeting was the first time an implementation plan drafted by the city attorney last year was scheduled to be discussed.

Here are the main points from the draft plan and the proposed amendments from Hutt:

• The draft plan names the city’s Transportation and Public Works departments as co-leads on HLA-mandated street improvement projects. The amendment would instead make Transportation the lead agency for project “planning, initiation, scoping, and outreach.” Public Works would be brought in to help schedule and construct the road and sidewalk projects, according to the amendment. 
• Projects would be subject to review and input from the fire and police departments.
• The draft plan lays out an appeals process residents who claim noncompliance would have to go through before suing the city. Hutt’s amendment would make the appeals process optional. 
• The draft plan allows the city to proceed with grant-funded street improvement projects without HLA-mandated upgrades. Hutt’s proposed amendment directs the city to expand a project’s scope as long as the funding isn’t jeopardized.

Councilmembers Hutt and Eunisses Hernandez endorsed Measure HLA when it was on the ballot. Councilmember Traci Park sided with the firefighters union who opposed the measure, and said the policy would worsen traffic and emergency response times. Councilmember Imelda Padilla “supports the intent of the measure” and wants to make sure it is “carried out efficiently, " according to a spokesperson for her office.  

What street improvements have happened since HLA passed?

An LADOT spokesperson said the department has gone through with “several” Mobility Plan upgrades since last spring, including new protected bike lanes on Hollywood Boulevard. 

StreetsLA, which maintains the conditions of roads and sidewalks, said it's working with LADOT to develop a five-year work plan that will lead to improvements “on a larger scale than was occurring before Measure HLA was passed,” according to a spokesperson.

What can Angelenos expect next?

Next steps will be determined when the transportation and public work committees meet again and discuss the plan on Feb. 26.

You can attend in person or online; details will be published here.