I regret to inform you that the NIMBYs are up to their shit again.

More Metro drama! The C Line South Bay Extension, up for a board vote next week, has two competing motions on the agenda - one to pick the staff recommended "hybrid" route using existing tracks, and one by Holly Mitchell and others to pick the more expensive route on Hawthorne Blvd.

Agree housing is a no brainer. But there’s a lot of bagel toppings on this particular ballot proposal. Who would build something with a 50% inclusionary requirement?

New Santa Monica ballot measure from Cloverfield Commons that would allow 3,000 low- and moderate-income homes to be built at the airport after it closes. Two pro-housing City Councilmembers have already come out against it. City Council nixed housing at the airport last summer.

🎯🎯🎯 "If Los Angeles is exempted from SB 79...Metro will continue building expensive infrastructure through low-density neighborhoods while ridership lags, housing costs soar, and access to homes near transit remains scarce. That is not a transit success story. It is the status quo, reinforced."

*LA METRO* opposes SB 79 - the law that makes it possible for more people to use the transit Metro builds! They worry cities that don't like SB 79 will slow down their projects. Metro wants to exempt LA County from the law, or maybe even all of California except the Bay Area. Just totally unhinged.

After three years of stalling by Heather Hutt, tonight Metro is finally starting outreach for bus lanes on La Brea from Olympic south to Coliseum. Bus lanes were installed on La Brea north of Olympic (Katy Yaroslavsky's district) in 2023. Meeting tonight 7pm on Zoom. Register at bit.ly/4qUBCk2

Has anyone done a moving chain study for new affordable homes? Folks have estimated the number of naturally occurring affordable homes kept that way by market rate apts. What about for below market rate apts? Would help quantify cost/benefit of IZ. @cselmendorf.bsky.social @michaelwiebe.bsky.social

Tokyo is a city that makes the argument that architecture is irrelevant. What matters more is urbanism: The street network The density The freedom of uses The clustering around rail

Protip: park your Cybertruck in a compact spot to make it look even bigger!

Thread about a damaging pothole on La Brea that developed last night after the latest rainstorm. This stretch hasn't been repaved since 2000! Instead of repaving it, the city did a "large asphalt repair" - a patch - a couple months ago, stopping 100 yards before the spot where the pothole formed.

"The slowdown has meant some landlords and property managers are struggling to find renters — something hard to image just a few years ago."

The "impact" of more housing is a better city.

"Instead of full resurfacing, StreetsLA has shifted most of its street maintenance budget to what it calls 'large asphalt repair' ...'It literally doesn’t exist,' said Oren Hadar. 'If you Google it, you get no results. It’s a thing they made up.'"

Incredible thread about the details of curb ramp design. The institutional culture favors designing for wheelchair users only, at the expense of other pedestrians.

“What is the city thinking? These half-baked solutions are going to end up costing taxpayers millions in legal settlements, and those settlements will probably force the city to put in the infrastructure they tried to avoid installing anyway.” futureis.la/p/breaking-t...

Well it's hard to keep up the streets given LA's brutal freeze/thaw cycles.

Car-centric development is unsustainable with a local tax model. It creates maximum infrastructure to maintain with minimal residents to support it. San Diego’s unfunded infrastructure repair/replacement needs are continuing to grow well into the billions of dollars.

More dispatches from L.A.'s war on ADA & HLA laws. Kudos to @futureis.la for exposing this crap. futureis.la/p/breaking-t...

This is, sincerely, grotesque. Forget all the other transit and mobility issues, you have no idea how important curb cuts are until you see somebody with mobility aids dealing with a curb.

Angelenos need to demand the firing of the people responsible for this shit

Here are some of the over-engineered curb ramps the city installed in 2020 as part of the Destination: Pico project, including two with railings! The corner store owner was particularly upset that the direct route to her front entrance was now blocked.

I wanted to show the human cost of the city stopping repaving. Here are two LA streets that show how far the city will go to avoid keeping us safe, one by negligence and one by careful planning.

Yes, the city needs to actually repave streets. Yes, the city needs to repair sidewalks. Yes, the city needs to install curb ramps. But the bigger problem is that when LA decides to do anything at all to "help" pedestrians, the result looks like this complete and utter bullshit

LA desperately needs structure reform to Public Works. siloed departments, obfuscated leadership, and oscillating budgets are eroding our largest public assets this wont be fixed without a charter reform, CIP implementation, and probably a new dedicated infrastructure fund

LA has surrendered to the potholes: @michaelschneider.com and I have a piece in the LA Times today about how the city has stopped repaving our streets. (Also thank god for great headline writers at actual newspapers!)

Why has the City stopped repaving streets? Oren Hadar tells me it’s to avoid complying with HLA and Federal law.

Reminder that developer interests ≠ YIMBY interests.

LA City Bureau of Street Services stopped doing actual full street resurfacing, shifting to only “large asphalt repair”. The city is trying to avoid adding wheelchair access required during resurfacing. It’s ridiculous, counterproductive, and expensive!

Allen was on a scooter on his way to volunteer at the Streets For All holiday party when he hit a pothole in the middle of a "large asphalt repair" done in April. Instead of properly repaving our streets, the city is doing these half-assed patches that don't even hold up for a few months.

Austin Beutner interviewed me about the city not repaving our streets.

I went with Joe to check out large asphalt repairs on Eagle Rock Blvd today. Seems like they're, uh, missing spots?

Mar Vista Voice on "large asphalt repair" and other anti-HLA crap: "[L.A. City appears to be] steering around its legal responsibilities rather than confronting them" marvistavoice.org/los-angeles-...

SBLA's @lintonjoe.bsky.social shares recent reporting on L.A. City's #LargeAsphaltRepair - see photos in the post if you're unfamiliar with "LAR" la.streetsblog.org/2025/12/11/w...

i'm literally having to fight my city at this very moment about them repairing sidewalks but refusing to install curb ramps at the same time bc "under fed regs, it's not req'd for maintenance, only repaving" on a street where I regularly see moms pushing strollers & ppl on wheelchairs in the street

This reflects deep dysfunction with how LA manages public infrastructure. We need for real reform through the Charter reform process to develop multi-year capital infrastructure plans, with appropriate community and council input, but then giving departments a mandate to deliver.

ADA compliance in municipalities is a huge expense! But you can't not do it. Your old streets are not magically grandfathered in. Like yes you have to comply with ADA when you redo a street, but that doesn't eliminate having to update other infrastructure. It costs a lot but you will get fined

Another wretched thing about the #LargeAsphaltRepair scandal (other being anti-ADA & anti-HLA) is that the Bureau of Street Services is leaving heavily damaged areas where people bike, while resurfacing areas where people drive…https://futureis.la/p/la-has-stopped-repaving-our-streets

ED 1 is now permanent law in LA, not just an emergency declaration. While it has largely been eclipsed by its successor, AHIP, ED 1 is still alive and kicking. It's still useful for getting around certain zoning rules. Projects are still being proposed using it - the last one two weeks ago.

Something similar happened in Oakland year ago, when the city opted to not pave OR update curb ramps at some intersections in W Oakland, because they could’ve afford to remove abandoned train tracks but they couldn’t make the crossings ADA compliant w the tracks in place.

Sorry Mom, we can't go out, Karen Bass doesn't want you to go around in your wheelchair.

To be fair to the city when the curb ramps cost more than the repaving you can understand the logic. It feels like a regulatory and engineering failure if each ramp really does cost $50k.

How do you make a decision like this and not live the rest of your life with tremendous shame?

It seems Not Great that the bureaucracies in charge of California’s streets at ~every level of government are lawless rogue agencies that are not subject to any real public oversight.

We are in the early innings of people coming to grips with the real cost of building our cities almost exclusively for automobility

Please read and share this @futureis.la exposé on the L.A. City #LargeAsphaltRepair scandal futureis.la/p/la-has-sto...

When you see L.A. City reps announcing "Large Asphalt Repair" it's basically the city giving the middle finger to folks in wheelchairs, on bike, on foot, on the bus

This is a great post from Oren, and I hope our local news media take notice.

LA quietly stopped repaving all streets last July to avoid fulfilling its ADA obligations. The federal govt says when you repave a street, you have to update all the curb ramps. LA has tons of out of date curb ramps, so the rule makes repaving much more expensive. The city's solution: stop repaving!

Feel like this should be big news? StreetsLA is proposing to basically stop repaving our streets next year and instead do 1000 "large asphalt repairs", a term that sounds like it was made up by lawyers to get around ADA requirements. See p.154 here: