In less than 30 days, Los Angeles will begin implementing Healthy Streets LA, the voter-approved measure requiring the City to move forward with long-promised mobility improvements.
The measure reflects a clear message from voters: Angelenos want safer, more accessible streets and public spaces.
But implementation raises an important question.
Does Los Angeles have the systems needed to deliver?
Healthy Streets LA is often discussed as a transportation initiative. In reality, its success depends on something much broader: how the City plans, budgets, coordinates, and manages public infrastructure.
Today, those systems remain fragmented.
Sidewalks, access ramps, street trees, bus stops, stormwater infrastructure, and street improvements are managed through different departments, funding streams, and decision-making processes. The result is a system that often struggles to coordinate investments, establish priorities, and communicate progress to the public.
If Los Angeles wants to successfully implement Healthy Streets LA, several foundational pieces must be addressed.
Build a Capital Infrastructure Program
The City needs a multi-year framework for understanding infrastructure needs, setting priorities, coordinating investments, and tracking progress. A Capital Infrastructure Program would provide that foundation.
Improve Coordination
Transportation, Public Works, accessibility, urban forestry, and other infrastructure systems are deeply interconnected. Policymakers should ensure stronger coordination across committees, departments, and agencies responsible for implementation.
Clarify What Projects Include
The Mobility Plan was adopted more than a decade ago, but important questions remain about how projects are defined and delivered. Sidewalks, curb ramps, trees, transit access, and other elements of the public right-of-way should be considered together rather than as separate investments.
Advance Infrastructure Equity
As implementation moves forward, transparency around infrastructure conditions, investment priorities, and equity metrics will be essential to ensuring that historically underserved communities benefit from public investment.
Healthy Streets LA presents an opportunity to improve more than individual projects.
It presents an opportunity to improve how Los Angeles makes infrastructure decisions.
The question facing the City is not simply how to implement a ballot measure.
It is whether Los Angeles will use this moment to build the systems needed to plan, fund, and deliver public infrastructure more effectively over the long term.
The status quo is no longer sufficient.
The opportunity now is to build something better.
