Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Vision Zero topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Vision Zero review: city staff recommend reporting, pilots and updated governance after uneven safety results
Summary
Independent CAO and LADOT evaluations found limited declines in traffic fatalities despite $334 million spent since 2015 and recommended stronger governance, balanced investment across education/enforcement/engineering/evaluation, a speed-camera pilot, and improved data sharing; the committee approved the report as amended with several council amendments.
City staff presented two independent evaluations of the Vision Zero program that found mixed results after nearly a decade and $334 million in funding.
Yolanda Chavez of the CAO summarized KPMG’s independent evaluation, which concluded Vision Zero’s effectiveness was weakened by an imbalance in spending (heavy emphasis on engineering), unclear citywide governance and missing program-management tools. The CAO reported that, while the city has invested hundreds of millions, fatalities and serious injuries remained largely flat over the earlier study period; preliminary 2024 data showed some improvement but had not been validated.
LADOT’s study (a joint effort with consultant Farron Pierce) highlighted that pedestrian collisions and severe pedestrian outcomes have risen while vehicle-vehicle severe crashes declined. LADOT staff noted that collision coding often attributes responsibility to the pedestrian or driver in different ways and that speed is frequently under-reported as a contributing factor in pedestrian incidents.
Staff recommendations included updating the Vision Zero action plan, quarterly and annual reporting, a $500,000 safety education campaign, $300,000 for a speed safety camera pilot, $900,000 to update BOE’s street-design manual, better LAPD/LAFD collision data collection, and a funding and implementation plan for pedestrian-focused countermeasures.
Council members pressed staff on implementation speed for automated speed enforcement (AB 645). LADOT said an initial report with recommended locations will come in January and, with an expedited procurement, installations could begin by July. Councilmember Blumenfield urged faster deployment of low-cost treatments and proposed amendments to accelerate pilot work; Councilmember Hernandez argued for safeguards to avoid disproportionate impacts on Black, Brown and low-income communities and successfully moved to instruct LAPD to transmit crash data simultaneously to LADOT and statewide databases.
The committee adopted several amendments and approved the Vision Zero items as amended.
