LETTER FROM LOS ANGELES

"The mayor of Paris is one of my heroes!" Michael Schneider has nothing but praise for Anne Hidalgo. This tech entrepreneur is not a Parisian. He lives in Los Angeles and just won a victory that is like a small revolution in a megacity better known for its freeway interchanges than for its bike lanes.

As the head of the Streets for All organization, he succeeded in getting the HLA measure – for "Healthy Streets LA" – passed by referendum in March. The name is not meant to have populist undertones: By "healthy streets," the measure's promoters mean streets that are pleasant to live on for those who don't use cars: pedestrians, cyclists, and public transport users. The HLA measure, which received 65.5% of yes votes, calls for, among other things, the creation of 480 bus lanes and several hundred kilometers of bike lanes, including 380 km of protected lanes.

This is where the Mayor of Paris (unknowingly) comes in. "What Anne Hidalgo has done for Paris in terms of transport matches perfectly with my worldview. She transformed her city," enthused Schneider, who would love to see a similar metamorphosis at work on the shores of the Pacific.

On paper, Los Angeles had already undertaken in 2015 to reduce the prevalence of cars by adopting the ambitious "Mobility Plan 2035." Almost ten years later, however, only 6% of the planned roadworks have been completed. The objective to create more bike lanes and bus lanes seems to have been forgotten, but also that of real sidewalks in a city where those walking without a dog at the end of a leash are deemed suspect in many neighborhoods. In a town where, as the "Yes on HLA" campaign highlighted, a pedestrian dies almost every other day after getting hit by a car.

In the city of James Ellroy and Michael Connelly, the number of people killed in road accidents (336, including 179 pedestrians) even exceeded that of homicides (327) in 2023, setting a sad record since Los Angeles began keeping road safety statistics some 20 years ago.

Yet ensuring safe and efficient transportation for pedestrians was one of the major thrusts of the plan adopted in 2015 by then-mayor, Democrat Eric Garcetti. Why did the project derail? Schneider pointed to "a combination of a lack of coordination between city departments and a lack of political will at City Hall." Los Angeles is indeed an administrative patchwork in which the mayor only enjoys limited powers. Such arrangements require the approval of the City Council members, who are all-powerful in their respective districts. "Some members really wanted the mobility plan to be implemented, while others fought against it," the Streets for All president explained.

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