In 2024, nearly two-thirds of L.A. voters passed Measure HLA, requiring the city to make streets more multimodal, more inclusive. Since HLA became law, the city has been scrambling to find ways to not follow HLA.

Some of the city’s loophole strategies are legal. Some appear not to be. All of them are supporting the city’s deadly car-centric status quo and undermining nascent efforts toward a balanced multimodal transportation system.

In the last month or so, the city appears to have decided that the way it can get around HLA – and around disability access laws – is to only repave streets without sidewalks.

This practice is making the city less equitable, because streets without sidewalks are nearly all in relatively well-off neighborhoods. City repaving is currently focused on many hillside areas including Bel Air, Holmby Hills, Mount Washington, Pacific Palisades, and Studio City. The city is also resurfacing sidewalk-less streets in other car-centric suburban neighborhoods including Northridge, Toluca Woods, Valley Village, Valley Glen, and Woodland Hills.