Help advocate for a safer ADAPT

It’s vital that Los Angeles implement the 2035 Mobility plan while repaving streets, both during ADAPT and afterwards. Ask the city to do so by choosing your Council District below, and please personalize the templated message to the extent possible.

Find your Council District here. 

What is Adapt?

StreetsLA has begun the ADAPT Program, an initiative announced by Mayor Garcetti to repave high traffic commercial corridors during the COVID-19 traffic lull.

While improving road quality benefits all users, there has been no commitment by the City to implement its own mobility plan when repaving the street. The City’s 2035 Mobility Plan comprehensively plans bus and bike lanes throughout the city with the goal of “improved transportation, a cleaner environment, and healthier neighborhoods.” However, so far the plan has largely been ignored, and the city typically only implements new bike or bus lanes during repaving.

Why isn’t LA following it’s own plans? It comes down to cross agency communication. StreetsLA is responsible for repaving streets, while LADOT is responsible for restriping streets. While repaving can happen quickly, changing lane striping requires community outreach, a process that takes time.

Going back to restripe a lane after the fact can cost up to $1,000,000 per mile, money the city will be unlikely to find in an upcoming era of austerity. Rapidly repaving streets without following the City’s own Mobility Plan will insure L.A. remains a car paradise for the next 20+ years - an inexcusable result given the City’s goal of Vision Zero by 2025, meeting Green New Deal transportation benchmarks, and the Mayor's Executive Directive 25.

As we emerge from COVID-19, we need to ask ourselves what kind of city we want to live in. A recent AutoTrader survey found that 56% of driver license holders that don’t currently own a car are thinking about buying one, out of fear of catching the virus on public transit. In post-COVID China, some cities are seeing car sales spike 40% as commuters move away from transit. Unless we get this right now, we only have more gridlock and even worse air to look forward to.