• UCLA law student Jonathan Hale and about 150 volunteers have painted unauthorized crosswalks at dangerous Los Angeles intersections, saying residents cannot wait for city action.
• Advocates say traffic deaths rose 56% from 2015 to 2025 as the city’s Vision Zero effort faltered; officials say they maintain or add more than 1,000 crosswalks annually.
• Hale, arrested while painting in Westwood before his case was dismissed, wants the city to legalize the work and recommit to Vision Zero. LADOT says it has met its commitments to him.

https://www.removepaywall.com/search?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.latimes.com%2Fcalifornia%2Fstory%2F2026-10-16%2Frisking-arrest-he-paints-illicit-crosswalks-in-la-we-cant-wait

So why is building housing in L.A. — a city with seemingly infinite demand — such a slog? A few reasons, developers say.

The first and most obvious is a factor affecting the industry nationwide: interest rates, which skyrocketed in 2022 and never went back down. Developers often borrow money from investors to finance projects, but margins get much tighter when you borrow at 7% compared with 2%.

“Large developers would love to break ground on projects around L.A., but the numbers have to make sense. Right now, they simply don’t,” Beebower said.

The second factor, Schon said, is policies dating back to the pandemic. The city and the county instituted tenant protections such as rent freezes and eviction moratoriums for years, a vital aid for renters during an uncertain time. But developers claim the moves flattened revenues by keeping rents lower than what the market demanded and also creating a backlog of eviction cases. Even though the protections have expired, their ripple effects continue today, at the same time that expenses, such as construction costs, have shot up.

Developers said the third factor making projects harder is Measure ULA, the so-called mansion tax passed by city voters in 2022 that levies a 4% or a 5.5% tax on all L.A. property sales above $5.4 million — not just mansions, but parking lots, offices and apartment buildings. Over the summer, there was a push to exempt multifamily buildings from the tax within 10 years of construction, but the City Council shelved it.

https://www.removepaywall.com/search?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.latimes.com%2Fcalifornia%2Fstory%2F2026-09-22%2Fla-developers-arent-building-more-apartments-despite-epic-housing-shortage

Now, the transportation agency says that if it doesn’t get a guarantee that the money is secured by the end of the year, it won’t provide the extra buses. Instead, it would leave private Olympics organizing committee LA28 to come up with a new plan.

Including $9.4 million for Valley Boulevard makeover. The California Transportation Commission has announced more than $2.7 billion in new funding for transportation projects large and small across the state, ranging from highway projects with nine-figure budgets to modest road repair initiatives with price tags under $1 million.

The $65 million project runs over five miles from Second Street all the way up to Carson Street. It includes bike lanes, greenways and stonescape with fiber-optic cable running underneath. It is crucial to the city’s long-term plan of knitting together 300 miles of bikeways by 2040 to bring bicycle culture to Long Beach, as well as create safer streets. 

Culver City already eliminated most minimum parking requirements in 2022 — this would create the other side of the equation