NICK'S VIEW - I have previously written about Los Angeles’s grim paradox: a city that promises safer streets while being infested by a sustained and deadly traffic‑violence crisis.
I have been dismayed by the commitments made by our elected officials only to see fatalities rise, critical safety projects stalled, and a city failing to deploy proven interventions.
Now I am mad as hell! On Saturday, whether by luck or providence, I narrowly avoided being T-boned by a driver who ran a red light. My reaction is the same one any resident would have after experiencing such a close call.
T-boned is when the front of a vehicle crashes into the side of another, forming the letter T. These types of crashes make up about 16% of all LA collisions and are concentrated at a small set of high‑injury intersections, according to researchers. Broadside crashes typically occur when a driver runs a red light or is speeding or distracted.
On September 15, 2026, in Chatsworth, a driver under the influence of drugs, according to prosecutors, blew a red light, swerved into the wrong lane, and T‑boned a Los Angeles Metro bus, killing two passengers and injuring six others. Less than two hours later, a helicopter operated by Angel City Air for KNBC/KVEA crashed while covering the bus collision. Because the helicopter was covering the bus crash when it went down, it is now treated as a single compound event. There were three fatalities and two ground injuries from the helicopter tragedy.
Traffic deaths in Los Angeles have surpassed homicides for three straight years, highlighting the crisis’s severity. Pedestrian fatalities remain disproportionately high, exposing systemic failures in street design and enforcement, while the Vision Zero program, launched in 2015, has failed to reduce deaths.\
Now I am more determined than ever: Mayor Karen Bass must immediately issue an Emergency Declaration. This is not a symbolic gesture; it is a practical tool that lets officials skip long, formal procurement steps, allows faster contracting or purchasing, cuts through red tape by waiving certain regulations and shortening review timelines, and accelerates project delivery such as construction, infrastructure, repairs, and technology deployment.
Enough of the bureaucracy’s slow pace! An Emergency Declaration would compel city government to move at the speed of the crisis, uniting departments around a single mandate which is to reduce fatalities and prioritize immediate engineering fixes on high‑injury corridors
Looking back at the city’s record on street safety, I am appalled.
First and foremost, Los Angeles lost more than $100 million in state Active Transportation Program (ATP) safety grants because Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT) and Public Works did not have enough engineers, project managers, or environmental‑review staff to meet the state’s required deadlines, leaving the projects stuck at essentially zero progress.
The city asked the California Transportation Commission for a six‑year extension—far beyond what the program allows—so the CTC declined to even hear the request, which automatically triggered forfeiture.
In short, by not providing the staff to complete the work, the city missed required milestones and lost the money. Funded would have been curb extensions, raised crosswalks, pedestrian refuge islands, intersection daylighting, bus‑stop safety upgrades, and redesigned high‑injury corridors—projects intended to reduce severe crashes, especially T‑bones and pedestrian strikes.
There have also been tragic delays in deployment of automated speed cameras, despite state authorization and strong evidence of effectiveness.
The mayor has delayed releasing a Vision Zero executive directive meant to force interdepartmental coordination, set deadlines, assign responsibilities, open emergency procurement pathways, and compel agencies to act together on street‑safety priorities. It is my understanding that such a mayoral order has been drafted inside Los Angeles City Hall but has been kept quiet.
Issuing an Emergency Declaration is important because city hall failures clearly reflect that structural and administrative barriers cannot be resolved through routine policymaking alone.
To issue such a declaration the mayor must establish that conditions of extreme peril in the safety of people or property exist within the city, and they do. And that the threat exceeds the ordinary capability, staffing, or procedures of city departments under standard operating conditions, and they have.
The process is straightforward: Mayor Bass can issue an emergency declaration on her own, after which the City Council must ratify it within 10 days and review or renew it every 30 to 60 days to keep the emergency powers in effect.
It is time to move quickly. Even the Los Angeles Police Department data shows that the city has seen 8% more fatal traffic collisions this year than during the same period last year, according to LAist.
Further, traffic stops have dropped 57% since 2019 due to staffing shortages and restrictions on “pretextual stops.” This decline has coincided with a 29% increase in traffic deaths since 2016 and a 54% rise in pedestrian fatalities.
Earlier this year, dozens of protesters lay still on the steps of Los Angeles City Hall to express their anger and demand speed cameras, protected bike lanes, and redesigned crosswalks—tools they said remain underused in Vision Zero efforts. A sign reading “People are dying, City Hall is failing” hung above the steps, while yellow roses honoring those killed by traffic violence covered the bottom steps.
I have written that Vision Zero failed because the city never created the political, institutional, or cultural conditions needed for a program dependent on unified authority, consistent enforcement, and sustained political courage. An April KPMG audit found that half of Vision Zero’s 56 required actions and strategies remained unfinished five years after their deadline.
Los Angeles has run out of time. Each week brings another preventable death, another family in mourning, and another intersection turned into a memorial. This is not a traffic challenge, it is a public‑safety emergency worsened by lack of leadership, bureaucratic delay, fragmented authority, and failure to respond at the scale of the crisis.
When a city loses $100 million in safety grant because it cannot staff its own engineering departments, as pedestrians and cyclists die at rates rivaling violent crime, and proven life‑saving tools remain unused for years, the case for extraordinary action is already clear.
Mayor Bass must use the full power of her office and issue an Emergency Declaration NOW—not tomorrow—to cut through the bureaucracy that has blocked meaningful action on street safety. Only an emergency order can break the paralysis that has turned Los Angeles streets into open-air killing fields. Nothing less than extraordinary action will stop the bloodshed that has become part of the city’s grim daily rhythm.
(Nick Patsaouras is an electrical engineer, civic leader, and a longtime public advocate. He ran for Mayor in 1993 with a focus on rebuilding L.A. through transportation after the 1992 civil unrest. He has served on major public boards, including the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, Metro, and the Board of Zoning Appeals, helping guide infrastructure and planning policy in Los Angeles. He is the author of the book "The Making of Modern Los Angeles.")
