Yesterday at the LA City Council meeting a motion was introduced to create a phased action plan to implement a merger of the Bureau of Street Services (BSS) with the Department of Transportation (DOT). The motion was presented by Councilmembers Nury Martinez and Joe Buscaino and represents a great step forward to begin efforts to better coordinate and improve how the City of LA manages its public right of way.

“This motion is a step in the right direction to help deliver these important projects to our neighborhoods in an efficient and cohesive manner. Our residents deserve complete departments that can deliver complete streets.” says Councilmember Nury Martinez.

We couldn’t agree more. For more background on this issue see our blog post from last December: How can we Fix our Public Right-of-Way, the Right Way?

Next steps will be for this proposal to be assigned to committee and the Chief Legislative Analyst (CAO) office to develop a plan and present for discussion. Interested in this discussion and want to track it? We will be posting about it but we encourage you to sign up for updates to Council File 18-0458 (click on the little envelope at the top to sign up).

Thank you Councilmembers Martinez, Buscaino, Bonin and Cedillo for this bold and much needed proposal to explore how to improve our public rights of way for our neighborhoods and communities. Stay tuned for next steps.