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LOS ANGELES () — A year after being arrested for painting sidewalks as part of an effort to improve street safety, Jonathan Hale says a new city proposal could pave the way for volunteers to legally paint crosswalks across Los Angeles.
Hale, founder of People’s Vision Zero, was arrested about a year ago and charged with vandalism after painting sidewalks. According to Hale, his goal was to promote safer streets for pedestrians, bicyclists and public transit users.
“I myself, I don’t have a car and I live in L.A. that way. And so I advocate for people that walk and bike and take public transit and I wanted to see a government that protected those people’s dignity and serve their needs,” Hale said.
Not everyone supports residents taking such actions on their own.
“If he was just doing it in a vigilante effort, then I don’t know if that’s a good idea. He should probably get the proper legal framework to do that,” Westwood resident Joseph Robinson said.
Now, Hale says a motion introduced by Los Angeles City Council members could lead to an official volunteer program.
“This corner is in Councilwoman Yaroslavsky’s district, so she, just last week, put out a motion co-authored by councilmember Eunisses Martinez instructing LADOT to study the feasibility of a volunteer led pilot program to allow volunteers to paint crosswalks for safer streets,” Hale said.
Westwood resident Jason Lai said volunteer involvement could help speed up safety improvements.
“I think that’s a great thing because I think there’s a lot of, I don’t know, it can be slow if it’s just the city kind of handling things, but I guess it just depends on, like the leeway,” Lai said.
Hale was arrested at the Westwood location where he had been painting a crosswalk and, according to the report, was unable to finish the work before being taken into custody. Although the vandalism charges were later dropped, Hale said the arrest has not discouraged him from advocating for safer streets.
“You know, I’m privileged, I have an army of supporters. I’m not too worried about this, but I will say that we plan to hold off on painting crosswalks and see what the city comes back with. We want to do this legally and hopefully the next time we paint crosswalks, it’ll be through an official program,” Hale said.
The city did not respond to a request for comment.
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