This week L.A. Mayor Karen Bass signed an executive directive designed to reform the city's processes for improving and maintaining public infrastructure, including streets, parks, and other public spaces. The five-page Executive Directive 9: Streamlining Capital Project Delivery and Equitably Investing in the Public Right-of-Way mandates that the city come up with its first Capital Infrastructure Plan (CIP).
Specifically, E.D. 9 forms a Capital Planning Steering Committee comprised of various city department representatives. That committee is charged with delivering and overseeing the new CIP, including coordinating maintenance, funding, and new project/program prioritization, planning, development, and delivery. The committee will oversee an inventory of the city's right-of-way assets, including documenting them via a public-facing website.
The nonprofit Investing in Place, which has been at the forefront of advocates' push for a comprehensive, multi-year city CIP, praised the mayor's directive: "For the first time in Los Angeles’ history, the directive addresses essential reforms to our public right-of-way that place equity, community engagement, and transparency at the forefront."
Investing in Place emphasized many positives expected to result from the new directive, including: [read full list]
- For the first time, Los Angeles engages the disability community as a key partner in planning and maintaining the public right-of-way.
- Project list development will move from a "black box" to a process that includes community engagement as a component.
- The Directive eliminates bureaucratic silos by consolidating multiple existing workgroups, creating a unified, shared vision.
- The Directive emphasizes equitable investment in the public right-of-way, ensuring historically underserved and low-income communities receive the attention and resources needed to address long-standing infrastructure disparities.
E.D. 9 gets a very promising new city process underway, though, there's still a lot of work ahead. As Investing in Place Executive Director Jessica Meaney told Torched, "a lot will depend on the leadership of the mayor, city councilmembers, and executive teams of the bureaus and departments — as well as civic leaders."
Read more about Executive Directive 9 at the L.A. Times, Torched, Investing in Place, and at the mayor's website: press release and ally statements.
