In 2013, I was hit by a car while riding my bike through Griffith Park — dragged a quarter-mile down the 5 Freeway, losing my right leg and nearly my life. Two years later, Los Angeles leaders announced a bold Vision Zero goal: to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025. But nearly a decade later, traffic violence has only gotten worse.

Through Streets Are For Everyone, I’ve made it my mission to prevent tragedies like mine. Despite promises of safer streets, too many Angelenos are still being killed or seriously injured just trying to walk, bike, or drive across their own neighborhoods.

Now, instead of stepping up, the City is about to make things even more dangerous.

Los Angeles already ranks among the deadliest cities in the country for cyclists and pedestrians — and for two years straight, traffic deaths have outnumbered homicides. In 2024 alone, SAFE helped more traffic victims than in any other year of our 10-year history.

Facing a budget shortfall, Mayor Bass and City Administrative Officer Matthew Szabo have proposed extreme "DOGE" cuts that would gut LADOT’s ability to make streets safer. If these cuts go through, there will be no funding for new safety improvements next year — no speed reduction measures, no protected bike lanes, no pedestrian upgrades. Nothing.

Let’s be clear: Cuts to LADOT will cost lives. We cannot afford to let that happen.

Programs like Vision Zero — the City’s own commitment to end traffic deaths — would be crippled, setting back even the limited progress we’ve made.

Los Angeles deserves streets where kids can walk to school safely, where people can bike to work without fearing for their lives, where families and seniors can move freely and with dignity.

SAFE, together with Los Angeles Walks, Streets For All, BikeLA, Walk ‘n Rollers, SoCal Families For Safe Streets, Biking While Black, Move LA, and People for Mobility Justice, are standing together to say: Enough is enough.

We urge our city leaders to reverse these reckless cuts — and to prioritize people’s lives over political expediency.

Sign the petition today. Help us fight for the safe, livable Los Angeles we all deserve.