A 26-year-old UCLA law student has turned painting illegal crosswalks into something close to a second job, leading a volunteer network that has striped roughly 18 intersections across Los Angeles even as he faces the risk of arrest each time he picks up a roller. Jonathan Hale, founder of People's Vision Zero, says the city simply isn't moving fast enough to stop the bloodshed on its streets. “We can't wait any longer,” he told the Los Angeles Times.
People's Vision Zero now has about 150 volunteers. This month, they painted crosswalks at West 30th and Orchard streets in South Los Angeles, completing the work in under two hours, the Los Angeles Times reported. Hale is a UCLA School of Law J.D. student and founded the group to press for street-safety changes.
Hale has already faced legal consequences for painting an unauthorized crossing. He was arrested in December 2025 while painting a crosswalk in Westwood; the L.A. City Attorney's office dismissed the resulting vandalism case the following month, as Hoodline previously reported. The case illustrates the legal risks involved when advocates mark streets without city approval.
A Pattern That Predates This Year's Arrest
Months before the Westwood arrest, Hale painted yellow-striped crosswalks at every corner adjacent to Stoner Park in May 2025, spending about $200 of his own money on paint, per the Los Angeles Times. LADOT erased those DIY crosswalks that July, saying in August that they didn't comply with accessibility requirements — though the city later repainted crosswalks at the park itself, the Times notes.
That back-and-forth captures the core legal tension at play. Under California Vehicle Code Section 275 and Section 21950, a legal crosswalk already exists at nearly every intersection where sidewalks meet at right angles, marked or not, and drivers must yield to pedestrians either way, according to Courthouse Law. Activists like Hale paint the stripes anyway, aiming to make that invisible right-of-way impossible for speeding drivers to ignore. The legal exposure is real: under California Penal Code Section 594, defacing public property with paint is a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in county jail and a $1,000 fine if damage is valued under $400, or a wobbler felony carrying up to three years in prison and a $10,000 fine for damage valued at $400 or more, per My Rights Law Group.
September's Hyde Park Crosswalk Followed a Teen's Death
The stakes behind the group's work came into sharp focus in September, when Hale and People's Vision Zero painted a DIY crosswalk at West 60th Street and 10th Avenue in South L.A.'s Hyde Park neighborhood after city officials failed to commit to physical safety infrastructure following the fatal hit-and-run death of 16-year-old Hernan Martinez, according to CBS Los Angeles. Neighbors there had long complained about speeding vehicles and ignored stop signs along that corridor, the station reported.
Hale wants the city to legalize his group's work and recommit to its Vision Zero promises, according to the Los Angeles Times. He has met with Mayor Karen Bass. LADOT spokesperson Colin Sweeney told the Times that the department had delivered on all commitments made to Hale. Projects are underway on Pico and Spring-Alameda. LADOT also says it adds or maintains more than 1,000 crosswalks a year, including 1,346 in fiscal year 2025-26.
How Crosswalk Requests Are Reviewed
For an uncontrolled approach, the 2026 California MUTCD final draft says an engineering study should be performed before installing a marked crosswalk. It lists factors to consider, including traffic and pedestrian volumes, speed, roadway geometry, lighting and pedestrians' ages and abilities, according to the California Department of Transportation.
LADOT says residents can submit City service requests online, by dialing 3-1-1 or through the MyLA311 app. Its service-request page does not describe a crosswalk-specific review process or an accessibility checklist.
Vision Zero's 2025 Goal Came Up Far Short
Los Angeles adopted its Vision Zero plan in 2015 with a goal of eliminating all traffic deaths by 2025. Instead, the city recorded 290 traffic fatalities in 2025. In 2023 alone, the city logged 336 traffic fatalities, and city auditors found that nearly half of 56 planned Vision Zero actions and strategies remained incomplete by the end of that year.
That shortfall tracks with broader numbers Hoodline has reported this year: traffic collisions killed 290 people in Los Angeles in 2025, with more than 150 of those deaths involving pedestrians, marking the third consecutive year that roadway fatalities have exceeded the city's homicide count. LADOT data also shows that 65% of all severe and fatal collisions occur on just 6% of the city's street network — the stretches planners call the High Injury Network, and the same corridors where Hale's group concentrates its painting efforts.
The frustration driving Hale isn't limited to his own circle. In September, he and other advocates asked Mayor Karen Bass to declare a state of emergency over rising traffic deaths, and Hale joined Damian Kevitt and fellow advocates in delivering an open letter with more than 1,000 signatures to the mayor and City Council, according to the Los Angeles Times.
City Spending Hasn't Closed the Gap
The city has invested nearly $350 million in Vision Zero since 2015, including $13.5 million for LAPD overtime speed enforcement along dangerous corridors, Hoodline has reported — spending that underscores the scale of taxpayer investment even as fatalities climbed toward decade highs.
Hale's tactics aren't without precedent. The activist group Crosswalk Collective LA has painted unauthorized crosswalks across the city since early 2022, publishing a step-by-step DIY guide, according to Streetsblog Los Angeles. LADOT has replaced guerrilla markings with official crosswalk markings at one intersection.
Hale says People's Vision Zero will continue painting crosswalks for as long as the need exists, the Los Angeles Times reported.
