L.A. Reported

California's bullet train project has a new problem: The cost-cutting redesign meant to keep it on budget appears to violate two state laws.

The rail authority's draft plan would finish the Merced-to-Bakersfield segment for $35 billion by 2033 — but only by stopping miles short of both downtowns and laying a single track across most of the route. State law specifies dual tracks and downtown stations.

The authority's own inspector general flagged the gap. Weeks later, Gov. Newsom replaced the board chair with two of his closest political allies.

Ralph Vartabedian reports for L.A. Reported.

The bullet train is off-track again The rail authority’s inspector general warns that design changes violate state law.

Mayor Karen Bass came into office promising to "lock arms" with the county on homelessness. Two years and one devastating fire later, that catchphrase has gone quiet.

Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Greene takes a careful look at how Bass's first term unfolded — the wins, the missteps, and the structural problems no L.A. mayor can solve alone.

Read the full story at the link below.

Karen Bass walks through fire. And gets burned. By Robert Greene

How safe are L.A.'s streets? Not very — and it's getting worse.

Traffic citations in Los Angeles have dropped 63% since 2019.
Fatal crashes are up 55% since 2015. More people died in traffic collisions last year than in homicides — for the third year running.

L.A. Reported's first investigation into the city's deadly streets explores why enforcement has collapsed and what it will take to turn things around.

Do you know why we didn't pull you over? It's never been easier to get away with speeding or running a light in Los Angeles. Drivers and pedestrians are paying a deadly price.

California voted for a bullet train connecting L.A. to San Francisco in 2 hours and 40 minutes. The new business plan from the California High-Speed Rail Authority tells a very different story: a high-speed segment running Gilroy to Palmdale, with slower connections at both ends that could make the total trip about six hours.

But six hours is driving time.

Ralph Vartabedian — who has covered this project for the New York Times and LA Times — breaks down what the new plan actually means for Southern California.

The bullet train to … Gilroy California voted for high-speed rail to connect Los Angeles to San Francisco. That’s not what it looks like in the latest reports.

L.A.'s roads are deadly — not just for people. Our latest investigation into how automobiles are killing more wildlife in the city than ever before.

https://bit.ly/3P2nsPg

When the city can't keep up with L.A.'s ever-growing trash problem, some residents are taking matters into their own hands: biking neighborhoods to report illegal dumps, hiring their own cleanup crews, running weekly volunteer MeetUps.

Reports of illegal dumping rose from 73,000 to 91,000 in a single year. The sanitation department went without a fee increase from 2008 to last November.

Sam Quinones reports for L.A. Reported, in collaboration with the Dreamland Newsletter.

L.A.'s trash vigilantes When the city doesn't keep up with ever-mounting piles of garbage, these residents step in.

What actually happens to the plastic you put in your blue bin?

In L.A., most of it never gets recycled. Only 16% of #1 plastic bottles — the kind used for water and soda — are recycled statewide. The state's only large-scale curbside recycling plant for those bottles recently shut down. And when a chemical engineer placed trackers on the city's recyclables, she found most of them weren't even leaving California — they were sitting in warehouses.

Katharine Gammon spoke to researchers, activists, and city officials to find out why L.A.'s recycling system is so broken — and what it would take to fix it.

Piles of trash, sitting in warehouses Too much of L.A.’s plastic waste never gets recycled.

A century ago, merchants banned streetcars from Wilshire Boulevard. In 1985, a methane explosion blocked subway construction for decades. Beverly Hills spent $16 million trying to stop tunneling under its high school.

Now, after 30 years at a dead end at Wilshire and Western, the D Line is finally pushing west, with three new stations opening in Miracle Mile this spring.

David Ulin on why this extension could be L.A.'s public transit turning point.

Take the D train Will Metro’s Wilshire Boulevard line be our public-transit turning point?

If you've ever wondered why some L.A. neighborhoods have almost no shade — this story is part of the answer.

Emails obtained by L.A. Reported reveal that city officials have been removing trees, bus shelters, and benches in low-income neighborhoods to discourage homeless people from gathering. An LAPD officer told a librarian to trim down any trees that provide shade. A council member's staffer ordered bus shelters dismantled.

The research says trees actually reduce crime. Residents say the removals haven't helped. And the neighborhoods that lost shade are the ones that already had the least.

Uncool Whacking L.A. trees in a mistaken effort to reduce crime

If you live in the city of L.A., you're paying the same price for electricity at noon, when solar floods the grid, as you are at 7 p.m., when natural gas plants kick in. Meanwhile, Edison customers next door get discounts for using clean power during the day. We looked into why.

L.A.'s preposterous power prices Other utilities take advantage of cheap solar power to cut customer bills and help the environment. Why won't LADWP follow suit?

Writer Deanne Stillman reflects on her year as a fire nomad, "relying on the generosity of friends, and staying with one after another as my house was no longer inhabitable."

My year as a fire nomad Yearning for home, finding love instead