Strategic Planning
Transportation needs data-driven planning and policy solutions rooted in strong community collaboration. 
LADOT’s Bureau of Strategic Planning develops transportation plans, policies, and projects that advance sustainable and equity-focused mobility throughout the City of Los Angeles. To advance the City’s mobility goals, the Bureau of Strategic Planning leads the interagency coordination and prioritization of transportation investments. The bureau also contributes to state, regional, and local transportation planning efforts in collaboration with SCAG, Metro, Caltrans, and Councils of Government to advance transformational transportation projects and policies such as reducing vehicle miles traveled, connecting first/last mile infrastructure to transit stations, goods movement, code the curb, and regional and citywide transportation equity. The Strategic Planning Bureau reviews compliance documents for land use and transportation infrastructure projects that are subject to the California Environmental Quality Act, Measure HLA, and other state/local legislation. The Strategic Planning Bureau is planning for the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Los Angeles by leading internal planning and steering committees focused on first/last mile to venues, transportation demand management, mapping, modeling, and heat mitigation.
Active Projects:
In The Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT), along with a Community Advisory Board and Technical Advisory Committee, is leading the City’s first Mobility Action Plan (MAP) to guide future transportation investments with a focus on safety, equity, access, and sustainability. The MAP will create a list of prioritized transportation investments for Los Angeles that advance our City’s policy goals and community vision.
Learn more and follow the process on the Mobility Action Plan website
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City of Los Angeles Travel Demand Forecast (TDF) Model
LADOT develops and maintains a Travel Demand Forecasting (TDF) Model to understand how land use and transportation decisions shape travel behavior. The model builds on baseline data and future projections developed by the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG), which are refined to reflect local conditions in Los Angeles. By simulating how people travel, the TDF Model estimates vehicle trips and Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) associated with new developments and long-range planning efforts. It also incorporates socioeconomic data alongside roadway and transit networks to evaluate equity and environmental outcomes, helping ensure that projects support broader climate and mobility goals. In 2026, LADOT updated the model to reflect the latest available data. The updated model utilizes a 2024 base year and provides forecasts through the 2050 horizon year.
Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) Calculator Update
The City of Los Angeles’ Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) Calculator estimates how much driving a new development may generate. It calculates both the distance residents are likely to drive each day and the commute-related driving of employees, providing a clear picture of a project’s transportation impact. The tool is designed specifically for projects in Los Angeles and follows the City’s Transportation Assessment Guidelines (TAG), which establish how transportation impacts are measured and evaluated. It is primarily used for residential and office developments and reports key results such as daily vehicle trips, total vehicle miles traveled (VMT), and average driving per resident and per employee. The tool allows users to explore how transportation demand management (TDM) strategies can reduce transportation-related environmental impacts. Various TDMstrategies, such as improving access to transit, supporting carpooling, or designing more walkable communities, can be built into a project or added as mitigation measures. The calculator adjusts its estimates to reflect the addition of the TDM strategies, showing how they reduce vehicular trips and VMT. Only TDM strategies supported by real-world evidence are included, ensuring the results are practical and grounded in proven outcomes. More information about the VMT Calculator and the TAG can be found on the Development Review webpage, which also outlines Transportation Assessment requirements for developers. The Transportation Referral Form for land use projects can be found on the Los Angeles City Planning webpage.
In March 2024, Los Angeles City voters approved the Healthy Streets LA (HLA) ballot measure (Los Angeles Municipal Code Section 85.11). The ballot measure mandates that the City install the City’s Mobility Plan 2035 Enhanced Mobility Networks, when implementing qualifying street improvements.
In addition, Measure HLA requires that the City provide publicly accessible information regarding these street improvements on an online dashboard for transparency. The Mobility Plan 2035 Implementation Dashboard displays where the City is planning mobility improvements on our streets in accordance with the City’s adopted transportation element of the General Plan, the Mobility Plan 2035. These projects will improve connectivity and infrastructure for people walking, biking, taking public transit, and driving. Access to the dashboard and information on how to use the dashboard can be found on the Mobility Plan Implementation webpage.
For questions related to Mobility Plan Implementation, or how to post your project as a project manager, please email LADOT.
LADOT’s mobility and safety improvement projects are often exempt from California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) environmental review. A Notice of Exemption (NOE) is a document filed by a public agency under the CEQA to disclose that a proposed project qualifies to file as exempt from environmental review. The Strategic Planning Bureau manages LADOT’s NOE review and process. LADOT project NOEs are available for public viewing on the CEQA web page in addition to the Governor’s Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation website.
Completed Projects:
Reconnecting MacArthur Park Study
The Reconnecting MacArthur Park Study (January 2025 - April 2026) explored the potential permanent closure of Wilshire Boulevard to vehicle travel between Carondelet Street and Alvarado Street in the City of Los Angeles. The study included transportation analysis, community visioning, community engagement, and conceptual planning, and examined how the physical continuity of the northern and south portions of MacArthur Park ” could better connect residents with housing, jobs, schools, and park space. Reconnecting MacArthur Park Study explored ways to correct the historic environmental injustice that split the park in two, reducing green space, and separating the neighborhood, while also complementing the rich transit-density and low car ownership of the surrounding Westlake neighborhood.
To inform the Study, the team conducted 13 Community Advisory Committee (CAC) meetings, collected over 2,500 survey responses from community members, and analyzed transportation benefits and constraints. Based on those findings, the Study recommends advancing the Neighborhood Transformation Concept, which would remove Wilshire Boulevard from Alvarado Street to Park View Street, clearing the asphalt roadway to reconnect the two halves of MacArthur Park. This concept would also close Wilshire Boulevard to vehicular traffic between Park View Street and Carondelet Street. In the Study, this concept aligned most closely with policy goals of increasing safety and connectivity, community health and wellbeing, maximizing park and street design to benefit the community, as well as receiving the highest share of support from survey respondents, and minimal traffic delays on nearby streets. The final report of Reconnecting MacArthur Park Study is now available.
The first phase of the project was funded through a SCAG (Southern California Association of Governments) Sustainable Communities Program Civic Engagement, Equity & Environmental Justice (SCP CEEEJ) grant. SCAG, Central City Neighborhood Partners (CCNP), and Council District 1 partnered with LADOT during the first phase of the project, and a consultant team supported the transportation analysis and outreach efforts.
The project is now in Phase II. The second phase of this project includes preparing an environmental assessment for all five proposed concepts, developing design and engineering plans, and developing a preliminary design for the closure of Wilshire Blvd from Park View St and Carondelet St. The second phase is expected to be completed by 2028 and will be led by the Bureau of Engineering, in partnership with the Department of Recreation and Parks, Council District 1, and Central City Neighborhood Partners. Additional funding will be needed for future phases to complete final design and implementation (timeline TBD).
During the 2026 World Cup and the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games, LADOT is hosting open streets events on Wilshire Boulevard in collaboration with Council District 1 to demonstrate the project and gather feedback from community members.
Learn More About this Effort:
- Reconnecting MacArthur Park Final Report (English and Spanish)
- Reconnecting MacArthur Park (District 1)
- July 13, 2026 Press Release: Thousands Gather at Park to Park 2026 to Celebrate Community, World Cup Quarterfinals, and the Future of MacArthur Park
- July 2, 2026 Press Release | Councilmember Hernandez Announces Completion of Phase 1 of Reconnecting MacArthur Park Project, Invites Public to Experience Park to Park Open Streets Activation
- July 9, 2024 Press Release | Councilmember Hernandez Secures $2.5 Million in Funding to Launch Reconnecting MacArthur Park Project
- October 5, 2023 Press Release | Council District 1, LA Department of Transportation and Central City Neighborhood Partners Receive Grant to Study Reconnecting MacArthur Park
In 2023, LADOT’s Code the Curb DTLA Pilot was one of 59 projects awarded the Strengthening Mobility and Revolutionizing Transportation (SMART) federal grant. The grant funded public sector agencies to conduct demonstration projects focusing on advanced smart community technologies and systems in order to improve transportation efficiency and safety. LADOT was awarded $2 million to develop and deliver this advanced smart technology demonstration project in Downtown Los Angeles. Downtown Los Angeles was selected as the pilot location given its high curbside activities, population densities, and visitors, as well as being a historically underinvested and disadvantaged community. To deliver this ambitious project, LADOT brought on a team of contractors, including Cambridge Systematics, Arcadis, and Autonomos.
Cambridge Systematics assisted with planning and design by developing inventories of existing data, creating parking equity analysis, conducting internal staff training, and outreach.
Arcadis assisted with data visualization and platform management, as well as collecting over 200 curb miles of assets in Downtown Los Angeles. This asset collection included the City’s traffic and parking signs, painted curbs, bike rack and station infrastructure, and other regulatory tools to help guide the movement of people and goods throughout the City. For the first time, this asset database became public facing allowing residents and visitors to access the digital map to check existing curb regulations.
These digitized assets were also consolidated into a formalized data structure based on the Curb Data Specification (CDS) standard. This data structure enables two-way communication and data exchange between the public right-of-way and mobility service providers. This new tool will give Los Angeles a digital approach to managing the public right-of-way. It will also help LADOT govern how private mobility service providers operate in our city in real time. For additional information and details on CDS, visit the GitHub page.
Finally, Automotus assisted by enabling automated curb monitoring data collection. Automotus installed 56 cameras throughout the project area, collecting curb activity along high-priority areas. These cameras allowed for 24/7 curb monitoring events to determine how the general public complied with existing regulations. It should be noted that this was only for research purposes and no enforcement action was taken, nor were enforcement schedules modified.
LADOT’s pilot in Downtown Los Angeles provides valuable lessons learned that allow the City to scale this effort into actionable modifications to curb policies and integrate these with existing asset management systems. Contingent upon future funding, LADOT also seeks to scale this project to other neighborhoods with high curbside turnover and activity, such as Hollywood, Koreatown, Venice, and additional neighborhoods that could benefit from flexible curb policies.
LADOT’s open development approach for Code the Curb is designed so that other jurisdictions, organizations, and residents could benefit from these tools and to enable collaboration to improve our City’s right-of-way.
In 2013, California adopted Senate Bill (SB) 743, which identified Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) as the preferred CEQA transportation impact metric. As a result of SB743, project applicants that have identified significant VMT impacts are required to mitigate them to the fullest extent feasible. Typically, CEQA mitigations are on-site, involving physical design changes and transportation demand management (TDM) strategies. However, off-site mitigation options can expand VMT mitigation opportunities through infrastructure investments, programs, and services that influence travel demand and transportation mode choice.
Completed in 2021, the VMT Mitigation Program Pilot Project explored and piloted off-site VMT mitigation options. This Project was a collaboration between LADOT, the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG), LA Metro, academic partners, and Fehr & Peers. This was a groundbreaking effort to establish a framework and pilot program for VMT Exchange Program, which allows development projects that cannot fully mitigate VMT impacts on-site to fund off-site, VMT-reducing transportation investments.
The VMT Exchange Program piloted this concept through a series of use cases. The program offers a menu of pre-qualified mitigation actions, such as funding active transportation improvements, which are supported by rigorous technical analysis to ensure quantifiable environmental benefits. By unlocking mitigation dollars for regional projects, the VMT Exchange Program supports infill development while directly investing in the mobility and climate goals of underserved communities across Los Angeles. The completed Study is available here.
Downtown Los Angeles Mobility Investment Plan
The Downtown Los Angeles Mobility Investment Program (DTLA MIP) prepares the City to meet the transportation needs of current and future residents, workers, and visitors. Downtown Los Angeles (DTLA) is the regional hub of business, culture, and transportation with a residential population that is expected to more than double by 2040. The DTLA MIP prioritized inclusive, equitable, sustainable, and healthy growth for DTLA, with a goal of addressing mobility and access gaps.
The DTLA MIP is a comprehensive list of projects and programs developed through a community first engagement process that asked residents and workers of Downtown Los Angeles about their specific mobility barriers and needs. The DTLA MIP built upon previous planning and community engagement efforts, such as the DTLA 2040 Community Plan, to prioritize inclusive, equitable, sustainable and healthy growth for DTLA. Through this process, the DTLA MIP created a roadmap for the City of Los Angeles to invest in transportation infrastructure and programs that support a safe and reliable travel experience for all in DTLA. LADOT implements DTLA MIP identified priority projects as funding opportunities become available. LADOT will periodically update the DTLA MIP Project List as projects are completed.
View past DTLA MIP materials and the final report using the links below:
- Project Factsheet (English, Spanish, Vietnamese, Japanese, Korean, Chinese)
- DTLA MIP Introduction Overview Video
- DTLA MIP Final Report (coming soon)
Stress Free Connections Planning
Stress Free Connections projects create a comfortable network of connected residential streets with easier crossings for localized travel by people of all ages and abilities. Between 2019 and 2022, LADOT collaborated with communities to address barriers to mobility and advance new street design concepts to improve the comfort and safety of people who walk, bike, or roll on neighborhood streets. This effort was funded through a Caltrans Planning Grant and focused on planning Stress Free Connections in four focus neighborhoods. A segment of this planning effort has since moved into the implementation phase with the Stress-Free Connections South Los Angeles project.