Skip to main content

LA's Garcetti: 'We must reimagine our future'

Mayor emphasises possibilities of post-Covid mobility in keynote speech at CoMotion LA
By Adam Hill November 18, 2020 Read time: 1 min
Garcetti: 'Now more than ever, we need to innovate our transportation system'

Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti called his city the "transportation technology capital of the world" in opening remarks at this week's three-day CoMotion LA digital event.

“The focus in this unprecedented moment is on moving essential workers to their jobs, delivering essential services to people who are homebound by a pandemic, and creating slow streets in our neighbourhoods," he said.

"There’s no question, now more than ever, we need to innovate our transportation system, nationally, globally and locally. We need to double down on our commitment to not only recover from this pandemic but not to return to what was before – reimagine, instead, our future."

He emphasised that that meant "addressing the current cascade of crises and the ever-present threat of climate change together".

Garcetti highlighted the future mobillity work of Urban Movement Labs, saying that it is could "knit together the fabric of our transportation system as a low-noise, all-electric, accessible and affordable option for getting around".

This work would be part of his “broader vision for a safe, sustainable, multimodal transportation system in Los Angeles: transportation that puts equity front and centre, and is accessible to everyone".

The event, which features a variety of presentations and discussion sessions, runs until 19 November.

Related Content

  • Women in ITS: "You can’t be what you can’t see"
    March 4, 2025
    Bias – unconscious or otherwise – is a major problem when it comes to ensuring that ITS businesses reflect the diversity of the talent pool available to them. But there are practical solutions to challenges which have made the playing field uneven…
  • Is fare-free transit taking us for a ride?
    August 11, 2022
    More cities around the world are trialling fare-free public transit schemes. Do they work and are they sustainable? Andrew Stone puts absolutely no money on his travelcard and jumps on board
  • Xerox streamlines parking in LA
    May 22, 2012
    It’ll be a little easier to find a parking space in notoriously traffic-congested Los Angeles thanks to a new advanced parking system developed by Xerox and the Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT).
  • Microgrids & the new power generation
    August 31, 2021
    Public transportation agencies are turning to microgrids to provide critical resilience in the event of local and regional power interruptions. Gordon Feller looks at projects in Maryland, New Jersey and Massachusetts