Los Angeles Creates Urban Movement Labs, Accelerates Mobility Innovation

The city of Los Angeles, California has created the Urban Movement Labs (UML) – a first-of-its-kind public-private partnership (P3) to accelerate innovation in mobility. The initiative will empower a coalition of public and private sector partners, non-profit organizations, academic experts, and local residents to design and deploy creative solutions to the city’s critical transportation challenges.

Mayor Eric Garcetti states that the program will seek to expand new mobility solutions, offer job training and workforce development for local residents, and provide a proving ground with four different environments to test solutions. The aim is to “develop, test and build transportation solutions” to help the city reduce its reliance on single-occupancy vehicles, and also to find new mobility options that could be used in other cities worldwide.

Partners on the project include the Mayor’s Office of Economic Development, the Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT), Los Angeles World Airports, the Port of Los Angeles, Avis Budget Group, the L.A. Cleantech Incubator (LACI), Lyft, Verizon, and Waymo.

In its first year, UML will work with local communities across L.A. to confront major issues affecting daily life: including providing better transportation options to L.A.’s residents and visitors; easing commutes across the region; and converting underused transportation assets into affordable housing.

Beyond working with residents to address these immediate challenges, UML will be built around three core initiatives:

  1. The Ideas Accelerator: UML will identify current challenges, match solutions to each of them, then develop pilot programs to test ideas on L.A.’s streets;
  2. The Economic and Workforce Development Initiative: UML will focus on developing a pipeline of businesses and well-paying jobs for the local workforce; and,
  3. The Urban Proving Grounds Initiative — UML leaders, partners, and community members will identify and vet a network of L.A. neighborhoods where solutions can be tested, evaluated, scaled to size, and eventually deployed.

“Angelenos don’t wait for the future — we guide it,” said Mayor Garcetti. “Urban Movement Labs will secure L.A.’s standing as the transportation innovation capital of the world — a place where new technologies are tested, proven, and brought to life, and people in every community have a seat at the table today as we think about what our city will look like tomorrow.”

For more information on Urban Movement Labs, visit urbanmovementlabs.com.