Hyperfixed - Crosswalk Jonny

Episode Date: February 26, 2026

This week, the story of a man who is bound and determined to make his city safer, even if it means breaking the law.Please consider becoming a premium hyperfixed member. You'll get bonus episodes, access to our discord, discounts on merch (https://merch.hyperfixedpod.com/) and most importantly, you will be supporting independent journalism. https://www.hyperfixedpod.com/joinLINKS: People's Vision Zero Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/peoplesvisionzero/ Jonny's White Paper: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1n3PeT7vwutg26_u1jf4Iqx7ba7GdHI42/view To become a PVZ Member: https://pvz.typeform.com/joinus To support People's Vision Zero: https://ko-fi.com/peoplesvisionzero Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Before we start today's show, we want to shout out another member of the Radiotopia family, Radio Diaries. For almost 30 years, Radio Diaries has been helping people document their own lives and histories. Now they're back with a new series called Orson Wells and the Blind Soldier, about a small town crime that sparked the desegregation of the U.S. military. In 1946, a black World War II veteran named Isaac Woodard was blinded by a white police officer. Nobody knew who the officer was. or where the attack happened. But when famed director Orson Wells found out about the attack, he pledged to not only broadcast it, but solve it on the radio, week by week. Wash your hands, Officer X, wash them well, scrub and scour, you won't blot out the blood of a blinded war veteran. You're going to be uncovered. We will blast out your name.

And I will find means to remove from you all refuge, Officer X. You can't get rid of me. This series is a riveting true crime investigation told by descendants, activists, and the last known witness to the attack. Listen to Orson Wells and The Blind Soldier out now, wherever you get your podcasts, or at Radiotopia.fm. Hey, we're trying to get 1,500 new premium members as soon as possible so I can give the staff health care. And if you would like that for them, please go to hyperfixpod.com slash join. Okay, thanks bye. Hi, I'm Alex Goldman, and this is Hyperfixed. Each week on our show, listeners write in with their problems big and small, and I saw.

them. Or at least that's usually what happens. This week I wanted to try something a little different. You see, we live in a world of problems. Some are possible to solve with a phone and a mic sitting behind a computer, but there are so many, way more than I could ever solve on this show, that either require boots on the ground in a specific locale or simply more time and know-how than the hyperfix team can expend. But the good news is that problem solving isn't a skill that's unique to podcasters. As much as we live in a world of problems, we also live in a world of problem solvers. People whose special skills are an absolute shamelessness in bugging people for answers that they want. Patience and a willingness to try just about anything to fix stuff.

And, you know, we here at Hyperfix just kind of think it's a shame that they don't get more attention. So, this week's episode is the first in what I hope will become a new series, which I'm calling hyperfixers. In these episodes, we'll find some. out in the world making a difference in their own small, weird way. Someone so hyper-focused on one specific problem that they throw everything they've got at it. And then I'll share that story with you. This week, Crosswalk Johnny. Frankly, I was just super depressed.

This is Jonathan Hale, Johnny, when you're not using his full name. He's a second year law student at UCLA, and this period of feeling super depressed that he's talking about happened at the beginning of 2025. Trump was back in the White House. He had a super majority in all three branches of government. And the city of Los Angeles, the city that Johnny had only recently moved to, was literally on fire.

I was like, so many big things are happening in the world, and I feel like everything's going for the worse, and these problems are too big for me to be able to make a change. That feeling of overwhelming helplessness can pacify people into inaction. But for Johnny, it motivated him to find some small part of his world where he could make a difference. And as an avid cyclist, pedestrian, and advocate for public safety, he found his cause in his own backyard. Or I guess, at the corner of his block. But let's rewind a bit.

So in 2015, Los Angeles became one of the first American cities to sign on to a program called Vision Zero. If you've never heard of this, Vision Zero is a global initiative. that started in Sweden with a lofty goal to create a system of roads so safe that there are zero fatalities. And to do that, it prescribes a number of solutions. Some as mundane as just lowering speed limits. Some as radical as limiting certain types of cars and complete street redesigns that afford dedicated, separated space to pedestrian traffic. In 2019, L.A. released its own Vision Zero action plan, which included adding separated bike lanes, pedestrian-activated flashing crosswalks, better lighting on roadways, and much, much more.

But, well, what has happened is the streets have gotten a lot more dangerous. A couple of years ago, the City Council Commission an audit of the Vision Zero program in which they spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on a consulting firm who basically told them that the reason that Vision Zero has failed and thousands of people have died is because a lack of institutional urgency, failure to coordinate between city departments, lack of enthusiasm, hesitancy, general unwillingness to do things that might be politically unpopular. There's just all these different factors contributing to Vision Zero doesn't get implemented. Nobody takes it seriously, and a lot of people die.

Right now, cars are the leading cause of death for kids in L.A. I think there's something like 290 traffic deaths in 2025. which is a marked reduction from 2024, actually. So kudos to the city for that. I forget the exact number, but 2024 was over 300. And 2023 and 2024 were two consecutive years where there were more traffic deaths than homicides in the city of Los Angeles. So when Johnny first heard about this audit,

explaining the reason that the city wasn't implementing any of these life-saving changes to the street, he rolled up his sleeves and decided to get to work. At this point, Johnny didn't think he was going to become the face of guerrilla pedestrian safety in Los Angeles. All he knew was that this seemed like a problem he wanted to help with. So one facet of LA's proposed action plan for Vision Zero was the creation of high-visibility crosswalks, literally just painting the pavement to clearly delineate spaces where cars must yield to pedestrians when they're trying to cross the street. because even though crosswalks don't need to be painted in order to be legal,

there's irrefutable evidence showing that when they are painted, safety outcomes improve significantly. It's also just a cheap and fast way to improve safety conditions in a neighborhood, so it's kind of a no-brainer. Unfortunately, like so many other parts of the Vision Zero plan, the city seemed to have issues following through with its crosswalk initiative, which meant that some particularly dangerous intersections in L.A., intersections where one or more people had been fatally struck by cars had been left with unmarked crosswalks. And instead of just allowing that to be the way it is, Johnny signed up to volunteer with a group called the Crosswalks Collective.

The Crosswalks Collective is a coalition of L.A. citizens that descend upon a location wearing masks to obscure their identities. They paint a crosswalk as quickly and unobtrusively as possible and then get the hell out of there. And the reason they do that, of course, is because painting the street without a permit, whether or not it's for the public good is considered an act of vandalism. I reached out to them, I asked if I could get involved, and they brought me out to a crosswalk painting, learn how to do the whole thing.

They gave me a stencil. We were doing this. It was great. People were coming out. Oh, you car speed through this area all the time. We needed this. Thank you guys. You know, it was this wonderful community gathering

to do something to make the area a little better, a little safer, just like our small act of resistance. I think the moment that radicalized me was, I was so proud of that first crosswalk that I painted in Hollywood, and I circled back to it a few weeks later. It was gone. It was like it had never existed. It just erased it.

It was gone? Yeah, yeah. The city had come through with a five-person crew and a giant machine and blasted the paint right off the pavement. And I realized that hadn't been happening. So it was like this approach. attracted whack-a-mole between the cross-sock collective and the city where they would go around, paint these cross-socks. The city would come by a little while later and remove them.

And I was like, there's no way that we're cool of this. Like, we should be demanding answers for why this is a priority when the city has pretty much stopped repaving its streets. It takes so long to get pothole filled in L.A. Sidewalks are cracked, dangerous and inaccessible for people with disabilities. like, why are we prioritizing this? Can we just leave it? But those were questions that the Crosswalk Collective

was not prepared to ask. Because again, the work they were doing, the work they had been doing for years, was being done anonymously. And it seemed like it had to be because, again, regardless of how good their intentions were, what they were doing was illegal. So they couldn't confront the city

without revealing their identities or their actions. And that's when Johnny got the, idea that ultimately led us to this conversation. Because once he realized the city obviously does have the resources for this kind of work and the ability to mobilize those resources rapidly, he felt like he needed answers about why those resources weren't being used to fulfill the city's commitment to keep pedestrians safe. And it seemed like the best way for him to get those answers was to force the city into a public conversation about its priorities. So after that, I was like, I'm going to start my own organization, and we're going to go public with this,

because what we want to do is we want to prove this point about, like, why is the city prioritizing this? Why can the city unilaterally decide to get rid of crosswalks, but it takes, you know, three years, two studies, community outreach, to actually put in those things that are going to save lives? So Johnny formed a new group, a public group, that would operate in broad daylight without face masks. He called the group People's Vision. as a nod to the city's failed safety initiative. And then he quickly gathered volunteers to help him get paint on the ground.

For their first effort, the group chose a cluster of unmarked crosswalks that connect Johnny's West L.A. neighborhood to its local park. Stoner Park, which is this community hub. It's where I walk my dog often. It's where I run into my neighbors. There's a lot of schools nearby that use Stoner Park as their field because they themselves don't have a field. So there's a ton of kids walking around. It's also a place where there's a lot of summer camps, there's like a community pool, there's a rec center. So there's a lot of foot traffic in this area. But the streets surrounding the park are a popular cut through for cars.

And as my LA native producers have informed to me, people really do go racing down those streets. So the plan was to talk to everyone in the neighborhood, get their buy-in on this project, then they'd paint these unpermitted crosswalks before the beginning of summer camp season. And then, after a couple months, they'd leak the store. to the press and see how long it took the city to respond. And that's exactly what they did. Using the skills he learned from the crosswalk collective, Johnny coached his team of neighborhood volunteers

through the process of painting code-compliant crosswalks. And the whole thing went off without a hitch. Everyone was super enthusiastic about the project. And when Johnny leaked the story to the press, there was an immediate burst of media attention. And it was like 72 hours where all these news outlets were coming to the park to like talk to me and my neighbors and then bam, the city removed them in one day. Like we weren't like, oh, gee, the consequences of our actions.

But we were surprised that it happened so quickly after the story got media attention. But of course, this was all part of the plan, to draw the city into an open and public dialogue about the safety of its streets. So after they got removed, I talked to my neighbors again and I was like, guys, If you're upset about this, we're going to email DOT. We're going to email our local city council member, and we're going to ask for safety improvements, or at least some answers as to why this was a priority.

Like, why did we need to spend money on this? I wrote, like, a statement about it. I was like, I'm going to repaint them next week if we don't get an answer, and then the city will just have to deal with that. Which is funny, the idea of, like, extorting the city by threatening to paint a crosswalk, you know? Like, I'm the Joker or something. Like, oh, if you don't, no, no, no, no.

So we did that. And the city reached out to me. They repainted the crosswalks, all four of them, within a week. And then that led to our first meeting with the mayor's office. When Johnny walked into his first meeting with the mayor's office, he was ready to ask some serious questions about the city's commitment to the safety of its streets. He wanted to know why they'd spend taxpayer money unmaking these crosswalks, only to remake them again in more or less the exact same way.

and what tangible steps they were planning to take to uphold their commitment to Vision Zero. The general tone was like, oh, you're a good kid, you got good intentions, but you're young and idealistic, and, you know, you just don't get that there are these processes that we have to abide by in session. It was a little condescending, to be frank.

And in my head, I'm like, well, that's the reason we're protesting is because there are these processes that make these life-saving improvements so difficult. It obviously wasn't a great meeting. But Johnny wasn't deterred. He told the mayor's office that he planned to keep painting crosswalks until they either publicly condemned his actions

or took tangible steps to make the streets safer. And since they did neither, he rallied his team and kept on painting crosswalks. How are you choosing the places where you paint these crosswalks? There is a really useful data source. UC Burgley's Transportation and Hidry mapping system or Timms, which provides a data set of crashes and vehicle collisions. And so I was able to isolate a list of where pedestrians had been hit and injured or killed by cars in the last 10 years. So the period which LA was supposed to reduce traffic deaths to zero.

And we were choosing intersections, residential corners where there's a four-way stop where pedestrians have been hit. And that was pretty much our criteria. Have you talked to any people who have, who have, who have, experienced a loss from a traffic accident in the city about the work you're doing? Yeah, I mean, it's tough because the work that we're doing doesn't bring people back. Hopefully, we'll prevent it from happening in the future. One thing that we did do, we painted a crosswalks at the corner of Fort in New Hampshire in Koreatown, which is a corner where a nine-year-old boy was hit and killed by an RV driver. And it's just sad.

So you think about that boy's life, he was born the same year that L.A. committed ending traffic deaths by the year he died. And if we had taken our goal seriously, he would still be alive. And I think that's underscored by this particular corner. There were plans going back to 2011 and funding going back to 2015. So think about the gear 2015. LA commits to ending traffic deaths and plans and funding for a roundabout at this intersection

and this child comes into the world and then 10 years later none of those things happen. There's no roundabout even though there's plans on funding for it. LA has totally failed to reduce traffic deaths and a kid dies as a result. And that's, you know, it's, it's hard. And so we painted that corner. The city is replacing it with a roundabout and that action, like finally shed light on this, I guess. But it's too little, too late.

For six months, the People's Vision Zero continued to target dangerous intersections across Los Angeles. And Johnny continued to operate with as much transparency as possible. In addition to notifying the neighborhoods of his plans for painting crosswalks, he also, So always notified the mayor's office. I would email the mayor's office that we were going to be painting certain corners. Here's why. A pedestrian was hit and killed here. We're going to be painting it this date, this time.

We will be closing off the street. Here's a picture of our previous works. And you know what to expect. We would literally email the mayor's office telling them that we would be doing this. Wow. Yeah, yeah, including the corner that I painted the day I got arrested. That's after the break. Did you ever wonder what it's like to live alone?

Hidden in the woods, not speaking to a single soul for 30 years. Or wander to the desert, uncover a hidden well, and die to the bottom of the deepest waterhole for 2,000 miles. The Snap Judgment podcast takes you there with amazing stories told by the people who live them with an original soundscape that drops you directly into their shoes. Snap Judgment, listen to Subscribe wherever you get your podcast. Welcome back to the show. So before the break, Jonathan Hale had moved to L.A., found that the city's Vision Zero initiative was, in fact, not working at all,

and thought he might be able to make a small difference simply by organizing people to repaint crosswalks, especially on corners where there had been injuries or deaths. So typically, when Johnny identified a crosswalk that needed painting, he would start by firing the neighborhood. He'd talk to people, tell them about this group he was working with, making it very clear that they're not city workers, but regular citizens who paint crosswalks to protest for safer streets and more effective government. And usually, people were very enthusiastic about it. But on December 7th of 2025, that was not so much. much the case.

On that day, Johnny and his team got to the location early and got to work. So, yeah, we were just out there doing our thing. And some people, just some neighbors seem like pretty upset. I think, I think they see us, they're like, oh, what's this liberal talk foolery or something? And, you know, so somebody did call. Yeah, they assume like we have an agenda or something. So anyway, somebody called 911. They called police officers to the scene.

And we had interacted with police before. We had had friendly conversations with police where I said, look, we have the shared goal of wanting to improve public safety. We're not. We don't have a permit for this. Technically, it is vandalism, but we're protesting for a cause. And I think we have a shared goal to some extent. And they just let us go. They let us keep doing everything.

So when the police came, that's how I approached the situation. I was like, hey, how's it going, officer? No, I don't have a permit for this. Here's what I do and who I am. I understand that this is not permitted. But we're protesters expressing a right to free speech, basically. And we happen to be doing this thing. Here's why, basically.

And this guy was just not having it. In the middle of the street, surrounded by volunteers and community members, this police officer pulls Johnny's hands behind his back. and then slaps a set of handcuffs around his wrist. And while that was happening, my friends were videotaping. Oh, it happens. I was like, this is crazy. Like, this is, I can't believe this is happening.

I mean, I can't, but like, it's really happening. One of the things that's so striking about this video is just how benign Johnny looks while being handcuffed. He's wearing this big floppy hat and a reflective yellow vest, and he looks about as calm as one can look. being handcuffed by the police. He looks more like an elementary school crossing guard than any kind of vandal. And that only emphasizes the absurdity of what's happening.

Can we get your name and badge number? Yeah, Wilson, 45814. 45814. And you're vandalizing city property without a permit. So I'm going to ask you on nice, y'all can record all you want, but bag up, or I will take everybody to church. So he put me in cuffs, and then I kind of told my team who packed it up, and, you know, my team is awesome.

They put everything away, and that was pretty much it. I was in cuffs for about, so like a half an hour, which was just ridiculous. I got a citation for vandalism. They did not need to put me in cuffs to give me a citation for vandalism. I'm not, I was not a flight risk. But Cidney was great optically for me. Later that day, Johnny edited the video together with an explanation of what happened. And when he posted it to Instagram, the video immediately exploded.

The video was reposted. and re-shared over and over and over again. Millions of people were watching it. People from all over the country. People from all over the world. And also, people who produced the show. It just seemed to strike a chord with everyone who felt frustrated with the failures of their various governments.

Everyone who felt powerless to enact changes needed in their own communities. And everyone who had been a victim of car violence, which many of you know is me too. And so they took to the comments section to share their own stories of frustration and to cheer on the efforts of this guy who wasn't waiting for someone to tell him it was okay to make his neighborhood safer. I had no idea it was going to blow up like that. I mean, right now, there's something like 12 million views.

And after I made that, I got a call from, that was Sunday. Next day, I got a call from the mayor's office. And they're like, hey, you want to meet? And I'm like, yeah, that's when I've been. trying to do for the past couple of months. After his less than successful first meeting with the mayor's office, Johnny realized that if he were to ever have the opportunity to meet with the office again, he would have to go about it in a different way.

For better or worse, people's vision zero was twisting arms here, and they didn't want to be doing that just for the sake of doing that. But if they wanted meaningful outcomes, and really, that's all they wanted, then they were going to have to present a coherent plan for how to make these outcomes achievable. So with the second meeting, I was like, we have to be so prepared. We have to know everything.

Find all of the contingencies, the legal precedent, all that stuff. People's Vision Zero had two demands. The first was that they wanted the city to publicly recommit to Vision Zero and state that as a priority. The second demand is that they wanted the city to implement a tactical urbanism program

that would allow volunteers to organize in their community to make legal, reasonable modifications to the public right of way, the way they'd already been doing with People's Vision Zero and the Crosswalk Collective. Tactical urbanism is the idea of making mindful modifications to public space in a way that benefits pedestrians, road users, and people seeking to share public space. It can involve a lot of things like crosswalks, bus stop benches, the creation of pop-up parks, pop-up bike lanes, things of that nature typically built by teams of volunteers and strategically implemented to make this point about urbanism and use of land.

One of the things that's so great about tactical urbanism is that it allows cities to test infrastructural changes before committing capital to them, on a more temporary basis, quickly, and without a ton of politicking. And maybe that sounds crazy, but it's not without precedent. Chattanooga, Tennessee has a good program, Nashville, Atlanta, Oakland, Richmond. There's plenty of other cities that have programs that allow citizens to make modifications to the public right of way. So this is not groundbreaking stuff. And if his verbal pitch wasn't enough, Johnny also wrote a 39-page white paper detailing exactly how it could be done. And so I presented that to the mayor's office in our meeting. I was like, here's what we've been doing. Here's why.

It's the scope of the problem. And here's how you could allow us to continue doing this legally if you so choose. The mayor's office promised to read through Johnny's proposal and then get back to him with a proposal of their own. And that's where things stand now. So, you know, we're waiting for the city to get back to this. And then I've been holding off on painting crosslocks to allow them to work. But if the city continues to drag its feet on this, we can just go back to the streets. And now I have a platform.

So I can say, hey, guys, we're painting crosswops. this time, this date, and it'll be awesome. We can throw a block party, have a whole community thing, and who's going to be against that, right? That's kind of our last resort. We'd love to be able to do this legally, but if the city is dragging its feet, we'll do it. And that's part of the reason we're protesting, is that the city is dragging its feet, and that's causing thousands of needless deaths. A thing that I've found in my experience reporting is that when I start harassing the levers of power, Usually they completely shut down. And then I'll get like an email from someone who's like, hey, I work in the mayor's office.

And I just want to let you know everybody's super annoyed with you and thinks you're a pain in the ass. Have you experienced any of that? I've actually gotten the reverse. I've gotten a little bit of positive feedback. I think people within the machine are supportive of this because, you know, my goal is not to tear down institutions. Institutions are essential. I think the goal of this is to empower institutions and the people working in the people working in those institutions to do the work that they signed up to do.

City government is filled with passionate people who care deeply about making Los Angeles a better, safer, more walkable place. And those people are being hindered by these procedures that we're fighting to change. So we're on the same page in that regard. I think there's some people in city government who are definitely very annoyed. But it might be, but, you know, it's hard to position oneself as, Being the person who's against the guy painting crosslocks, I think that's just like, people may be privately annoyed, but I don't think anybody is that annoyed by what we're doing.

Also, because it's working. You know, it is actively forcing change. Is there anything that I missed that you're like, I really just want to get this out there? Yeah, I guess like a last word is that I personally have felt very cynical for a long time. And I think other young people often look at the world from a depressed perspective where things are too large for us to have an impact on. And we can't have any control over outcomes. And this, for me, became such a passion project because I just didn't want to believe that. And this was a way that I could have a physical, tangible impact on the world in a way that brought me closer to my neighbors in my community, to the city of law. Los Angeles, and that's what it means to me personally. It's like my mini rebellion against

cynicism, and I might not be able to change the world, but I can change a little bit of it block by block, and that's what matters to me and why I care about this. I want to thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me about this. I really appreciate it. Yeah, of course, thanks to having me on, Alex. This is a blast. To get involved with Project Vision Zero, the best thing to do is visit their page on Instagram at Project Vision Zero. There you'll find a link that redirects to information about how to join or donate to the project. You can also read the white paper that Johnny submitted to the mayor's office about the legally viable ways the city can authorize

community-led, low-cost safety interventions while maintaining regulatory oversight, legal compliance, and accountability. And lastly, if you, listener, know of any other hyperfixers in your community or your world, we'd love to hear about them. Email me at Alex at Hyperfixed pod.com. This episode of Hyperfix was produced by Emma Cortland, Amory Yates, and Sarisoffer Skakenek. The music is by the Mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder and me. The show is engineered by Tony Williams. You can get bonus episodes, join our Discord, and much, much more at hyperfixedpod.com

slash join. Again, that's hyperfixedpod.com slash join. We also have hoodies, t-shirts, mugs, hats, and more at merch. hyperfixpod.com and premium members get 15% off. I recently made a blog post about how we are trying to get 1500 new patrons by the end of the year so that I can give people raises and offer them health care. 1,500 people is just 1.7% of my audience.

I know this is possible. I just need your help. Hyperfixpod.com slash joy. Hyperfixed is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a network of independent, creator-owned, listener-supported podcast. Discover Audio with Vision at Radiotopia.com.