Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti shared plans this week for the city’s first Transportation Technology Innovation Zone in the West San Fernando Valley, designed for private companies and innovators to test tech-driven transportation solutions.
The innovation zone’s first project will pilot a zero-emissions, last-mile delivery service to help connect homebound residents with food from local businesses amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The initiative was selected based on feedback from community members, businesses, and innovators.
The innovation zone is a flagship program of the nonprofit Urban Movement Labs (UML), a transportation-solutions accelerator launched by the mayor in 2019. The lab is advised by the mayor’s office, the Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT), the Port of L.A. and the Los Angeles World Airports, with founding private sector partners Lyft, Waymo and the L.A. Cleantech Incubator.
Private and public sector leaders have sometimes struggled to align goals and expectations for deploying new technologies, including in Los Angeles, which saw significant rancor and legal action between scooter companies and LADOT over the agency’s Mobility Data Specifications (MDS). The innovation zone creates an easier way for the private sector to introduce those technologies to the public sector, said Urban Movement Labs Executive Director Lilly Shoup, especially as the city recognizes that new modes of transportation like urban air mobility and drones are on the horizon.