A 70-year-old man died in a fiery single-vehicle crash on Forest Lawn Drive on Aug. 13, and three months after Mayor Karen Bass halted a safety redesign of the road, no replacement plan has materialized.

The crash occurred just before 2:30 a.m. in the 5900 block of Forest Lawn Drive, just south of the 134 Freeway, according to ABC7. The vehicle fire ignited a tree and damaged a traffic light. The driver was pronounced dead at the scene; the L.A. County coroner's office has not publicly identified him.

The death is the fourth fatality on the one-mile stretch between Zoo Drive and Memorial Drive since 2013, according to the Los Angeles Times. The corridor has no sidewalk, no bike lane and a badly damaged shoulder. An LADOT study found roughly half of drivers exceed the posted 45-mph speed limit.

Councilmember Nithya Raman, who represents the district and is challenging Bass in the Nov. 3 mayoral runoff, held a news conference on Forest Lawn Drive on Aug. 19 alongside advocates from Streets Are For Everyone and Streets for All.

"Forest Lawn Drive remains dangerous," Raman said. "It has now been the site of multiple deaths. The city developed a plan to make it safer. My council district helped to push that plan forward. It is on the verge of breaking ground, and then Mayor Bass has so far stopped it."

Raman initiated the Forest Lawn Drive Safety and Mobility Project in 2023. LADOT's original design proposed reducing four car lanes to two, adding protected bike lanes and lengthening left-turn lanes. By May 2026, final striping plans were complete and construction was scheduled for June, according to LA Streetsblog.

Bass intervened with a May 7 letter to city department heads, reviewed by the Times, directing LADOT to keep the existing lanes and develop a new design by June 12, with community outreach concluded by July 10. Both deadlines have passed with no public update.

In the letter, Bass cited "significant community opposition" to lane reductions and said she wanted a resolution that maintains existing traffic lanes while still supporting protected bike lanes. Forest Lawn Memorial Park and Mount Sinai Memorial Parks had lobbied against the project, calling it "a permanent traffic disaster."

On Aug. 21, Bass told the Times that LADOT is proposing designs "more appropriate for the area," including protected bike lanes without lane elimination and signal modifications. She offered no timeline, saying the department would be "forthcoming with that very soon."

Bass campaign spokesperson Alex Stack called Raman's criticism a distraction, saying the mayor is moving forward with a plan that improves bike safety without disrupting access to funeral and church services.

Raman said the intervention appeared politically motivated, pointing to opposition from "powerful entities" along the corridor. Bass's campaign did not directly address that characterization.

Streets Are For Everyone released a report in August based on more than 14 hours of independent speed surveys. The group found 53 percent of drivers exceeded the speed limit, with one in five traveling between 51 and 75 mph. The report also noted that funding for the city's Vision Zero program has been cut 59 percent.

Damian Kevitt, SAFE's executive director, called the stalled project a case study in how difficult it has become to build proven safety improvements in Los Angeles, even after years of planning and secured funding. Kevitt, who lost much of his leg in a cycling crash near the corridor, made the remarks in a statement released Aug. 19.

No next meeting date or public comment deadline has been announced for the redesign process.