Los Angeles will mark its decade-long effort to eliminate traffic deaths not with triumph, but the prosecution of a DIY crosswalk maker who set out to do what the city couldn't.

You couldn’t dream up a more fitting way to mark L.A.’s decade-long failure to make life less dangerous for pedestrians and cyclists. Weeks before the deadline set by then-Mayor Eric Garcetti in 2015 to eliminate traffic deaths by the end of 2025, a Los Angeles police officer on Sunday arrested a guy trying to make streets safer.

Yes, what safe streets activist Jonathan Hale is accused of doing — painting a crosswalk on a street in Westwood without official permission — is technically vandalism, a cite-and-release misdemeanor that the arresting officers judged worthy of handcuffs. But consider the optics: L.A. will wrap up its disastrous 10-year Vision Zero run not with ceremonies heralding measurably safer streets (a feat achieved by cities around the world), but with a Jan. 5 court date for Hale.

What’s next, jailing people who feed the hungry because they didn’t pull the right health permits?

(* pretty sure people are already arrested for feeding the hungry)