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≡ LOS ANGELES 2028 ≡
Transportation issues have plagued Los Angeles for decades, and were predicted to destroy the 1984 Olympic Games. Instead, traffic flowed relatively smoothly, and helped Angelenos to remember the Games as a two-week civic dreamland.
Transportation issues are again flagged to strangle the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games coming to Los Angeles. A new report shows there is no reason for that to happen.
On 4 October, the County of Los Angeles Recreation and Parks Department issued a triumphant statement that breathlessly announced:
“The Los Angeles Philharmonic, the County of Los Angeles Department of Parks and Recreation, and the County of Los Angeles Fifth Supervisorial District have jointly announced that bus ridership to and from the Hollywood Bowl for LA Phil events, through the Hollywood Bowl Shuttle or Park & Ride options, has increased to an average of 36% of Bowl visitors, up from an average of 29% in 2023.
“This represents the highest ever bus ridership season to date, making the Bowl more accessible than ever while also mitigating traffic to the Bowl and adjacent neighborhoods. Thanks to the increase in bus ridership, auto traffic in the Hollywood Hills and surrounding neighborhoods has decreased by approximately 115,400 vehicles through this point in the season.”
This is not really much of a surprise, for three reasons:
● The Hollywood Bowl is one of the most cherished venues in the Los Angeles area and is highly desired as an entertainment venue, especially during the summer. People really want to go there.
● The Bowl’s parking capacity is next to nothing, its location is between very busy Hollywood street traffic and on-ramps to the usually-congested 101 Freeway, and Angelenos are completely aware of the hassle in arriving and departing.
● Therefore, the idea of using inexpensive park-and-ride systems to deliver concert-goers within walking distance of the Bowl is more and more attractive to potential users.
It’s that simple. Public transit (and amenities) activist Alissa Walker, writing on her Torched.la Web site, explained:
“One year ago, an excellent column by Los Angeles Times sports reporter Bill Shaikin urged Dodger Stadium to think more like the Hollywood Bowl, where about a quarter of 2023 season ticketholders arrived to the 17,500-seat venue without cars. The secret? The Bowl famously buses ticketholders from 14 park-and-ride locations all over the region, plus four offsite shuttle lots located at the LA Zoo, Burbank Metrolink station, and two nearby B line stations. Last season, an incredible 29 percent of the audience got to the Bowl using these modes. (For comparison, only about 5 percent of Dodger Stadium’s 56,000 fans get there on the Dodger Stadium Express.)
“It’s all very impressive. But since Shaikin’s story, the Bowl has stepped up its game. This season, to further discourage driving, the Bowl reconfigured its Uber and Lyft lot and eliminated hundreds of parking spaces to create more room for transit options. A new bundled Metro ticket was offered along with a free transfer to a B line shuttle.”
The 2028 Olympic transportation scenario can be simplified, too, if – and only if – the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority applies the lessons it listed in a nine-page review (full agenda packet PDF here) of the Paris 2024 programs used for transportation by the Ile-de-France Mobilities authority.
What came out from the review was, first and foremost, this:
● Ile-de-France Mobilities: “Paris set up a unified transport command center for the Games, and work was done ahead of time to familiarize the different partner agencies in Paris so that they could work together more seamlessly.”
● Metro takeaway: “Members of the [Games Mobility Executives working group] and other regional transit agencies should plan to engage in similar levels of collaboration leading up to the 2028 Games.”
A dour Los Angeles Times story that appeared on Wednesday predicted doom if billions of dollars are not rushed to expand the regional transit system in advance of 2028. A briefing by Paris transit officials for Metro, the California Highway Patrol and others was held last week, with “Paris officials and others were trying to impress upon employees the level of urgency planning must take.”
The City of Paris, the Ile-de-France region and the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic organizing committee did work closely together, especially at the staff level. But there was hardly much harmony among the leadership as Paris’ Socialist Mayor, Anne Hidalgo, constantly insulted Ile-de-France President Valerie Pecresse, a member of rival party The Republicans, over predicted transit woes. Amid many things that turned out well, Hidalgo got that one wrong.
So it wasn’t all sunshine.
And there is worry about the L.A. Metro Mobility Concept Plan for 2028, with a presentation slide that showed only 3% of the $2.5 billion in Games-related funding had been secured and another 10% pending. Legacy projects of $800 million are faring better, with 12% of funding secured and another 5% pending. A report on a motion to establish a lobbying effort for more federal and state funding noted:
“The preliminary total cost for both legacy and essential Games-specific projects, including Games Route Network (GRN), and Games Enhanced Transit System (GETS), is approximately $3.1 billion. Funding to continue advancing the next phases of these projects needs to be secured no later than the end of Q4 of calendar year 2024 to be able to deliver the projects in time for the 2028 Games.”
The report asked for Metro to provide $9.67 million in funding for the 2025 fiscal year to advance Metro-led, Games-related projects. Another slide showed that grant applications for a total of $602 million had been refused.
So there is room to worry. But the reality of the Hollywood Bowl situation is a reminder that transit for the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games – a total of 30 days – can be handled if the transit authorities, cities involved and the organizing committee remember to tell (and tell and tell) attendees:
● This is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Make it a great one.
● Los Angeles has lots of traffic. But it doesn’t have to inconvenience YOU.
● Here are easy ways to get to your events, using shared transportation.
Although it had a lot of other problems, the Atlanta 1996 Olympic organizers did an excellent job of tying ticket purchases with included ridership on public or shared transportation from specific sites for specific venues. Metro already has a Mobility Hubs concept for 2028, even though many of the competition venues have not yet been confirmed by the LA28 organizers and no included shared-transit plan for ticket holders has been announced yet.
It can work. It did in 1984, and the Hollywood Bowl experience in 2024 shows it can again.
Whether it will or not is up to the teams at Metro, LA28 and elsewhere which have this major responsibility. But the doom-and-gloomers – even Paris Mayor Hidalgo – were wrong before and can be wrong again.
Rich Perelman
Editor
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