LA doesn’t need new transit for LA28: it needs to connect the transit it already has

The Games: an even bigger challenge

Undoubtedly, the World Cup in Los Angeles was a success, but there’s still room for major improvement, especially for the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games — an event expected to generate 10 million to 15 million spectator visits across dozens of venues. Approximately 11,000 Olympic athletes and 4,400 Paralympic athletes will participate, alongside officials, media, workers and volunteers. All of this will occur while Angelenos go to work, businesses receive deliveries and the region continues its daily life.

Moving a crowd to a mega-event is only half of the task. The more difficult operational challenge often comes after the final whistle, when tens of thousands of people leave within a narrow period. Unlike arrivals, departures cannot be spread as easily over several hours. Vehicle staging, queue design, passenger information and wayfinding signage, accessible boarding, shade, lighting and staff deployment all become critical. During the Games, this mass exodus will happen multiple times a day, across all corners of Southern California.

Transit service to venues will be essential during LA28, but it cannot solve the mobility challenge on its own. The Southern California Association of Governments identified a planning benchmark of reducing background travel demand by approximately 15% during the Games. That means addressing the everyday car trips that normally occupy the transportation network, including commuting, shopping, deliveries and service calls. It also means carefully coordinating freight movement so that businesses and supply chains can continue operating.

Coordination can save the day

The Olympic and Paralympic Games will use dozens of venues distributed across a much larger geographic area than the World Cup, and no single capital project can connect every venue by July 2028. However, the strategies that thrived during the World Cup can work again during the Games, and the county should use the next two years to make the World Cup’s temporary strengths permanent. Rather than simply adding more buses or trains, that means better coordinating the regional transit services Los Angeles already has, strengthening frequent service, improving transfer points, expanding universally accessible wayfinding, preparing stations for extreme heat, coordinating fares and supporting community-centered transportation options. It also means maintaining honest performance measures, including ridership, travel time, missed connections, queue duration, accessibility, customer satisfaction and impacts on everyday riders.

The transit-first ambition does not necessarily depend on the scale of the region’s physical transformation. LA28 transportation can instead be evaluated by what travelers experience, including reliable service, coordinated connections, accessibility and clear information. Although new infrastructure can close critical gaps, stronger operations, regional integration, and communication can help the existing network accommodate increased demand.

Los Angeles does not have to become a different city to deliver a successful transit-first Games. It needs to make its existing networks work as one, give travelers clear reasons to use it and carry the best improvements forward after the final event.

The World Cup did not prove that every LA28 transportation challenge has been solved. It proved something more useful — when the region plans together, communicates clearly and provides service designed around the traveler, Angelenos and visitors are willing to choose transit.

That is a strong starting position with two years left on the clock.