Los Angeles’ plan for a car-free 2028 Olympics is a costly pipe dream

Tom Cruise turned all Olympic eyes from Paris to Los Angeles this summer with his daring closing ceremony stunts. But those eyes had best now turn to the LA Olympic Organizing Committee and Mayor Karen Bass. 

In only four short years, the Olympics come to LA, meaning Mayor Bass and the Olympic organizers have just four years to transform Los Angeles into a metropolis fit for the international attention brought by the Olympics. That seems like a big task for a city whose failed governance leaves it with rampant crime, homelessness, congestion, crumbling infrastructure, business and regulatory nightmares, and tax and budget shortfalls.  

The LA solution: a "car-free" Olympics! 

Personal vehicles will not be allowed at Olympic venues. Private parking will simply not be available. Don’t even think about driving to an event. Bass and the LA Organizing Committee plan to spend over $900 million on a massive public transit overhaul. 

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Called the "Twenty-eight by ‘28 Project" and initiated in January 2018 during the bidding process for the 2028 Olympics, it proposes 28 transit projects to facilitate the movement of more than one million anticipated visitors the Olympics will bring – all without cars. 

How is the Twenty-eight by ‘28 Project going six years after being proposed and only four years out from the Games?

The answer is not well. I serve on the board of the Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA). We recently received a report from the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority admitting that it will miss the ’28 deadline for 10 of the 28 projects. Only five have so far been completed in the past six years of planning.

Bass does not let this diminish her enthusiasm for a car-free Games. She promises that LA will purchase or borrow and then deploy 3,000 buses. I can’t imagine at what cost, both financial to Los Angeles, but also on other transportation agencies like OCTA and the people they serve around the country. 

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That is a mammoth, market-warping diversion of resources – 3,000 buses – to just one city. Other places like Orange County can well expect to feel the pain caused by such a market disrupting force. 

The car-free Olympics promise was never serious public policy. Southern California, for the foreseeable future, will remain dominated by personal vehicles. Just over 7.5 million registered motor vehicles exist in LA County, including cars, trucks and motorcycles. The city itself covers a vast 469 square miles, in a stark contrast to Paris's compact 41 square miles. This sprawling landscape complicates public transit use as residents often need to make multiple transfers to reach their destinations, diminishing the likelihood of opting for buses or trains. 

Then there are the substantial safety concerns inherent in today’s LA public transit system. The public worries rightly about personal safety while on the system. Just last week, in the early hours of Wednesday, Sept. 25, an LA Metro bus was hijacked by a gunman who held the driver at gunpoint, led the police on a pursuit, and murdered one of the passengers. 

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That level of dramatic violence is admittedly rare. But we do see persistent knife attacks, sexual assaults, homeless vagrant activity and other crimes on public transportation. This is the transit system to be foisted on visitors from all over the world to accomplish the vision of a car-free Olympics.  

Given the city's deep-rooted car culture, the lack of public transit infrastructure, the long commutes that residents have come to accept as normal, and the sheer physical safety concerns, local residents will likely skip the Games rather than abandon their vehicles. 

Public transportation cannot rise to the occasion, as the LA Metro report frankly admits, leaving a potentially miserable experience for out-of-town visitors and a very bad lasting image for Los Angeles and the Olympics organizers. At least Orange County had nothing to do with these bad decisions, even if we will feel some of the consequences.

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A car-free Olympics was always an enviro-activist pipe dream. It sounded good to certain interest groups, but is nothing more than a liberal government’s virtue signaling and self-deception. 

The LA Metro report of missed targets throws the harsh light of reality on such wishful thinking. Delays, rising costs due to inflation, failures to meet deadlines and inefficient government bureaucracy can't deliver on the empty promises of politicians. A car-free Olympics, at least as sold when LA made its bid, is one of those empty promises.