Getty ImagesFrom busy highways to classic car races, Los Angeles has long been considered the capital of American car culture. Can this change in time for the Olympics?
With sunny skies most of the year, some say Los Angeles is the perfect place for biking.
“It’s the perfect community for runners, cycling and the outdoors, but in general we’re addicted to our vehicles, we’re addicted to the need for speed,” said Damian Kevitt, executive director of Streets Are For Everyone (Safe). .
But until recently, it was cars – not pedestrians or cyclists – that dominated the roads.
Spanning 1,200 km², Los Angeles is known for its endless expanse and traffic jams.
While cities like New York and Boston have embraced public transportation, in Los Angeles it has never really caught on: only about 7% of Angelenos use public transportation to get to work, based on neighborhood data for social change.
And although Los Angeles’ weather would be the envy of any Amsterdam cyclist, only about 1 percent bike to work.
But with hundreds of thousands of spectators expected in the city for the 2026 World Cup and the 2028 Olympics, something needs to be done to make traveling around the city easier.
Los Angeles adopted the “Twenty-Eight by 2017” transportation plan in 2017 to expand public transportation options ahead of the Summer Olympics. Since then, kilometers and kilometers of new cycle paths have emerged.
“This should have been done a long time ago,” Mr Kevitt said.
A cyclist who lost his leg in 2013 after a car hit him while riding his bike in Griffith Park, Kevitt believes more people will get around using their own bikes or rent-a-rent Metro city bikes. once streets are safer and bike paths are better connected to each other. other.
In 2024, Los Angeles voters overwhelmingly supported a ballot measure requiring the city to build more bike lanes and more walkable and livable spaces in Los Angeles.
But will car-loving Angelenos embrace bike culture? Some actively oppose these changes, complaining that bike lanes only worsen car traffic in the City of Stars.
“What do you mean we voted for it? Not here! Not me!” said Darin Drabing, president and CEO of Forest Lawn Cemetery, who fights against bike lanes near the cemetery because he believes it will increase traffic during commutes and funerals.
“Everywhere I saw [it] implemented, they have failed,” he said. “All this does is increase congestion and people’s frustration.”
Some fail.
While protected bike lanes have transformed Olympic host cities like Paris and London, politicians are currently trying to remove bike lanes in Toronto that have been part of city streets for nearly a decade (they’re being sued by cyclists to prevent this project). .
In Los Angeles County, the city of Glendale recently voted to remove some bike lanes after complaints about increased traffic.
And new protected bike lanes are creating frustration along Hollywood Boulevard, where car traffic is now limited to one lane in each direction for several miles. But it also leads other people to occasionally bike instead of drive.
Cyclist Mimi Holt used to ride her bike in Seattle, then stopped riding for nearly 20 years for fear of speeding on the busy streets of Los Angeles.
“In Los Angeles, people drive so fast, it’s so terrifying,” she said.
When her doctor told her she was pre-diabetic, she decided to risk the roads for more exercise and said that since getting back on two wheels, she felt much younger.
She said she can’t wait to see the city’s “islands of bike paths” connected to each other.
“If only there was a connecting path, I would be on them all the time,” Ms. Holt said, adding that she would get rid of her car if cycling everywhere safely was an option in Los Angeles.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said the city and the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Committee are making big strides toward a “transit-first” Olympics, as she calls them, after initially sparking controversy in defending “car-free” Games.
But with more than 100 miles of bike lanes planned, advocates fear the process will take too long.
So far, only five of the “Twenty-eight by 28” projects have been completed and 23 are underway – and not all are expected to be completed in time for the Games.
Los Angeles has already secured $900m (£717m) from the Biden administration to help mainly with rail projects. But more will be needed to make the city’s transit dreams a reality by 2028.
Mayor Bass and other city leaders wrote a letter to the Trump transition team requesting $3.2 billion in federal funding for “the largest and most spectacular sporting event held in the American history.
President Trump supported Los Angeles’ Olympic bid during his first presidency, telling officials not to forget to invite him.
Mayor Bass said she has not yet received a response to the letter, but she said she hopes President-elect Trump will provide support despite his frequent tensions with other California political leaders, such as Governor Gavin Newsom and Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi.
Getty ImagesSome people, like Ms. Holt, like the idea of giving up their cars, for a variety of reasons.
“I can barely afford to buy a car. Insurance is very expensive, gas is very expensive and it’s not good for the environment,” Ms Holt told a meeting to review the bike paths offered throughout Los Angeles.
But while many Angelenos rely on public transportation to get to work and school, many others who live here have never taken a bus or ventured onto the subway, which is often described as crime-infested and dystopian in the media.
And many locals think the idea of Games without cars is absurd.
“It’s a wonderful dream,” said Shivon Ozinga, a Burbank resident opposed to adding more bike lanes near her neighborhood. She said the city was too big, sprawling and dependent on cars for change.
“I can’t imagine this happening in such a short time given our car culture here.”
But Mayor Bass can imagine a transportation revolution and said she thinks changes to public transportation in Los Angeles will last well beyond the 2026 Olympics and World Cup.
“As a cyclist, I sure hope so,” she said.
