Olympic venues in Los Angeles will be accessible only by public transport

PARIS — Traffic. What will you do about Los Angeles’ notoriously gridlocked traffic? That’s one of the burning questions Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has been asked repeatedly as she prepares to receive the Olympic flag ahead of the 2028 Summer Olympics.

“An Olympics without cars,” Bass said Saturday.

What?

Bass and Casey Wasserman, chairwoman of the LA 2028 organizing committee, highlighted some of the planning that had already been completed before Paris organizers handed the Games over to them during Sunday’s closing ceremony. Bass was emphatic about the traffic, referring to it in her opening remarks.

“We’re already working to create jobs by expanding our public transportation system so we can have a car-free Games,” she said. “And that’s a coup for Los Angeles because we’ve always loved our cars. We’re working to make sure we can build a greener Los Angeles.”

Working from home, of course.

Bass said the only way to reach the facilities in Los Angeles will be by public transportation, and her plan to solve the traffic jam is to use 3,000 buses that will be borrowed from around the country and ask companies to allow their employees to work from home within 17 days.

Los Angeles will be hosting the Olympics for the third time, and Bass noted that the widespread panic about traffic problems before the 1984 Games turned out to be unnecessary.

“Angelinos were terrified that we were going to have terrible, terrible traffic, and we were shocked that we didn’t,” Bass said. “But I’ll tell you, in 1984 we didn’t have any of the technology that we have today. We learned with COVID that you can work remotely.”

Tom Bradley, the mayor of Los Angeles in 1984, ordered local businesses to stagger their hours to reduce the number of cars on the road. Bass likes that approach but wants to go even further by allowing non-essential workers to work remotely during the Games.

“Part of having a car-free Olympics is getting people to stop driving,” Bass said.

Paris was praised for its accessibility to the Games, with almost every location accessible by subway, commuter train, tram or bus. Los Angeles has bus and light rail systems, but only two subway lines, a public transport network that is inferior in reach to metropolises such as Paris, London and New York.

Bass has not yet received a commitment from Los Angeles-based companies that their employees will be able to work from home during the Games.

“I think the way it should work is to meet with the city’s major employers and talk about staggering hours, which is something that was done 40 years ago when we didn’t have the technology of cellphones and personal computers,” Bass said. “I don’t think it’s going to be difficult this time, to be honest.

“I think the workforce, probably around the world, certainly in our country, is struggling right now with remote work,” she continued. “So I think there may be employers we could say, ‘Can you remote for 17 days?’ It’s going to be a lot easier because we’ve come through COVID, so people will have some point of reference in recent history of how that can be done.”

The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority reported in June that there were 75,312 homeless people in the county and 45,252 homeless people in the city of L.A. in 2024. Those numbers need to be reduced for the city to shine on global television.

The organizers of the Olympic Games in Paris organized the relocation of thousands of homeless people.

Bass said she has worked in both the government and private sector and promised, “We will provide housing for the people of Los Angeles.”

“That’s what we’ve been doing and we’re going to continue to do that,” Bass said. “We’re going to get people housing. We’re going to get them off the streets. We’re going to get them transitional housing, we’re going to address the reason they’re homeless and we’re going to get them permanent housing.”

Wasserman said Los Angeles organizers are already working with the federal government on security plans.

“Our motto is that we have to be the safest place, but we also have to be the best experience, and we’re not going to sacrifice one for the other,” he said. “The Olympics are not a normal event. It doesn’t matter what time it’s happening or what city it’s happening in. The advantage of Los Angeles is that we have a lot of incredibly large global events, so we’re used to different safety protocols for those events.”

Organizers have an operating budget of $6.8 billion, Wasserman said. That figure does not include security, which will be funded by taxpayers.

Los Angeles organizers have said there is no way the November presidential election results will not affect the Games, but Bass and Wasserman were not concerned.

Wasserman noted that three different sitting presidents have endorsed Los Angeles’ efforts, dating back to President Barack Obama’s letter supporting the city before his winning candidacy in 2017.

“I just want to remind people that this is about red, white and blue,” Wasserman said. “It’s not about red and blue. We’re all marching under the same flag, the same name, the same anthem, and that’s what’s going to unite our country.”

___

AP Summer Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games