2025 Theses Master's

A “Car Free” Olympics in Los Angeles? Examining 2028 Olympic Legacy Planning, Transit Expansion, and Mobility Justice in Greater L.A.

Clark, Ryan

This work is a case study examining the potential short- and long-term impacts of the 2028 Olympics on transit planning in Los Angeles County. It utilizes mapping, historical analysis, and interviews with experts to build an understanding of Los Angeles’s current plans for the 2028 Games as well as trends occurring in the expansion of the county’s rail and bus rapid transit (BRT) network. This transit expansion is analyzed within the framework of Olympic priorities and funding, transit-oriented development, and mobility justice in order to provide conclusions and recommendations.

The study concludes that while there will very likely be short-term transit improvements, mostly involving the procurement of additional buses to provide a sort of temporary bus rapid transit network, little is being done to ensure a lasting transit legacy long after the Olympic Games conclude. Los Angeles’s rail and BRT networks are expanding, though this is due mostly to public funding outside of Olympic priorities, such as Los Angeles’s many sales taxes designed to fund public transportation and other public funding at the federal and state levels.

Recommendations emphasize stronger leadership on and direct funding for Olympic legacy transportation planning, the need for more planning decisions to be made at the regional level, zoning for higher density around transit stations, improving first-and-last-mile connectivity, and an increased focus on suburb-to-suburb transit connections.