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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
A proposal to take the subway to a nice restaurant in Los Angeles is likely to be met with a puzzled look and the question: how would we even do that? For most Angelinos, navigating the city without a car is unimaginable.
But if all goes to plan, LA gourmands will be able to take the Metro to Beverly Hills and pop out at a station just steps away from Spago, Wolfgang Puck’s temple of Californian cuisine, within the next two years.
Whether they want to is another matter. Beverly Hills officials fought to keep the subway out of their exclusive neighbourhood for decades, and some residents still oppose it. But the opening of two local stations — one of which will be a quick walk from the luxury shops of Rodeo Drive — is a victory for proponents of public transportation in a city famously dependent on the automobile.
The development highlights a surprising fact. In recent years, Los Angeles has quietly become the leader in US public transport investment, with $120bn planned for rail alone.
Building stations in Beverly Hills is one of 28 projects that officials are racing to complete before the 2028 Olympics. Karen Bass, LA’s mayor, envisages a “no-car” Games. “That’s a feat in Los Angeles — we’ve always been in love with our cars,” she admits.
But there is precedent. Locals who remember the 1984 Summer Olympics recall the event as a blissful fortnight of congestion-free highways. City officials encouraged people to avoid going to the office and many left town.
“Angelenos were terrified that we were going to have terrible, terrible traffic” in 1984, Bass said. “We were shocked that we didn’t.”
For the 2028 Games, city officials are going even further to discourage driving. There will be no public parking at any of the sporting venues. An extra 3,000 buses will be brought into the city to ease strains on the system.
“We’re moving the narrative away from LA being the car capital of America and shifting it towards a city where you can ride a bike, a scooter, take transit, take a bus,” says Sam Morrissey, vice-president for transportation at LA28. “Hopefully, the Games will be the point where people realise, hey, we can actually move around LA in many different ways. We don’t have to rely on a car.”
This being California, a Silicon Valley start-up has spotted a potential opportunity in the transportation change. Electric aircraft company Archer Aviation said this month that it had secured funding to create an air taxi network ahead of the Olympics.
“The only way to go is up,” says Nikhil Goel, Archer’s chief commercial officer. He expects air taxi trips to begin in the next couple of years and to cost about the same as a ride in a luxury Uber Black vehicle.
A well-functioning public transport system that reduces car traffic, perhaps coupled with some Blade Runner-esque air taxis, would help California regain its reputation as a can-do laboratory for public policy. In recent years this image has been battered by the state’s inability to cope with rampant homelessness and a cost of living problem that has driven some people and businesses to leave.
There remains the serious question of whether, after all this investment in public transportation, Angelinos will ever be willing to ditch their cars.
I was a dedicated, daily public transport rider for 25 years before moving to LA. But after three years here, I am only starting to piece together how to get around the city without a car.
I have taken the Metro that connects downtown to Santa Monica a few times — a pleasant ride in a sun-filled carriage with excellent views of the cars stalled in traffic nearby.
But those happy experiences are tempered by reports of violent crime and fentanyl overdoses on buses and trains. In response, Metro is studying whether to start its own police force.
“More people are dying in traffic collisions on our roads every day than they are on transit,” says Morrissey. “So I push back on the idea that it’s not safe. But I understand the perception.”