The Olympic flag was passed to LA. How will everyone get around the car-choked city?

Transcript

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Now that the Paris Olympics are over, the torch passes eventually to Los Angeles for the Summer Games in 2028, and that city has to get ready. And covering that is the business of Laurel Wamsley, who reports on cities for NPR. Good morning.

LAUREL WAMSLEY, BYLINE: Good morning, Steve.

INSKEEP: OK, so my first thought I guess is a stereotypical one because it's LA - somebody's going to miss the high jump while stuck in traffic on I-5. How do they prevent that?

WAMSLEY: Well, they say it's going to be a car-free Olympics.

INSKEEP: What?

WAMSLEY: That's partly - yes. They say that there's, like, really not going to be anywhere to park near the venues, and, of course, there's going to be this huge security cordon, so, you know, people's individual cars are just, like, not going to be allowed through.

INSKEEP: Wow.

WAMSLEY: Yes. So Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and organizers for 2028 were actually in Paris, observing how that city was getting people around during the Olympics there. And in order to pull this off, Los Angeles is going to have to continue to expand its public transit. And Karen Bass said on Saturday at a press conference that that's exactly what the city is doing.

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KAREN BASS: In order for us to have a no-car Games -and that's a feat in Los Angeles 'cause we've always been in love with our cars.

WAMSLEY: So the plan is for more trains, more buses and bus-only lanes.

INSKEEP: OK. Now, I do remember Paris had a big metro system, and they opened new metro lines right before the Games, but how does LA pay for the change?

WAMSLEY: Well, Los Angeles says that this Olympics is going to be different. It's not going to one where they build big new arenas. Instead, they're going to be building new train lines. The idea is that Los Angeles should be better for the decades to come after all of this and not just saddled with Olympics-only stuff that it really doesn't need. And, of course, LA already has a bunch of huge stadiums and, you know, football stadiums and stuff like that that can already host big crowds. And using the existing venues it has was part of Los Angeles' bid for the Olympics seven years ago, to show that hosting the Olympics can be more sustainable than it has been.

INSKEEP: I am liking this idea. So they use the existing sports venues to the extent they can, and they focus more on long-standing public transit and other things that affect the city at large. OK. I want to ask a little bit about the history because one of the earliest Olympics that I can remember seeing, being conscious of, was in Los Angeles in 1984. How did they manage the traffic back then?

WAMSLEY: Well, apparently it went pretty well. There was actually an LA Times reporter who said that it was automotive nirvana at this time. To do it, the city supersized its bus system. It borrowed hundreds of buses from other cities. It used these bus-only lanes. They had these park-and-ride centers where visitors could, you know, take the bus - shuttle bus from their hotel straight to a venue. And they also - the city had businesses stagger workers' hours so there wasn't a big rush-hour push. And, as a result, the '84 Games had one of the highest periods of transit ridership in the city's history. That's what Seleta Reynolds told me. She's with Los Angeles Metro, which runs the city's trains and buses. And back then, the city didn't have subways.

SELETA REYNOLDS: And now we've built out miles and miles of light-rail and subway. We're going to be opening a new rail line in LA County every year between now and the Olympic Games.

INSKEEP: Which sounds ambitious, Laurel. Are they going to get done in four years?

WAMSLEY: Well, we will see, but things are definitely happening. Metro at this point has more than a hundred rail stations. And they've got two light-rail lines, one of which opened last year, and it runs almost 50 miles, from East LA to Long Beach, which is where some of the events will be held. And the airport LAX is going to be launching a people mover. That's one of those automated trains, and that's going to carry visitors from the airport and connect them to the metro system. And, once again, buses are going to be huge. The city's planning on borrowing thousands of them. But one big asset that the city has now is that remote work is upon us. So people who have the ability to work from home are probably going to be encouraged to for the 17 days of the Olympics.

INSKEEP: Something that wasn't really possible in 1984. Laurel, thanks so much.

WAMSLEY: You're welcome, Steve.

INSKEEP: That's NPR's Laurel Wamsley. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.