{"id":409669,"date":"2026-07-23T17:38:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T17:38:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/409669\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T17:38:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T17:38:13","slug":"mayor-karen-bass-outlines-her-metro-agenda-including-fare-free-transit-bus-lanes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/409669\/","title":{"rendered":"Mayor Karen Bass Outlines Her Metro Agenda including Fare Free Transit, Bus Lanes"},"content":{"rendered":"

At yesterday\u2019s Metro State of the Agency event, outgoing Metro Board Chair Fernando Dutra handed the ceremonial gavel to incoming Board Chair L.A. Mayor Karen Bass. Various Metro leadership spoke of the agency\u2019s recent accomplishments, including two new rail extensions opened, and extensive support for the just concluded World Cup. Most newsworthy at the event was Bass\u2019 speech which previewed her priorities for Metro. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Outgoing Metro Board Chair Fernando Dutra hands off the gavel to incoming Board Chair Karen Bass<\/p>\n

The Metro board chair generally rotates between L.A. City, county, and other cities. Every third year, the L.A. Mayor serves as chair. Mayor Bass was Metro chair earlier \u2013 in 2023-24.<\/p>\n

In earlier election coverage<\/a> Streetsblog noted Bass has been disappointing at Metro, where she wields a lot of power, but has been frequently been absent from meetings. Bass too often sided with transit opponents \u2013\u00a0actively against the K Line north<\/a>, but also passively on the\u00a0C Line and Sepulveda rail<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In New York City<\/a> and Seattle<\/a>, support for transit has helped elect left of center mayoral candidates. Most famously, NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani campaigned on an oft-repeated pledge to make buses fast and free<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Bass generally hasn\u2019t made transit or transportation a high profile issue in her campaigns or her mayoralty. This year, Bass is facing a November run-off election against Nithya Raman, who is running to Bass\u2019 left. Perhaps feinting to her left, Bass appears to be focusing on a Metro agenda that at least somewhat echoes Mamdani. After four years of Bass\u2019 Metro inaction peppered with occasional anti-transit actions, Bass\u2019 election year conversion sounds tepid and unconvincing, even when the improvements she has pledged are worthwhile. <\/p>\n

Bass divided her Metro priorities into four slogans: Metro Safe, Metro Affordable, Metro Reliable, and Metro Ready. She also separately pledged bike improvements.<\/p>\n

Metro Safe<\/p>\n

Metro is setting up its own police department, which Bass says is a priority. In yesterday\u2019s speech (and in Metro\u2019s existing plans), Bass touted Metro transit safety including both law enforcement officers and care-based programs, including ambassadors and homeless services. Bass spoke in support of Metro police, tempered with providing \u201cservices and support [and] even housing\u201d \u2013 all to create \u201ca new vision of public safety and a new model that will serve as a model for the nation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Metro Affordable <\/p>\n

In 2022, Bass campaigned<\/a>\u00a0in support of \u201cmaking our transit system safe, reliable and free\u201d including specifically stating \u201cI support the move towards fareless transit.\u201d\u00a0Bass later backed off of universal fareless, instead supporting strengthening existing Metro programs<\/a>\u00a0for students and low-income riders.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, she touted her continued support for those worthwhile (but limited) student and low-income programs. Then Bass more-or-less pledged free buses, \u201cI want to\u2026 develop a long-term financial strategy and plan for Metro to finally be fare-free.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s fareless, but offered in a word salad. Mamdani: \u201cmake buses fast and free.\u201d Bass: \u201cdevelop a long-term strategy and plan\u201d for free buses.<\/p>\n

Metro Reliable<\/p>\n

For \u201cMetro Reliable\u201d Bass pledged that \u201cbuses and trains will show up when they\u2019re supposed to, and this system will work.\u201d<\/p>\n

How? Oddly Bass went on to tout \u201cthis past June, Metro adjusted timetables on over a hundred bus routes.\u201d Twice a year Metro makes very minor adjustments to service, generally small service cuts and small route changes to improve reliability. The routine Metro June\/December \u201cshakeups\u201d have taken place for decades; they\u2019re an odd non-accomplishment to point out. Perhaps it\u2019s a sound-bite that non-riders will think means something, while signaling business as usual to actual Metro riders?<\/p>\n

For reliability, Bass continued, pledging to add more bus-only lanes \u2013 another faint echo of \u201cfast buses\u201d Mamdani. <\/p>\n

Today, there are 80 miles of peak-hour bus lanes improving speed and reliability for hundreds of thousands of riders. By 2028, I want to grow that to more than 100 miles.<\/p>\n

Sadly, with departments fighting Measure HLA<\/a>, installation of new L.A. City bus lanes has declined under Bass. Metro\u2019s under construction NoHo-Pasadena Bus Rapid Transit project<\/a> already includes 20 new bus lane lane-miles. Assuming those get built (Burbank is contesting<\/a>), Bass\u2019 tepid new bus lane miles pledge will be fulfilled.<\/p>\n

Metro Ready<\/p>\n

Bass\u2019 fourth priority item was essentially getting Metro ready for upcoming mega-events: running \u201ca world-class system under pressure\u201d like Metro did for the World Cup.<\/p>\n

Bicycling in Brief <\/p>\n

Before detailing her four priorities, the Mayor included a few sentences to bicycling priorities, a bit less committal than the above priorities:<\/p>\n

Now, as a lifelong bike rider, biking we know is just as much a part of L.A. as anything else \u2014 and we are pushing to expand bike infrastructure across the region. Including new stretches along the L.A. River bike path and biking Metro Bike Share. That is a whole other component. Every Angeleno should have the option of experiencing L.A. on two wheels.<\/p>\n

Mayor Bass authored and shepherded approval of a worthwhile motion<\/a> that gets Metro to further study how to untangle the long-delayed River path through central Los Angeles<\/a>. Metro has grant funding to expand bike-share<\/a>, but the system has been hamstrung by Metro botching two procurements<\/a>, leaving the current operator in limbo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At yesterday\u2019s Metro State of the Agency event, outgoing Metro Board Chair Fernando Dutra handed the ceremonial gavel…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":409670,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[48,52,51,47,50,49,109921],"class_list":["post-409669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-promoted"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=409669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409669\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/409670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=409669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=409669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=409669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}