{"id":417755,"date":"2026-07-30T08:07:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T08:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/417755\/"},"modified":"2026-07-30T08:07:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T08:07:08","slug":"los-angeles-works-to-shed-its-car-centric-identity-as-transit-first-olympics-approach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/417755\/","title":{"rendered":"Los Angeles works to shed its car-centric identity as \u201ctransit-first\u201d Olympics approach"},"content":{"rendered":"

The US federal administration under president Donald Trump has\u00a0stifled efforts<\/a> to clean California\u2019s air and has challenged the state\u2019s zero-emission vehicle rules, with California\u00a0withdrawing its regulation<\/a> for cleaner trucks. Federal money for electric buses\u00a0is drying up<\/a> and resources for safe cycling\u00a0are disappearing<\/a> from official federal websites.\u00a0<\/p>\n

With Washington largely\u00a0unresponsive<\/a> to funding support requests, LA Metro has\u00a0revised its list of 28 projects<\/a> and gradually reduced the number of buses it plans to lease whenever critical funding milestones were not met<\/a>, from an initial 3,000 to around 1,700. The agency, which already runs the second-largest public transport system in the US, needs federal money for buses, extra drivers and temporary depots. It\u00a0had hoped<\/a> its entire fleet, including the supplemental Olympic buses, would be zero-emission by 2028. Instead, its board will soon vote to procure 200 new electric buses.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a drop in the bucket, it is less than 10 percent of our entire fleet, but it is a move in the right direction,\u201d board member Katy Yaroslavsky said at a summit marking the two-year countdown to the Games. \u201cMany of us on the board hoped that it would be 100 percent electric by the Olympics, [a target] which we are not going to hit for a variety of reasons, but we are continuing to make meaningful progress,\u201d she added. Electric buses are large, costly and slow to manufacture, and are\u00a0in short supply<\/a> in the US.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The supplemental fleet fares little better. LA28 said<\/a> 100 percent of the fleet would be \u201czero or near-zero emissions\u201d, without specifying a split. \u201cThere will be few electric buses brought in for the supplemental fleet,\u201d says LACI\u2019s Petersen, explaining the buses LA can borrow are likely to run on compressed fossil gas or be hybrid \u2013 better than diesel, but not zero-emissions. LA28 did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n

Who will fund improvements that outlast the Games, such as temporary bus lanes,\u00a0is also unanswered<\/a>. Previous US host cities received federal help covering transport costs but, given the administration\u2019s hostility to climate projects, that seems unlikely. \u201cIf there is federal investment in transit in LA, both for the Olympics and beyond, that could really be a game changer,\u201d says UCLA\u2019s Wasserman. \u201cLA has rail projects programmed 40 years from now, which could happen far sooner if the federal government puts money in.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The US federal administration under president Donald Trump has\u00a0stifled efforts to clean California\u2019s air and has challenged the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":417756,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[48,52,51,47,50,49],"class_list":["post-417755","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"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417755","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=417755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417755\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/417756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}