Los Angeles plans to move an estimated one million additional daily transit trips during the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games, largely on buses, including roughly 2,700 vehicles borrowed from other transit agencies. To keep those buses moving through traffic, transportation planners have looked at dedicated bus lanes on major corridors (UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies).
Bus lanes are cheap compared with rail. They are mostly paint, signs, signal changes and enforcement, and they can be installed in months rather than decades. That also makes them easy to remove. The open question for Los Angeles is what happens after the closing ceremony: whether lanes installed for a three-week event become a permanent part of the street network, or whether curb lanes revert to general traffic and parking.
This is a City Council decision in practice, because the council controls street design and parking rules within the city, while Metro operates the buses. Corridor by corridor, the trade-off is concrete: a lane taken from general traffic or parking moves far more people per hour when buses are frequent, but businesses and residents on the street often object to losing curb access, and drivers experience the change as lost capacity.
Advocates for people with disabilities have also pressed for sidewalk and station access improvements alongside any lane changes, a point raised during Games planning. Bring data on bus ridership, travel times, business impacts and crash rates. For background, see public transit funding and our guide on how to speak at a city council meeting, or find officials in the Los Angeles directory.
