From busy freeways to classic-car street racing, Los Angeles has long been considered the capital of American car culture. Can it change in time for the Olympics?
With nearly year-round sunny skies, some say LA is the ideal place for cycling.
“It is the perfect community for runners and cycling and outdoors, yet as a generality we are hooked on our vehicles, we are hooked on the need to have speed,” said Damian Kevitt, the executive director of Streets Are For Everyone (Safe).
But until recently, it was cars – and not pedestrians or cyclists – that ruled the roads.
Spreading over 460 square miles (1,200 sq km), Los Angeles is known for its never-ending sprawl, and its traffic jams.
While cities like New York and Boston have embraced mass transit, in LA it never quite caught on – only about 7% of Angelenos take transit to work, according to Neighborhood Data for Social Change, external.
And while LA weather would be the envy of any Amsterdam cyclist, only about 1% bikes to work.
But with hundreds of thousands of spectators expected to attend the city for the 2026 World Cup and the 2028 Olympic Games, something has to be done to make getting around the city easier.
Los Angeles adopted the “Twenty-eight by ’28” transport plan in 2017 to expand mass transit options before the summer Olympics. Since then, miles and miles of new bike lanes have been popping up.
“This is long overdue,” Mr Kevitt said.
A cyclist who lost his leg in 2013 after a car hit him as he rode his bike in Griffith Park, Kevitt thinks more people will commute using their own bikes or rentable Metro city bikes once the streets are safer and bike lanes are more connected to each other.
LA voters in 2024 overwhelmingly supported a ballot measure to require the city to build more bike lanes and more walkable, livable spaces in Los Angeles.
But will car-loving Angelenos embrace bike culture? Some are actively fighting the changes, grumbling that bike lanes only worsen traffic for cars in the city of stars.
