Can car-obsessed Los Angeles really pull off a car-free Olympics in 2028? Jacob Wasserman, a public transportation researcher at UCLA, says the experience in Paris – and in Los Angeles in 1984 – suggests it can be done. Whether it can have lasting effects on the climate is a less clear-cut question. Wasserman says:
- “Los Angeles has done this before – at the 1984 Olympics, when we had no rail and a smaller bus network. And in some ways, the 2028 Olympics will have to be largely car-free because there will be little to no parking at the Los Angeles Olympic venues.”
- “The question, not just for the climate but for almost all policy areas, is what the lasting legacy will be. Whatever is developed for the Games should also serve the region in the long term.”
- “The car-free Paris Olympics seem to be bringing about a permanent change. There has been a lot of construction, not for the venues but to use streets for bike lanes, and that has changed the way Parisians get around. They are increasingly turning to public transport, bicycles and walking, and abandoning private vehicles.”
- “On the other hand, the 1984 Olympics didn’t change how Los Angeles residents got around. People blame LA’s ‘car culture,’ and there’s some truth in that. But the real reason people are driving more is because we’re making it very convenient for people to drive. Until we make other forms of transportation comparable or better than private cars, nothing will change.”
- “The history of highway planning across the country is marked by incredible racial inequality. If the Games do result in excessive car traffic on these inter-vening highways, it will build on decades of inequality. Ultimately, that will worsen air quality for residents who are supposed to benefit from the economic investment in the Olympics.”
Media are encouraged to quote from Wasserman’s comments or to schedule an interview with him or other UCLA climate experts. Wasserman is a public transportation researcher at the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies in the Luskin School of Public Affairs. His areas of expertise include public transit, highway history and racism, and the intersection of homelessness and public transit.
For more climate news, tune in to a climate briefing with UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain on Friday, August 16 at 10 a.m. PT (1 p.m. ET). The climate briefing will range from upcoming thunderstorms in the Pacific Northwest to an update on the “temporarily quieter” status of California wildfires to Swain’s predictions for what he expects to be a more intense wildfire season in the West this fall.
