The Los Angeles Metro system continued progress on multiple major projects over the weekend, including expansions to the subway rail yard in downtown L.A. and ground breakage on bus improvement efforts, according to L.A. Metro’s website.
The B and D Lines of the Metro trains reopened Monday morning following a closure that began on Friday, as part of the ongoing Metro D Line Subway Extension Project that began in 2019, according to L.A. Metro. The project’s continued efforts aim to “make it easier to get around by expanding our rail system to the Westside.”
“Expanding the Metro further into areas like Beverly Hills, I’ve heard [has been] a huge source of contention,” said Kate Gaul, a USC sophomore who commutes daily to campus via the Metro E Line from the Pico station. “But I think it’s a matter of accessibility and making stations more available.”
L.A. Metro also broke ground this weekend on the Metro G (Orange) Line Improvements Project, part of an ongoing movement to reduce bus travel times by “12 minutes or nearly 22%,” according to Metro’s website. The bus line services the San Fernando Valley. This project begins after a study published this month by Streets for All found that weekday L.A. Metro bus riders are delayed by more than 5 million minutes — or more than ten years — per day.
These efforts by L.A. Metro come amid reports of decreased ridership. Public transportation use in the Los Angeles region decreased from 35% in December 2019 to 24% in February 2024, according to the LABarometer survey by USC Dornsife.
Decreased ridership can be attributed to the pandemic and how “people changed where they lived, and changed their transportation patterns dramatically,” said Eli Lipmen, the executive director of Move LA. Move LA is an organization centered around improving the region’s public transit.
A study by L.A. Metro reports a 26-consecutive-month increase in system ridership post-pandemic. Yet, some USC student commuters still feel the system is flawed.
“Riding it everyday, I see signs that boast that everyone is a bike ride away from a Metro stop, but I think that in a lot of L.A. neighborhoods biking is an inaccessible option,” Gaul said. “I think [these signs] are a lazy solution to the many secluded stations.”
A majority of L.A. residents say the largest issue with Metro trains is a lack of safety, according to the USC Dornsife LABarometer survey, which cited 84% of L.A. residents as thinking riding Metro trains to be currently unsafe.
“It scares me a lot as a rider that there could be 30 people in my carriage, but if someone were to do something to me, maybe no one would try to stop it because they don’t want to get involved,” Gaul said.
She says this fear stems from her past experiences with “being followed and harassed while travelling alone” on the L.A. Metro. “Just having a presence there enforcing that everyone is seated or stationary in some way, would be really helpful in improving Metro’s service,” the student said.
L.A. Metro said violent crimes in January 2025 reached their lowest level since February 2020.
Last month, Metro expanded their “TAP-to-Exit” program in an aim “to prevent unauthorized use and maintain a safe environment for everyone,” according to METRO Magazine.
The TAP-to-Exit program has been gradually rolled out to stations across Los Angeles County beginning in May 2024, according to L.A, Metro. The most recent addition was Union Station in February 2025, with “program expansion to include all end-of-line stations by 2025.”
“It’s shown that it has seen an increase in people who are paying for the system,” Lipmen said. “I think the goal is to address particularly end-of-line situations, where some communities were feeling like they had scenarios that they weren’t set up to deal with.”
However, Lipmen said he doesn’t want to see this program to alienate any communities.
“We don’t want cost to be a barrier for people to ride public transportation in Los Angeles.” He acknowledged that 89% of riders on the Los Angeles Metro system earn less than $50,000 a year.
Metro has in the past rolled out initiatives to benefit low-income riders, according to L.A. County’s Department of Public Social Services website. The “Low-Income Fare is Easy” (LIFE) Program offers fare discounts on weekly and monthly transit passes for qualifying riders.
“The system of fare enforcement on Metro has huge biases. Some people skip the fare even if they could pay,” said Jacob Wasserman, Research Program Manager at the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies. “You could put barbed wire around the system, but is that a good use of resources? I think it’s important to think about how we could drive fare revenues up by providing better services.”
Wasserman said he believes that the LIFE program doesn’t necessarily increase ridership.
“Fare-free transit is more helpful to people who are already taking transit to sort of increase their mobility and have them take more transit trips than it is to boost ridership, especially as compared to service improvements,” said Wasserman.
On USC’s campus, the student U-Pass program aims to boost Metro ridership by giving students unlimited rides on the L.A. Metro rail and bus lines, according to USC Today.
The program contributes to USC’s sustainability mission and USC Rideshare Coordinator Eddie Soule’s goal of reducing single-passenger vehicles on campus, according to USC Sustainability’s Instagram page.
Despite Metro’s potential for further service improvements, Lipmen said “we’re seeing an incredible recovery in the L.A. region, with more than a million riders per day.” This growth is in anticipation of what Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass says will be a “car-free” 2028 Olympic Games, according to The New York Times.
Last weekend’s projects are one part of this car-free Olympics effort. The Metro D Line Subway Extension Project connects Downtown L.A. to the area slated to host the Olympic Village, as well as a handful of Olympic events. The San Fernando Valley bus routes project is meant to improve conditions for the area slated to host modern pentathlon, BMX, skateboarding and 3x3 basketball, according to NBC Los Angeles.
The first section of the Westside Metro subway stations includes the Wilshire/La Brea Station, a Wilshire/Fairfax Station and a Wilshire/La Cienega Station, all slated to open this fall. The other two sections of the project are projected to open in 2026 and 2027, ahead of the 2028 Games, according to Metro’s website. The San Fernando bus route improvements are expected to be completed by 2027.
This story has been edited to reflect several corrections from L.A. Metro, including incorporating new data on ridership and crime and correcting the name of the ongoing subway line project, which is the “Metro D Line Subway Extension Project.” This story previously referenced an article about city bus stops — which are owned by the city, not L.A. Metro — and an article criticizing L.A. Metro for inaccessibility in 2016. Both were removed from reference. Annenberg Media apologizes for these errors.