At the end of the “Future of Regional Mobility: Game Plan for a Sustainable LA” panel at LABC’s Sustainability Summit, James Butts, mayor of Inglewood, made his closing remarks on the future of transit development after the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games conclude.
“Transportation is something that has to be here forever, or we’re going to choke ourselves with emissions in cars,” Butts said. “So this circus isn’t leaving town.”
Butts was joined by four others for the hour-long discussion that was held in the Town and Gown ballroom of USC on Oct. 1. Almost 100 people attended the event. Phil Recht, the moderator of the panel, said the primary goal was to figure out how to expand the transit systems of L.A. while also keeping transportation clean.
With the approaching Olympic games and the expected influx of thousands to the city, many ongoing projects tackling both expanding and cleaning-up transit have the tentative goal of being achieved before the games start.
The LA28 website says it will host a “transit-first” Games, prioritizing clean energy across venues and transportation.
“The exciting thing about the Olympics is that it’s a forcing function to get things done and accomplished,” said George Kivork, a panelist and the general manager for the LA region for Archer Aviation, in an interview with Annenberg Media.
Archer is an aerospace and defense technology company seeking to develop an all-electric air taxi called Midnight. While the company has run into difficulties with the Federal Aviation Administration department in the past, Kivork said during the panel that obstacles the company was facing had been overcome.
“You have this federal administration that’s leaned in to make sure that the U.S. dominates when it comes to this sort of electric aviation implementation,” Kivork said on the panel. “They want to see this aircraft by 2028.”
The Midnight air taxi is set to make its debut at the Olympics. Looking past the conclusion of the Games, Kivorak said the goal was to have Midnight integrated with existing infrastructure.
Of the existing infrastructure it could be connected to is the LA Metro, who was represented by Chief Planning Officer Ray Sosa during the panel. Sosa said the LA Metro was “number one” in infrastructure building, citing the multiple projects it has ongoing.
The North Hollywood to Pasadena Bus Rapid Transit system, the Vermont Transit Corridor and the extension of the D line to Beverly Hills and Century City are all scheduled to be done by the start of the Olympics, according to Sosa.
LA Metro already had something of a stress test of its Games Enhanced Transit Service — a temporary extension of its services for high-traffic events — during the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Mouna Benbouazza, an attendee with a background in grants administration and management, said seeing the metro in action during the World Cup made her “very hopeful.”
“I’ve been seeing so much development and I feel like we are ready. We also have a little bit more time until the Games are here,” Benbouazza said. “I think we’ll give a good image of our region.”
However, unlike the World Cup, the Olympics will be hundreds of events taking place all across L.A. During the panel, Sosa stressed this would not be possible without having buses. On actually obtaining enough buses, he said he wasn’t concerned.
“I believe we’ll get the amount of buses we need. Really we have to work on drivers, mechanics, all the supporting staff,” Sosa said in an interview. “We can have the buses, but if they’re parked in the parking lot…”
He said federal and state funding is the main roadblock of ensuring LA Metro can run at full capacity during the Olympics.
“Without that funding, we’ll end up running our existing service as best as possible. But, it’d be a shame if we weren’t able to do an enhanced service,” Sosa said.
When Sosa raised the issue of funding during the panel, the moderator Recht joked, “Talk to the mayor, he’s the expert.”
Recht was referring to Butts, mayor of Inglewood since 2011. During the panel he talked about overseeing the transformation of Inglewood from a city where the only thing of significance “was the Sizzler and the big donut” to having much more like the Kia Forum, the Intuit Dome and two NFL teams.
“What I’m most proud of is I talked to the Girl Scouts of Greater Los Angeles, which were headquartered in Marina Del Ray, and convinced them to move their headquarters — 35,000 strong — into Inglewood,” Butts said during the panel. “If the Girl Scouts are in your city, nobody can say you’re not safe anymore.”
Inglewood has since obtained $782 million for their Inglewood Transit Connector project, which will see the implementation of transportation hubs around the city meant to ferry thousands of passengers every day.
The Market St and Florence Ave transportation hub will break ground on Oct. 12, according to Butts. The website for the project says phase one of the project is to be completed in time for the Olympics and provide “lasting benefits for the community well beyond 2028.”
Brandon García, an attendee of the forum and the California director for Advanced Energy United, said transportation systems like the one being constructed in Inglewood are a necessity.
“The Olympics and the World Cup are good things to strive for. This city’s only going to get bigger 10, 20 years from now,” García said. “Striving to [build transportation] isn’t just doing good things, it’s just the way cities work and we should be doing that more.”
While the overarching theme of the panel was sustainability, attendee Kevin Barahona, a sustainability professional and aspiring city planner, felt like it wasn’t talked about enough.
“I didn’t feel the sense of urgency from anybody — that we need to be sprinting to the sustainability solutions as fast as possible,” Barahona said. “I didn’t get enough of: ‘It’s too late, and we’re running out of time and we needed this yesterday. We need to do whatever we can to get to this goal as fast as possible.’”
The sustainability goals for the LA28 Olympics have gone beyond public transportation but to cargo transport as well. Gene Seroka, panelist and executive director of the Port of LA, said the goal of zero emission couldn’t be done alone.
“These trucks and ships and fuel are all really expensive, and yet we’re the only two ports to have in writing this strategy to go to zero emission,” Seroka said. “We need better policy and better commitment from others to really help drive the market to those cost structures and availability levels to let this thing really unleash its power.”
For goals to have done by the Olympics, Seroka said having the port running efficiently and making sure moving cargo didn’t impede traffic was key. The deck replacement project for the Vincent Thomas Bridge was also noted, with Seroka saying the project will be completed by March 1 of 2028.
The services of autonomous vehicle companies, such as Waymo, were a topic of discussion. Tom Ashley, a panelist and vice president of the government and relations department of Voltera, a company that builds charging hubs, said the Olympics were a “huge north star” for the company.
“Voltaire has been working very actively with our customers, with key partners… to try to figure out how we can best accelerate investment and deployment of charging infrastructure,” Ashley said. “We have a whole list of sites that we are trying to land ahead of visitors landing for the Olympics, and I just want to acknowledge it’s a huge task. We’re really excited about it.”
Ashley said that the creation of these charging stations around LA will further the reach and efficiency of all the different modes of transportation around the city in time for the Olympics. According to him, being able to mesh all these modes of transport, and making it simple for everyone, was one of the main points of the whole panel.
“That’s really the great promise and opportunity in a place like LA where transportation is such an integral part of who we are and what the community and geography looks like,” Ashley said. “It’s really connecting the dots better than the different modes of transportation that currently exist.”
Edited by Katherine Contreras Hernandez and Scott Hills