It’s not like they are handing the mega pop star a 13th Grammy Award. Or providing her a key to the city.
But LA Metro is giving Taylor Swift and her devoted followers, aka Swifties, a message backed up with some extra rolling stock and new late-night schedules: Take mass transit, don’t drive, to Swift’s six concerts at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood on Aug. 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, and 9.
For more, see: What you need to know before you go to Taylor Swift’s Sofi Stadium shows
While the 70,000-seat football/entertainment venue is not what you’d call transit-connected, at least not until Inglewood completes a people mover/connector, the transit agency is extending a hand as part of a strategy to woo riders onto trains and buses, potentially as many as 420,000 Taylor Swift concert-goers.
The Metro enhancements include:
- Train lines A, B, D, E, C and K will run until 2 a.m. to accommodate Swifties after the concerts. Normally, trains stop running around midnight. The last trains on the rail network will depart downtown Los Angeles at the 7th/Metro Center station at 2 a.m. on concert nights. Also, trains will operate a 15-minute intervals, shorter than the usual off-peak 20 minutes.
- Two free shuttles will be added, taking passengers directly to SoFi from a train station. One will run from the K (Crenshaw) Line’s Downtown Inglewood Station. The other runs from the C Line’s Hawthorne/Lennox Station in the middle of the 105 Freeway. The shuttles will run 3:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. before each show, and for 90 minutes after the concerts end they will return to thd train stations.
- Trains will have longer train cars on each line in an effort to handle the anticipated higher use, Metro reported. The enhancements are intended to help concert-goers make connections to the A Line (Azusa to Long Beach), B Line (to North Hollywood), D Line (to Wilshire/Western), and E Line (to Santa Monica or East Los Angeles).
Metro points the way, using old and brand new train lines and late-night operations, mixed with the special shuttles:
- To take the train coming from the Westside, Eastside or Central L.A., take the E Line to Expo/Crenshaw Station and transfer to the K Line across the street. If coming from the San Fernando Valley, take the B Line to the E Line. If coming from the San Gabriel Valley, take the A Line to the E Line to the K Line.
- • From Orange County, take the C Line from Norwalk Station. From the South Bay and El Segundo, take the C Line from Redondo Beach, Douglas, El Segundo or Mariposa stations. From the Long Beach area, take the A Line to Willowbrook/Rosa Parks Station and transfer to the C Line.
While none of this is simple, and requires loaded TAP cards that will cost patrons about $3.50 per round trip, Taylor Swift fans at concerts in other cities reportedly enjoyed taking buses and trains. “Swifties attending concerts in cities across the country have relied on public transportation in large numbers,” Metro reported.
Allie Priore, 32, who lives in Burbank, has tickets for the Aug. 9 concert. A self-described Swiftie, Priorie said Swift’s concerts are more than musical performances, and are cultural events that can draw those without tickets to arrive as well. They spill into parking lots and nearby bridges, and even ride together with those who’ve seen the show on trains and buses, often breaking out in song.
“She is very personable (on stage),” Priore said. “She puts a lot into her concerts. And she is really good at connecting with her fans.”
Entitled “The Eras Tour,” the 52-date, 20-city event in the U.S. is Swift’s second all-stadium tour and her first tour since 2018 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Priore has seen Swift perform live three times, including at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena in 2018. She hasn’t seen so much use of mass transit in Southern California, at least not yet, but said fans are talking about using Metro to reach SoFi, which she said is a difficult venue to navigate by automobile.
It’s unclear how many will ride the trains and take the shuttle to the stadium on SoFi concert nights.
“We might be able to help a small percentage,” said Patrick Chandler, Metro spokesman. “Hopefully, we may relieve some of the traffic on the 105 Freeway and on the streets of Inglewood.”
Critics on social media say Metro should extend trains every night to 2 a.m. but that practice was halted during the pandemic years. And they say Metro should provide SoFi shuttles to all events at the Inglewood stadium.
“This is not just for Taylor Swift,” Chandler said. “It is a major event that will inundate the area with cars. We want to give our customers an option.”
Metro has seen sports fans head to USC football games and LAFC soccer matches using the E Line, where stations are near the venues. And CEO Stephanie Wiggins reported many riders jammed the B (Red) Line in Hollywood to attend the LA Pride Parade in June.
Weekend ridership has been increasing and is closer to pre-pandemic levels than the weekday ridership numbers. In June 2023, there were 444.320 more riders during the four Saturdays in the month, an increase of 17% over June 2021. There were 437,024 more riders on the four Sundays in June 2023 as compared to the same month in 2021, a 20% increase.
Priore said there are videos on YouTube and Tiktok of Swifties using mass transit. Metro said it built its plan based on concert-goers, often millennials and usually consisting of more women than men, who take subways to and from venues in New Jersey and other areas in the Northeast.
“In New Jersey, where they have better mass transit, I’ve seen videos where subways were full of Swifties,” she said.
Priore took Metro rail to the Los Angeles Convention Center to attend a DJ Kaskade concert, and said, “There were a lot of people on the train who had been at the concert. Everyone was on a concert high. It became part of the experience.”
Economists estimate that Swift’s “Eras Tour” will result in a $4.6 billion impact in the U.S., and that Swift is on track to produce the highest-grossing tour of all time, boosting the economiy of every city she sets foot in. Her latest tour is considered a marketing success.
For more information on transit and parking at train stations, dial: (323) 466-3876 between 5 a.m. and 9 a.m. Monday-Friday, or 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekends.
