LA Metro’s enhanced response during the six August days of Taylor Swift concerts at SoFi Stadium is being examined as a test for a much bigger event — the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games.
During the pop singer’s concerts from Aug. 3 through Aug 9, a rollout of shuttles, more frequent city buses and late-night rail lines running until 2 a.m. resulted in a 25% overall increase in ridership, Metro reported. The K (Crenshaw) Line increased by 250%, the C (Green) Line by 35% and stadium shuttle passengers carried 30,000 people to and from the Inglewood stadium.
While Metro touted its success at a recent committee meeting, two things became clear if Metro is going to succeed in making the L.A. Olympics carless during 16 days from July 14 to July 30, 2028. First, providing extra transit is costly. Second, any response requires a nimble operation able to meet fluid demands through coordination.
It cost Metro around $660,000 to help Swifties get around without driving for six days in August, the agency reported. And Metro operations had to shift on a dime when the pop singer extended concerts scheduled to end at 11 p.m. to 11:45 p.m. That meant trains and shuttles had to run even later, for example.
“The only certainty is uncertainty,” said John Gordon, director of social media and marketing at Metro, during an assessment of the effort at a Metro committee last week. “There were a lot of needs for us to react to in real time. These are live events and conditions change.”
For concert-goers, Metro renamed stations for six nights. The Hawthorne/Lennox C Line Station had new signs that read “Taylor Nation Station.”
But Gordon said Metro needed more wayfinding signs, especially directing fans after the concert to the Metro shuttle going back to the train stations. Some social media comments were about getting lost or not finding the correct shuttle bus after the show.
“Other things we can do is help people establish where they got off, and so when they come out of the concert they are able to remember. We should take a cue from Disney and say, ‘I parked in the Goofy lot,’ ” he said.
Gordon said because there were multiple shuttle operators, it caused confusion for people seeking the Metro shuttles back to the train stations.
“Many were not regular riders of our network. We needed signage to help people,” said Joseph Forgiarini, Metro senior executive officer for service development.
Shuttle drivers and Metro city bus operators needed to know the best routes to take and to avoid end-of-concert traffic from 60,000 concert-goers each night. Coordination with SoFi’s bus drop-off and pick up facility was critical, Metro reported.
Metro also cited communication with Swift’s concert operations team to predict attendance and the concert’s start and finish times. Assessing the “transit demand” is something that must be known during the Olympics as well, Metro staff said. “We could gain a lot of information from venue management,” Forgiarini said.
Metro received criticism for not running shuttles, late-night trains and extra city buses during the three nights when Beyoncé played the arena, Sept. 1. 2. and 4. Metro staff said they were told that SoFi did not operate its inter-modal bus shuttle facility on those nights, so Metro could not add its own shuttles and extra service.
Inglewood Mayor and Metro board and committee member James Butts said Metro just needed to ask his office to open the SoFi bus facility. “If you ever want our inter-modal (facility) open, all you have to do is call us,” he told Metro staff during the meeting.
The Olympics Opening and Closing Ceremonies will take place at SoFi Stadium, so keeping all transportation systems operating, and keeping communications open with Metro, will be key during the Olympics.
Another issue was getting riders to use the TAP app or Apple Pay to load fares before they arrive at a station or venue. Waiting for someone to load their TAP cards or phones with cash to pay the $1.75 fare for a train or bus causes long backups.
Metro CEO Stephanie Wiggins emphasized that traffic control in and around the venues was key. Some called for a dedicated bus lane into downtown Inglewood.
Inglewood is rushing to build a 1.6-mile automated transit system, also known as a people mover, from the K (Crenshaw) Line to the stadium, to help with access from Metro train lines. The Inglewood Transportation Connector will run from K Line’s Downtown Inglewood Station to SoFi Stadium, the Kia Forum, Hollywood Park and the Los Angeles Clippers’ future Intuit Dome. The people mover is slated to break ground in 2024 and be completed in 2028.
Metro board and committee member Ara Najarian remembers the 1984 L.A. Olympics. He said that after the games many stayed to trade pins or buy merchandise or food. That kind of lingering creates a different challenge for transit agencies, he said. “People would come and stay a long time after the event. You might not have that intense crush you had with Taylor Swift,” he said.
Stuart Waldman, president of the Valley Industry and Commerce Association, serves on the L.A. 2028 Olympic Games Committee. He’s attended many Olympics and World Cup soccer events in cities throughout the world. At the Rio Olympics, he remembers a venue area with several big TV screens showing medal ceremonies and highlights from other contests.
“You want to keep people happy. And you want to communicate with people,” Waldman said on Monday, Oct. 2.
He agreed that Metro needs to keep practicing transportation controls at large events as run-ups to the Olympics. Getting people to ride transit will reduce congestion.
“In many cases, there is just not parking to handle that amount of people,” Waldman said. “If you tell a neighborhood you are going to have a lot of people and cars, those neighborhoods don’t want that.”
The LA28 Olympic website recently posted renderings of a temporary sports park in the Sepulveda Basin Recreation Area that would host equestrian, shooting, and canoe events during the games. The complete list of events hosted in L.A. has not been issued.