LA Podcast - Another One Rides the Bus

Scott, Mike, and Olga convene a transportation sickos roundtable to discuss Metro’s State of the Agency, how the system fared during the World Cup, and big changes to the board’s structure. Will the LAX people mover ever open — and will anyone actually call it SkyLink? Then: Karen Bass’s sudden pivot on the Lineage disaster in a mayorship that has been defined by disasters.

Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or almost anywhere you get your podcasts.

SHOW NOTES

Watch Metro’s State of the Agency featuring Metro’s magnetic CEO Stephanie Wiggins

Metro ridership numbers in June increased by over two million year over year during the World Cup

Alissa was on Spectrum talking about how well it all went and wrote more about the lessons learned on Torched

More than 560,000 fans attended the eight matches altogether, according to the Los Angeles World Cup 2026 Host Committee. There were approximately 212,000 boardings to and from SoFi. This means about 1 in 5 fans going to the matches took Metro’s shuttle service

Los Angeles Times: “The World Cup was an L.A. public transit success. The Olympics will be a much bigger test”

Bass, now in her second go as Metro board chair, suddenly started caring about transit, and is promising fare-free transit that advocates have been demanding for years

As advocates — including a direct plea from CicLAvia — begged Metro to find $1 million for open streets events while pouring over $100 million into freeway expansions

Metro’s board is changing — and is about to undergo more significant changes. Two small city reps are no longer elected councilmembers, so they’re out: Whittier’s Fernando Dutra who lost his council race and Glendale’s Ara Najarian who didn’t run again. Long Beach mayor Rex Richardson is replacing Dutra, but the obscure L.A. County City Selection Committee rejected Santa Clarita councilmember Jason Gibbs

Due to Measure G, which expands the LA County Board of Supervisors to nine members, Metro’s board composition has to change. The board approved a motion — a combination of a staff recommendation, and motions from Bass, Janice Hahn, and Lindsey Horvath — that will recommend including two rider representatives. There are still a few final wrinkles to iron out, but soon these proposals will proceed as Metro’s recommendations to the state legislature, which may have its own ideas about changes to Metro governance

The LAX people mover contractor has now sued the city, raising even more concern over when/if the three-years-late, $1 billion over budget, 2.25-mile connection from the airport to the LAX Metro station will actually open

Nick Andert has the only video about the people mover you need

After L.A. Material’s Julia Wick broke the news that Lineage Logistics had filed for permits to rebuild their burned and putrid cold storage warehouse, Bass quickly announced that she would stop Lineage from rebuilding, issuing an emergency executive order to deny the permits, weeks after saying that she didn’t know if she could do that

LAist has a great explainer on what Bass and the city could actually do

Meanwhile Lineage is getting hit by fines from both AQMD and the LA County Public Health Department for odors, vermin, flies, and more

“Bass’ summer has been beset by a string of negative news. Staff members on both her campaign and administration teams have left. She was away from the city — just as she was at the start of the devastating 2025 firestorms — when a blaze ignited at the Lineage cold-storage food warehouse in Boyle Heights, inundating the heavily Latino surrounding neighborhoods with noxious fumes,” writes Noah Goldberg at the LA Times

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This week’s episode was produced by Kristen Torres

The reporting and analysis you hear in the show is put together by our rotating cast of producers and co-hosts every week. All opinions expressed on the show are solely those of co-hosts and may not represent the views of LA Forward

Scott Frazier is an original co-host of LA Podcast

Mike Bonin is the executive director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at CalState LA, and can be found at Substack, or @mikebonin on IG, and @mikebonin.bsky.social on Bluesky

Olga Lexell is a TV writer and local political organizer