In 2018, the Miss America Pageant eliminated its swimsuit competition, a hallmark of the pageant for almost 100 years. It also made a change to the evening wear event. Instead of walking and smiling, the contestants would be judged on how well they announced their “social impact initiative.” That’s how the new CEO of the pageant, Regina Hopper, explained it at the time.
In 2004, the Miss America Pageant lost its broadcast television contract. ABC cited declining ratings.
The moral of the story is, “Be who you are.” Miss America was a beauty contest. Pretending that IQ was one of the measurements didn’t work out at all.
That brings us to Metro and its delusions of a post-Olympic transportation paradise.
“As we approach the 2028 Games, Metro is focused on key transportation projects, programs and experiences that promise to be transformational for the region,” the transit agency exults on its website.
According to Metro, the Olympic Games will result in “long-lasting benefits and more equitable mobility” and “climate justice.” The plan is to make Los Angeles “a leading example of how to encourage long-lasting mode shift to sustainable travel modes.”
Yes, it’s another attempt to force L.A. residents into “shifting away from passenger cars.”
Metro is a transit agency. It should just get the buses and trains to run efficiently, not social-engineer a “permanent mode shift.”
It was bad enough that L.A.’s idiotic former leaders put city taxpayers on the hook to pay for unlimited Olympic cost overruns. Now, L.A.’s idiotic current leaders think the Olympics are an opportunity to make the roads car-unfriendly and perhaps leave them that way.
Metro calls this the “Mobility Concept Plan.” The agency says its aim is “providing legacy and permanent benefits after the 2028 Games to encourage shift to sustainable transportation modes.”
Fortunately for anyone who drives, Metro is 1,700 buses and $2 billion short of realizing its dream.
A handful of California congressional representatives recently joined Metro’s effort to convince the federal government to hand over another $2 billion for Olympics transportation. Rep. Laura Friedman and others warned that the Games might cause “gridlock” and reputational damage without the extra cash.
It would probably be rude to point out that Los Angeles County taxpayers pay four separate one-half percent sales taxes to fund Metro, a total of 2% of purchase prices. The taxes confiscate about $4 billion per year to pay for a transit network that had higher ridership back in the 1980s when it was just a bus system.
If you think that’s rude, you’ll hate this: Metro’s own financial reports show that in fiscal year 2010, farebox revenue covered only 25% of operating costs. Now it’s worse. In fiscal year 2025, fares covered just 6.5% of the cost of running the transit system.
The dismal decline reflects both higher operating costs and lower farebox revenue. But rather than cut costs or improve the transit experience to meet the needs of paying customers, Metro has plans to use the 2028 Olympics as a test run for “shifting away from passenger cars.”
“With bus-only lanes, transit priority and micromobility options, public transit will be more time‑competitive than driving a passenger car on a wider range of trips,” Metro asserts.
Public transit is more “time-competitive” than driving the way sand is more wet than water. That is, unless the government closes streets and freeway lanes to passenger vehicles and makes driving virtually impossible.
That’s the plan for the Olympics. The “Games Route Network” will create permit-only express lanes for athletes, VIPs and anyone connected to the Games by closing existing traffic lanes to everybody else. The Los Angeles Times reported on a Caltrans presentation to the Southern California Association of Governments that showed proposed plans for closing lanes to the public on portions of the 5, 91, 405, 105, 110, 101, 10, 1, 2, 47, 134, 164, 55, 57, and 73. Even some city streets will be closed to non-credentialed vehicles.
“This is our chance to reverse generations of inequitable development,” Metro declares on its 2028 Games website.
Whether replacing swimsuits with seminars or transportation with ideology, refusing to see reality tends to lead to a train wreck.
Write Susan@SusanShelley.com and follow her on X @Susan_Shelley