Los Angeles Metro

• 1. Introduction

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  Los Angeles Metro is, by almost any measure, one of the most complex transportation agencies in the United States. It plans, operates, and coordinates funding for the vast majority of transportation in Los Angeles County, a place that holds more residents than any other county in the country. On any given weekday, buses, trains, and rapid transit lines carry hundreds of thousands of people across a service area spanning more than 1,400 square miles. Yet the agency that makes all of this possible almost never came to be. For years, two rival agencies fought bitterly over the region's transit future, and their disputes nearly left light rail passengers stranded six blocks short of their destination. How did a merger born of bureaucratic conflict become the second-largest transit system in the country? And what does a $7.2 billion agency look like when it is trying to serve over 10 million people at once?

• 2. Two Agencies, One Feud

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  The Southern California Rapid Transit District was founded on the 18th of August 1964, created to bring order to a fractured patchwork of failing bus companies across a region spanning Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Orange, and Riverside counties. It absorbed eleven struggling operators and eventually became the main provider of public transportation across the urbanized Southern California region. Separately, the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission began operation in 1977, responding to a state mandate that every county form a local transportation commission. Its mission was narrower but powerful: control the money. It was the gatekeeper of all transportation funding, both transit and highway, for Los Angeles County.

  For years the two agencies coexisted uneasily, each jealous of the other's authority. The tension came to a head in the 1980s, when both agencies were simultaneously building major new lines. The Transportation Commission was constructing what is now called the A Line, a light rail route between Los Angeles and Long Beach. The Rapid Transit District was digging the subway through Downtown Los Angeles, now the B Line. The rivalry turned into a near-disaster when it emerged that the Transportation Commission was planning to terminate its new light rail at Pico Station, bypassing the 7th Street/Metro Center station being built by the district just six blocks to the north. The absurdity of that gap, two competing agencies unable to connect their tracks by a few hundred feet, made the case for consolidation. On the 1st of February 1993, the California State Legislature merged both agencies into a single body: the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, branded as Metro.

• 3. What Metro Runs

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  Metro Rail carries passengers across 125.1 miles of urban rail, stopping at 110 stations along four light rail lines and two rapid transit lines. The A Line, which runs between Pomona and Long Beach via Downtown Los Angeles, holds the highest ridership of any Metro Rail line and the lowest operational cost. At the other end of the spectrum, the K Line records the lowest ridership of all letter-branded lines. The B and D Lines are the system's rapid transit subway routes; the B Line connects North Hollywood to Downtown Los Angeles, while the D Line runs between Beverly Hills and Downtown, with an extension underway westward as of May 2026.

  Beyond rail, Metro operates the primary bus network for the Los Angeles Basin, the San Fernando Valley, and the western San Gabriel Valley. The bus system covers 117 routes serving more than 11,000 stops. Local routes stop roughly every two blocks; the Metro Rapid variant skips to major intersections only; and Metro Express routes use Southern California's freeways to run nonstop between regional destinations. On top of that, a bus rapid transit system called Metro Busway runs two lines over 55.7 miles, with 29 stations and over 42,000 daily weekday boardings recorded as of May 2016. Busway vehicles are painted in a silver livery designed to mirror the look of Metro Rail cars, a deliberate signal that the two networks share the same identity.

• 4. Fares and the TAP Card

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  The base fare for a Metro bus or train ride is $1.75, though the system's full fare structure is considerably more intricate. Seniors aged 62 and older, disabled riders, and Medicare recipients pay $0.35 during off-peak hours, rising to $0.75 during peak periods. K-12 students and community college students who attend participating schools can ride entirely free through the GoPass program, which began as a two-year pilot in 2021, received a one-year extension, and was made permanent in April 2024. The GoPass program reaches beyond Metro itself, accepted by 15 other transit systems in Los Angeles County.

  In July 2023, Metro replaced upfront rolling daily and weekly passes with a fare-capping model. Each trip is credited toward a daily cap of $5 or a seven-day cap of $18, automatically ensuring no rider pays more than the equivalent of an unlimited pass. The primary payment tool is the TAP card, a contactless stored-value card valid on Metro buses and trains and on 26 other transit agencies across the county. Fare gates were added to B, C, D, and K Line stations and some A and E Line stations after 2007, a move intended to reduce fare evasion that drew criticism at the time for its cost and perceived ineffectiveness.

• 5. Funding the Machine

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  Metro's 2020 budget totaled $7.2 billion, drawn from a layered mix of sales taxes, federal grants, fares, tolls, and bond proceeds. Four separate voter-approved sales taxes each contribute a 0.5% levy: Proposition A, Proposition C, Measure R, and Measure M. A separate quarter-cent tax under the Transportation Development Act adds hundreds of millions more. Grants and reimbursements accounted for over $1.1 billion in that same budget year, while bond proceeds and prior-year carryover added over $1.4 billion.

  Measure M, passed by voters in November 2016, extended and expanded Measure R's half-cent sales tax into a permanent one-cent levy. Over 40 years, that tax is projected to fund $120 billion in highway and transit projects and support more than 778,000 jobs in the Los Angeles area, producing an estimated $79.3 billion in economic output. The list of projects Measure M is set to fund stretches across the county, including a streetcar in Downtown Los Angeles, light rail along Van Nuys Boulevard, a heavy rail or monorail connection from Westwood to Los Angeles International Airport, and a gondola-style aerial rapid transit line linking Dodger Stadium to Union Station.

• 6. The Fleet and Going Electric

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  Metro's bus fleet runs primarily on compressed natural gas, the largest CNG bus fleet in the United States. Switching from diesel to CNG cuts particulate emissions by 90%, carbon monoxide by 80%, and greenhouse gases by 20%. The agency is also expanding its battery electric fleet, and the G Line busway has already had all of its CNG buses replaced with electric ones. Metro's long-term plan is a fully electric bus system.

  The rail fleet divides into two categories. Light rail vehicles on the A, C, E, and K lines are 87-foot articulated cars powered by overhead catenary wire, typically running in two- or three-car consists. The light rail fleet includes cars from Kinki Sharyo, Siemens, and Ansaldobreda. Subway cars on the B and D Lines are 75-foot electric multiple units powered by a third rail, running in four- or six-car consists, drawing from the CRRC HR4000 and the Breda A650 fleets. All buses carry on-board visual displays and automatic voice announcement systems that name the next stop.

• 7. Governance and Security

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  Day-to-day operations at Metro are overseen by Chief Executive Officer Stephanie Wiggins. The agency is a joint powers authority governed by a 14-member board, 13 of whom hold voting rights. The composition of that board reflects the political geography of the county: the five Los Angeles County supervisors each hold seats, as does the mayor of Los Angeles, three mayoral appointees from the city, and four council members or mayors from other LA County cities representing different regions. A single non-voting seat goes to an appointee of the Governor of California, traditionally the Caltrans District 7 director.

  Security has been a recurring challenge. Metro contracted enforcement to the Los Angeles Police Department, the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, and the Long Beach Police Department, but on the 27th of June 2024, the board voted to create an independent police force for the system, aiming to cut costs and address a rise in violence against bus and rail operators. On the 7th of May 2025, former San Francisco police chief William Scott was named chief of the new Metro police. In March 2023, Metro had also launched an Ambassador Program, placing staff in bright green uniforms on busier lines and stations to provide information and handle low-level issues before they escalate.

• 8. What Comes Next

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  Three new subway stations opened on the D Line on the 8th of May 2026, at Wilshire/La Brea, Wilshire/Fairfax, and Wilshire/La Cienega. A second extension to Century City is expected in 2026, with a third phase reaching Westwood anticipated in 2027. The proposed Los Angeles Aerial Rapid Transit project would add a gondola system connecting Dodger Stadium to Union Station, moving an estimated 5,000 people per hour in each direction and covering the distance in approximately seven minutes. That project is being developed in partnership with LA Aerial Rapid Transit Technologies LLC and would also bring improvements to the nearby Los Angeles State Historic Park.

  Metro also owns Los Angeles Union Station outright, having purchased it in 2011, giving the agency control over the main train hub of the metropolitan area. With Measure M's 40-year funding horizon still largely ahead, and with rail expansions, gondola systems, and a full electric bus conversion all in the pipeline, the Metro Headquarters Building next to Union Station will be the center of Los Angeles's transportation future for decades to come.