It's time for me, Streetsblog L.A. Editor Joe Linton, to make some predictions for calendar year 2025. Note that in the past, my rosy predictions were not all successful, so don't take these for granted, either.
Metro ridership will keep growing
Metro will surpass pre-COVID daily ridership levels by September 2025.
Metro ridership declined precipitously in 2020, at the outset of COVID. Metro has taken lots of smart steps to restore ridership; these include opening new rail projects, restoring (in some places increasing) service, raising operator pay, adding ambassadors, deploying homeless services teams, upping station cleaning, reorganizing bus routes, and expanding bus lanes. And these interventions have paid off in steady ridership growth.
As of the latest ridership figures available (November 2024), Metro posted 24 consecutive months of year-over-year ridership growth. For the first time in the pandemic era, daily ridership surpassed one million boardings - in September 2024. Then October surpassed September.
Today, Metro ridership still remains just short of the ~1.2 million daily boardings seen in 2019.
It won't be quick or easy, but I predict that Metro will continue the hard work of delivering key system improvements (including bus lane enforcement, plus - see below - new bus lanes, new rail stations) and ridership will continue to increase. I optimistically predict that ridership will surpass pre-COVID levels for at least a month, towards the end of 2025.
Metro daily ridership was 1,224,521 boardings in September 2019; I predict that Metro will exceed that total by September 2025
Metro and LADOT will add new bus lanes
Metro, in collaboration with L.A. City and County, will open new bus lanes on portions of Florence Avenue, Vermont Avenue, and Santa Monica Blvd.
Metro has been busy collaborating with underlying cities (mainly Los Angeles City, tapping the expertise of the Transportation Department LADOT) to add 49.9 lane-miles of new bus lanes in the past five years. Metro says it has dozens of additional bus lane miles in progress.
LADOT is already designing bus lanes on Vermont Avenue, which Metro announced will be installed early 2025. Metro's Florence Avenue bus lanes project was delayed from its anticipated 2023 debut, but I predict the project will be installed by March 2025.
There is little to go on regarding Metro/LADOT Santa Monica Boulevard bus lanes (beyond the map above), but I think they will be installed by the end of 2025.
Also with subway construction wrapping up (see below), I predict that Metro and LADOT will restore the temporarily closed stretches of the Wilshire Boulevard bus lanes, and will add the missing three blocks of La Brea Avenue bus lanes (just north and south of Wilshire).
Metro will open new rail projects
Metro will open three new rail projects this year: the new LAX station, the A Line extension to Pomona, and the D Line extension to Beverly Hills.
Metro LAX Transit Center construction is nearly complete. Trains have been passing through it since Metro adjusted C/K Line service in early November. An opening date announcement is due any day; I don't have any inside knowledge, but I will predict that it will open by February 14 - a Valentine's gift for transit riders.
The nearly $1 billion Airport Metro Connector C/K Line Station is a mega-station featuring a people mover connection, major bus hub, bike path and hub, and more. Unfortunately the LAX people mover will not open until early 2026, so for 2025 the actual airport connection will remain a shuttle bus. Nonetheless the new station closes a gap to complete the initial 2022 segment of the K Line, and that connectivity will boost Metro ridership.
Metro's newest Foothill Gold Line extension - now renamed the A Line - will open to Pomona in mid-2025. Construction is substantially complete this week, with the Foothill Gold Line Construction Authority expected to turn the line over to Metro for around six months of testing.
While testing wraps up, the construction authority will host dedication celebrations at each of the four new stations: Glendora Station (May 3), La Verne/Fairplex Station (May 10), San Dimas Station (May 31), and Pomona North Station (June 7). Those are real dates announced already, not just my guestimates.
Then I predict the new A Line extension will open by the end of June 2025.
It's going to be a squeaker (and the smart money is probably on early 2026) but, with a little luck, the Metro D Line extension (section 1) to Beverly Hills will open in December 2025. The 4-mile $3.35 billion project has seen some rough patches, but it is definitely nearing completion.
Optimistically, D Line section 1 construction (which got underway in 2014) will be substantially complete by the end of July 2025. Metro would then test the line for about six months. Assuming Westside section is ready, and the retooled railyard and new railcars are all performing well, then the D Line will open in December.
I predict a D Line extension opening during the weekend of December 27-28, 2025, just in time to carry riders to New Year celebrations.
Landmark South L.A. project openings
Two eagerly awaited South Los Angeles projects will open: Destination Crenshaw and the Rail to Rail walk/bike path.
Destination Crenshaw celebrates the past, present, and future of Black Los Angeles. Using art installations, pocket parks, and landscaping, the 1.3-mile-long open-air people's museum aims to tell the stories of the historic Black communities lining Crenshaw Boulevard and how they tie into the larger story of Black people here and around the world. A few murals have already been unveiled this year and, in Leimert Park, Sankofa Park construction is nearly complete. The full project is expected to be completed by the end of 2025.
Metro is nearing completion of its $143 million 5.5-mile long Rail-to-Rail Active Transportation Corridor Project (Segment A). The linear park with bike/walk path will extend 5.5 miles along a former rail right-of-way (next to and near Slauson Avenue), connecting from the K Line Fairview Heights Station to the A Line Slauson Station.
There's no official opening date announced, but I predict a late summer 2025 Rail-to-Rail opening.
Two transit groundbreakings
Metro will break ground on two new transit projects: the North Hollywood to Pasadena Bus Rapid Transit line and the Foothill Gold Line extension to Montclair.
It may just be a "pre-construction" groundbreaking (meaning construction is just getting underway for early construction activities, generally utility relocation), but I am looking forward to visible work getting underway for Metro's NoHo-Pasadena BRT line. Metro just approved the project's final design and early construction budget.
I predict a ceremonial groundbreaking event in North Hollywood by May 2025. Perhaps the project might even include an early bus lane phase there?
The Foothill Gold Line Construction Authority will also break ground on the last L.A. County phase of the Metro A (former Gold) Line, from Pomona to Montclair. Metro approved state funding for this extension. The Authority expects to award a design-build contract this spring.
I predict a Pomona to Montclair groundbreaking by Fall 2025.
The first Measure HLA lawsuit
I predict the first Measure HLA lawsuit will be filed in 2025.
In March, L.A. City voters affirmed that L.A. really does need to make things safer and better for walking, bicycling, and riding transit. The city is now required to implement planned multimodal improvements when it repaves or otherwise makes significant street modifications.
As soon as the law took effect (April 9), the Public Works Department Bureau of Street Services (StreetsLA) effectively paused repaving street segments that would trigger improvements. Contrary to voter intent, since HLA, the city is installing fewer bikeways than before HLA. Really.
City departments, councilmembers, and Mayor Karen Bass are acting with the same lack of urgency that resulted in HLA's passage. They're all too gradually working on guidelines and workplans that were due to be aired in committee last summer, but remain missing in action today. For many months LADOT representatives have alluded to an elusive proposed HLA work plan, which LADOT spokesperson Colin Sweeney had stated "will be made publicly available in coming weeks" back in June. No city HLA work plan, not even a draft, is publicly available today.
As of early November (reported at NextCity), LADOT's Sweeney could only cite three projects that "received Mobility Plan 2035 upgrades since passage of Measure HLA":
- Hollywood Boulevard (where 2.1 miles of excellent bike/walk improvements had already been announced months before HLA)
- Manchester Boulevard (where the city upgraded ~500 feet existing bike lanes, while omitting MP2035 bus lanes)
- Reseda Boulevard (where the city is adding ~400 feet of new bike lanes, not completed as of early November)
Counting Hollywood as HLA, and counting Reseda and Manchester as finished, the city's HLA output totals just 2.3 miles.
The city has repaved/improved parts of several streets that probably should have triggered HLA/MP2035 upgrades: Coronado Street, two or three stretches of Vermont Avenue, Hubbard Street, Ohio Avenue, National Boulevard, and maybe others.
Nine months into HLA, the city has delivered essentially zip.
So, I predict it will take a lawsuit for city leadership to start to take street safety and multimodal mobility seriously, and I don't know where it will come from (maybe I will have to file it) but I think the first Measure HLA lawsuit will be filed in 2025.
