Los Angeles public transportation demand continued to recover in 2024. Metro recorded 311,261,332 bus and rail boardings across Los Angeles County, while weekday and weekend use both increased from 2023. The system also combines regional Metro service with city-run LADOT routes, targeted fare programs, safety investments and growing electric-vehicle infrastructure.
Contents
- Metro ridership and recovery
- Bus, rail and safety performance
- Affordability and targeted mobility
- Service area and rider characteristics
- LADOT routes and fleet infrastructure
- Transit access, enforcement and the curb
Metro ridership and recovery
LA Metro’s 2024 ridership report recorded 311,261,332 bus and rail boardings during calendar year 2024. That total was 8% higher than the 2023 total. Growth was visible on both regular workdays and weekends: weekday ridership rose 8.7% year over year, while weekend ridership rose 5.8%.
Metro exceeded 1,000,000 average weekday boardings in both September and October 2024. By the end of December, weekend ridership had remained above pre-pandemic levels for 25 consecutive months. These are systemwide Metro measures, rather than counts for every public transportation provider in the city or county.
The annual pattern differed somewhat by mode. Metro bus ridership increased 8.8% in 2024 compared with 2023, while rail ridership increased 5.4%. The reconfigured A and E Lines together recorded 33.4% more boardings in December 2024 than in December 2023. The figures describe boardings, so they count entries onto service rather than unique people or complete journeys.
May 2024 provides a more detailed monthly snapshot. Metro logged 27,170,160 bus and rail boardings that month and averaged 980,865 boardings per weekday. Average weekday boardings were 8.2% higher than in May 2023. Saturday boardings totaled 2,706,120 and Sunday boardings totaled 2,885,010; average weekend ridership was 7% higher than in May 2023. These May figures come from Metro’s monthly ridership report.
Bus, rail and safety performance
Recovery was stronger on weekends than on weekdays when measured against the same month before the pandemic. May 2024 weekday bus-and-rail ridership reached 81.1% of the May 2019 pre-pandemic level. May weekend bus-and-rail ridership reached 95.9% of the May 2019 level. Metro rail recorded 5,887,366 boardings in May 2024, including 4,573,712 weekday boardings. May 2024 bus ridership represented 87.4% of the May 2019 level.
The comparison is useful because a current increase from 2023 does not necessarily mean every measure has returned to its 2019 baseline. The May 2019 comparison and the 2024 year-over-year comparison use different reference periods, so they should not be treated as interchangeable recovery rates.
Metro also reported safety and operating changes in its 2024 annual results. By 2024, 100% of the active bus fleet had been retrofitted with expanded driver barriers. Metro reported an 18.5% decrease in assaults on bus operators per million boardings after the bus-barrier retrofit. It also reported a 15.5% decrease in violent crime per million boardings in 2024 from the previous year. Both safety percentages are Metro-reported comparisons, and the operator-assault figure is expressed per million boardings rather than as a raw incident total.
Metro described a planned Transit Community Public Safety Department as having more than 600 sworn officers and specialists when authorized in June 2024. That description concerns the planned department’s stated size; it does not establish that all those positions were active throughout the year.
Affordability and targeted mobility
Targeted fare programs accounted for substantial Metro boarding activity in 2024. Metro GoPass generated 19,665,051 boardings in 2024, compared with 17,720,181 in 2023. GoPass boardings increased 11% from 2023 to 2024. Metro’s LIFE program generated 20,873,250 boardings in 2024, up from 16,411,583 in 2023; Metro reported that LIFE ridership increased 27% over that period.
These program totals are boardings associated with the programs, not counts of enrolled individuals. They therefore show the amount of transit use recorded through each program, not the number of people receiving assistance.
Metro’s 2024 fare policy included a TAP fare cap of $5 for one day and $18 for seven days. Metro also described a Mobility Wallet pilot that provided $150 per month for transportation expenses. The pilot’s monthly amount and the TAP caps are separate tools: one is a targeted transportation-expense benefit, while the other limits qualifying TAP fare spending over a stated period.
LADOT’s Fiscal Year 2024–2025 Annual Report reports a separate Mobility Wallet Phase II effort. It distributed cards to 2,000 residents, with each participant receiving $1,800 to use over 12 months. Because the LADOT figure covers fiscal year 2024–2025 and Metro’s pilot figure is described for 2024, the amounts should not be combined as one program total.
Service area and rider characteristics
Metro’s Equity Toolkit description of its role says the service area covered 1,433 square miles in Los Angeles County as of 2023. It spanned 88 cities and unincorporated areas, and more than 10 million people lived, worked and played within the service area. Metro’s rail network spanned 109 miles as of 2023.
Survey results from fall 2024 help describe who relies on the system. Among surveyed Metro bus riders, 72% reported annual household income below $25,000. The corresponding share among surveyed rail riders was 54%. Bus and rail riders also reported frequent use: 76% of surveyed bus riders used Metro at least three days per week, compared with 77% of surveyed rail riders.
Regular car access was limited among the surveyed riders. Eighty-seven percent of surveyed bus riders reported no regular access to a car, while 78% of surveyed rail riders reported no regular access. These are survey percentages, not estimates for every Metro passenger or every Los Angeles County resident.
| Fall 2024 survey measure | Bus riders | Rail riders |
|---|---|---|
| Annual household income below $25,000 | 72% | 54% |
| Used Metro at least three days per week | 76% | 77% |
| No regular access to a car | 87% | 78% |
The survey results put the ridership totals in context. Metro is a large regional network, but its regular users include many people for whom transit is a frequent necessity and a substitute for regular car access. The survey scope matters: the percentages describe surveyed bus and rail riders in fall 2024, not a general population estimate.
LADOT routes and fleet infrastructure
Metro’s regional network operates alongside Los Angeles Department of Transportation services. During fiscal year 2024–2025, LADOT operated 28 Downtown DASH routes, 15 Community DASH routes and 5 Commuter Express routes. LADOT’s listed LAnow service areas covered 9.7 square miles on the Westside and 5.9 square miles in South Los Angeles.
The city’s electrification work included both transit facilities and public charging. LADOT’s planned Harbor City charging facility was designed to support up to 140 electric buses. The department installed 16 Level 2 chargers at four South Los Angeles library branches and 10 solar-powered Level 2 chargers at five South Los Angeles recreation centers.
By the end of fiscal year 2024–2025, LADOT had installed 34 electric-vehicle chargers on streetlights, with 41 additional streetlight chargers in progress. The installed and in-progress counts describe different statuses and should not be read as 75 completed chargers. LADOT also equipped 160 new buses with livestream video capabilities during the fiscal year.
Transit access, enforcement and the curb
LADOT allocated $3.6 million in Proposition A funds for transit safety measures during fiscal year 2024–2025. By that fiscal year, 100% of LADOT DASH vehicles were equipped with an emergency button. These measures sit alongside Metro’s separate bus-barrier and public-safety figures, so the two agencies’ percentages describe different fleets and programs.
Street operations affect how reliably buses can use the road. LADOT recorded 41,416 bus-lane violation citations in fiscal year 2024–2025, representing 2.2% of LADOT’s citations. It recorded 3,449 bus-zone violation citations, representing 0.2% of citations. The citation counts and shares are reported for the same fiscal year but refer to different violation categories.
LADOT’s automated bus-lane enforcement pilot had deployed on four corridors: Wilshire Boulevard, La Brea Avenue, Grand Avenue and Olive Street. Bus-lane violators received an initial 60-day warning period before fines began. The corridor count identifies the pilot’s deployment locations; it does not measure the number of lanes or the total length of those corridors.
Finally, LADOT completed a 190-mile Downtown Los Angeles curb inventory and digitized 7,030 curb segments. Those measurements describe an inventory of curb infrastructure and segments, not transit ridership. They nevertheless show the scale of the street-level data being assembled around bus lanes, loading, parking and other competing uses of space.