The Festival Trail

Public transit

Pilot or new project, program, or initiative (testing or implementing a new idea)

How can our public streets become places of public joy? The 7,500 miles of streets in Los Angeles have become the primary public space of the City. We believe that by rethinking our streets, we rethink our city. The Festival Trail leverages massive investments from the 2028 Games to create a bold legacy re-thinking mobility for all.
With the eyes of the world on Los Angeles when we host the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2028 (2028 Games), LA Metro has an ambitious plan for car-free venues to demonstrate that the land of freeways can move people differently. How do we ensure that this attention, planning, and infrastructure doesn’t just benefit the athletes and the millions of tourists planning to attend? The “Festival Trail Initiative" is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to fix the transit challenges that plague our region with infrastructure that will reduce traffic fatalities, increase access to community and play spaces, transit, and jobs, and create a legacy for Angelenos.

1. Stitch together Los Angeles. The project links together existing and planned transit projects to create a non-vehicular corridor between all key LA 2028 venues. The 2028 Games will host over 800 Olympic events and attract millions of visitors to the County. The Festival Trail provides a zero-emissions corridor to move between events.
2. Celebrate the unique communities of Los Angeles. The Festival Trail will move through Inglewood, South LA, Pico Union, DTLA, Chinatown, Cypress Park, Lincoln Heights, Highland Park, South Pasadena, Pasadena, Frogtown, Atwater Village, Burbank, Studio City, Sherman Oaks and Encino. The project creates a pathway for each community to participate in rare moment of civic joy across the region that the 2028 Games will create. Each community will have a 'hub' to activate their community in partnership with a CBO or non-profit that serves each community. The 'hubs' and the Trail will live on after the Games and become critical social infrastructure for Los Angeles.
3. Unlock 20,000 units of affordable housing. When studying vacant and under-utilized land within walking distance of the Trail (much of which is publicly owned) we found that with the modest density of three stories we can build 20,000 units of affordable housing. Our project would create a zero emissions corridor that could unlock entitlements and provide housing for local residents through the City of LA's Transit Oriented programs and Executive Directive #1 by Mayor Karen Bass.

By re-thinking mobility and place-keeping in underserved communities, our goal is to create a new social infrastructure in LA. We envision residents participating in the Games in their own unique way, in their own community. We envision a permanent zero emissions corridor linking the region, activated by vibrant public spaces and affordable housing options for all.
This project is not to design the city but curate the energy, desires, and resources that we already have. The social, linguistic, and physical barriers that separate us, often the streets themselves, isolate and squander this energy. In the absence of a traditional public realm, the life of the city lies in its margins. Street vendors, skateboarders, art in public, guerrilla gardeners all subvert the norms of how we create the public realm. Our project re-thinks infrastructure to welcome the everyday spectacle of LA, centering community vibrancy, culture, and history to build a stronger city fabric and spaces for joy.

1. Project Launch: Time is of the essence to launch this project. 2024 Paris Games will be a critical milestone to formally launch our project partnership with LA 20250. Our team has held over 200 meetings with City, County, Federal agencies and non-profit/CBO's to ground truth this opportunity. A key milestone will be project announcements in all major press outlets sharing the coalition of support we have built.
2. Equity Investment Index: These investments will benefit communities on the frontlines of climate change and displacement/gentrification. We will measure this impact through an 'equity investment index’ that evaluates how much of the impact is going to “equity focused communities”, disadvantaged-, minority-, and women-owned businesses, and nonprofits serving “disadvantaged communities.” 3. Advisory Committee: Formalize a group of leaders from Non-Profits/CBO's, Philanthropy and Industry to fundraise, broadcast through their networks and provide strategic guidance.

Over the past year our team of collaborators have worked pro-bono launching this initiative. We convened City, County, State and Federal and non-profit/CBO leaders through over 200 meetings. Together, this team has built a wide base of support and excitement. Through the generous support of LA 2050 our collaborative will take the following focus:
MoveLA MoveLA will be a key partner on all scopes of the project and lead all strategic partnerships in the project.
FASTLinkDtla will focus on linkages and gaps analysis through the Community Co-Design and Kit of Parts design process.
SOMOS will focus on land-use, planning, and legal matters to implement the project is an expedited time frame. SOMOS is key to assembling a coalition of support for the Project Launch and Community Co-Design process