Public transit is expected to be a top priority for Los Angeles Mayor-elect Nithya Raman, an advocate for expanding bus lanes and making the city friendlier for bicycles — and who campaigned on getting the Los Angeles International Airport people mover back on track after years of squabbles, delays and cost overruns.
As mayor, Raman will oversee the city’s transportation department and will have the power to appoint new members to the city’s Airport Commission. What’s more, she will have regional clout through L.A. Metro, the transportation agency that runs the county’s light-rail and subway lines.
Raman will take over as chair of Metro’s board of 13 voting members, a job now held by Mayor Karen Bass, whom Raman defeated for reelection this week. She will also get three appointees on the board, and can replace the current mayoral appointees — Councilmembers Katy Yaraslovsky and Imelda Padilla and community advocate Jaqueline Dupont-Walker — who all backed Bass in this week’s election.
Metro is currently in need of millions of dollars to fund a massive bus network for the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. Raman said that she would push Los Angeles’ congressional delegation to make this a key priority. In a statement to The Times ahead of the election, she said she will also prioritize Metro projects that “give the most benefits to the most riders and help make our network more useful” and plans to reinstate a project team in the mayor’s office to eliminate city delays on major capital projects.
Transportation analysts believe Raman, who has a graduate degree in urban planning from MIT, will be more aggressive in addressing transit issues than Bass, whose background was in healthcare and community organizing.
“I do think we’ll see a considerable amount of action on transit and multimodal transportation in the short run on a timeline that puts this work in the context of preparation for the summer of 2028,” said Juan Matute, deputy director of UCLA’s Institute of Transportation Studies.
Los Angeles voters also approved a charter amendment that will allow the City Council to disband the Public Works Board, a move that Matute believes will allow the city to streamline infrastructure projects. The charter change, combined with Raman’s election, will lead to “a shift in the foundation of transportation decision-making,” Matute said.
Among the transportation plans Raman has cited as priorities are the Sepulveda Transit Corridor project, which was approved earlier this year to connect the Westside to the San Fernando Valley; the East San Fernando Transit Corridor project to extend service along the E Line from East Los Angeles to Whittier; expansions of the K Line, to connect multiple communities from South Bay, Inglewood, Mid-City and Hollywood, and the D Line beneath Wilshire Boulevard; a new light rail connection in southeast L.A. County; and the Vermont Transit Corridor project.
That last project to add dedicated bike lanes along Vermont Avenue between 120th Street and Sunset Boulevard recently broke ground. It is also the subject of a lawsuit under Measure HLA that claims it requires a designated bike lane. Raman said she supports compliance with the measure, while supporting shared bike and bus lanes along narrower portions of the route.
Ahead of the election, Raman told The Times via written statements that her transit priorities as mayor would focus on safety, affordability and reliability so that people did not have to be as reliant on cars. She advocated for protected bike lanes and expansion of bus lanes during her campaign.
Raman also criticized Bass and the Los Angeles World Airports board of commissioners for not staying on top of the $3.3-billion Skylink people mover at LAX, a 2.25-mile train that is supposed to whisk passengers between the terminal and ground transportation. The project is years behind schedule and more than $1 billion over budget.
The contractor, LAX Integrated Express Solutions, or LINXS, has blamed the repeated delays on unsigned agreements between the city’s Los Angeles World Airports and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power as one cause, along with nagging technical issues.
At a news conference near the airport last week, Raman told reporters that if elected, her first-week priority in office would be to convene airport and DWP officials and the contractor to determine who is responsible for each unresolved issue in an effort to break the logjam.
“Taxpayers deserve an advocate at the negotiating table, not another bill for someone else’s failure,” Raman said.
Michael Schneider of Streets for All, an advocacy nonprofit, said he expects Raman to convene a task force to address issues around the people mover project during her first 100 days in office.
He also foresees her consolidating some departments, such as the Street Services repaving division under the city’s transportation department, and directing city departments to implement Measure HLA. It’s also likely, he said, that she will initiate a bond or a tax hike to raise money for sidewalks repairs, curb updates and other street improvements.
“I think it’s the first election where safe streets has become a campaign issue, and real money has gone behind it to try to change the status quo,” Schneider said.
Streets for All’s political action committee took out ads to elect Raman and defeat Bass, powered largely by contributions from hedge fund manager and bike lane advocate Aaron Sosnick.
Over the summer, Raman slammed Bass for pausing a bike lane and street safety improvement project near two cemeteries along Forest Lawn Drive that had come under fire by some in Raman’s district. The debate became so heated that the state Legislature ultimately intervened and set a law that would require a public hearing and approval from the City Council and the mayor’s office before moving forward.
Raman has told The Times that she supported multiple bike lane and multimodal projects including the 710 North Mobility Improvement Program along Valley Boulevard, Huntington Drive and Eastern Avenue, plans to set priority bike lanes during peak hours along Sunset Boulevard and add bike lanes and reconfigure the intersection of Virgil Avenue and Sunset and Hollywood boulevards.
It’s unclear how she will balance the push toward these types of endeavors when faced with community pushback.
Nadine Levyfield has advocated for more transparency and answers from Metro over a bus lane project through the center of Eagle Rock. The agency recently agreed to more community meetings to address ongoing concerns over how a reduction in lanes on a bottlenecked portion of Colorado Boulevard will affect traffic and parking through the area’s business district and surrounding neighborhoods. Levyfield believes the community’s asks align with Raman’s campaign.
“Running on a platform of accountability, transparency, improving efficiency, and making sure government agencies are accountable, we really hope she can help us ensure that Metro is prioritizing public safety,” Levyfield said.
Raman has said she is also committed to the city’s goal to eliminate traffic deaths and said she will treat an initiative that began under Mayor Eric Garcetti’s administration and faced significant scrutiny under Bass as a mandate.
“Angelenos look around and see faded crosswalks, busted pavement and darkened streetlights and wonder why the City can’t even take care of our basic transportation infrastructure,” Raman said in a statement to The Times before her election. “Traffic deaths are preventable and I’ll make sure we’re enforcing laws against dangerous driving, providing actual protection for people who walk and bike, and get our street lights back on and our streets fixed.”
“My priority is to make transit safe, affordable, fast, and reliable, so more Angelenos can avoid the high cost of car payments, insurance, and gas,” she said in the statement.