Frank McCourt’s proposed gondola from Union Station to Dodger Stadium hit what appears to be its most significant roadblock yet on Wednesday, when the Los Angeles City Council voted to urge Metro to kill the project.
The resolution, approved by an 11-2 vote, is not in itself any kind of formal decision. It would not take effect unless Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass concurs, and Bass previously voted in favor of the project as a member of the Metro board.
But it makes clear that a City Council vote to approve the project, which is expected next year, could be an increasingly challenging hurdle for McCourt and his allies to overcome.
“This resolution tells Metro that the city of Los Angeles refuses to be bought by shiny renderings and empty promises,” councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, whose district includes Dodger Stadium, told her colleagues in Wednesday’s council meeting.
No councilmember spoke in support of the gondola.
The project requires approvals from the council, the state parks agency and Metro, which approved an environmental impact report for the project last year. A court demanded fixes to two defects in the report, and Metro is scheduled to vote next month on whether to approve the revised report.
The resolution approved Wednesday urges Metro to reject the revised report and “deny reapproval of the project.”
McCourt, the former Dodgers owner and still half-owner of the Dodger Stadium parking lots, first pitched the gondola in 2018 and later said fans would ride free. The projected construction cost is about $500 million; none of the promised private funding has been publicly identified.
“This project is an insult to our communities, and the process has been an insult to our collective intelligence,” Hernandez said.
Project opponents — and the resolution itself — cite among other issues that 160 trees from a beloved park would be permanently removed to make way for the gondola and that a UCLA study projected Dodger Stadium traffic would not even be decreased by 1%.
In a letter to councilmembers, the board of directors of Zero Emissions Transit — the nonprofit charged with funding and operating the gondola — urged the council to reject what it called “serious inaccuracies and misleading claims.”
The 160 trees would be temporarily removed and then restored, with 480 trees added as well, the letter said. The UCLA study retracted its conclusion, the letter also said, based on “biased data supplied by individuals affiliated with project opposition groups.”
Said ZET spokesman Nathan Click: “We continue to move forward with all the approval processes: Metro, city, state.”
The celebration had hardly begun, when Shohei Ohtani first voiced the theme of the day.
“I’m already thinking about the third time,” he said in Japanese, standing atop a double-decker bus in downtown Los Angeles with of thousands of blue-clad, flag-waving, championship-celebrating Dodgers fans lining the streets around him for the team’s 2025 World Series parade.
Turns out, he wasn’t alone.
Two days removed from a dramatic Game 7 victory that made the Dodgers baseball’s first repeat champion in 25 years, the team rolled through the streets of downtown and into a sold-out rally at Dodger Stadium on Monday already thinking about what lies ahead in 2026.
With three titles in the last six seasons, their modern-day dynasty might now be cemented.
But their goal of adding to this “golden era of Dodger baseball,” as top executive Andrew Friedman has repeatedly called it, is far from over.
“All I have to say to you,” owner and chairman Mark Walter told the 52,703 fans at the team’s stadium rally, “is we’ll be back next year.”
“I have a crazy idea for you,” Friedman echoed. “How about we do it again?”
When manager Dave Roberts took the mic, he tripled down on that objective: “What’s better than two? Three! Three-peat! Three-peat! Let’s go.”
When shortstop Mookie Betts, the only active player with four World Series rings, followed him, he quadrupled the expectation: “I got four. Now it’s time to fill the hand all the way up, baby. ‘Three-peat’ ain’t never sounded so sweet. Somebody make that a T-shirt.”
For these history-achieving, legacy-sealing Dodgers, Monday was a reminder of the ultimate end goal — the kind of scene that, as they embark on another short winter, will soon fuel their motivations for another confetti-filled parade this time next year.
“For me, winning a championship, the seminal moment of that is the parade,” Friedman said. “The jubilation of doing it, when you get the final out, whatever game you win it in, is special. That night is special. But to be able to take a breath and then experience a parade, in my mind, that is what has always driven me to want to win.”
Share via
“[To] do this for the city, that’s what it’s all about,” first baseman Freddie Freeman added. “There’s nothing that feels as important as winning a championship. And if so happens to be three in a row, that’s what it is. But that’s what’s gonna drive us to keep going.”
Much of the group had been part of the 2020 title team that was denied such a serenade following that pandemic-altered campaign. They had waited four long years to experience a city-wide celebration. The reception they received was sentimental and unique.
Now, as third baseman Max Muncy said with a devious grin from atop a makeshift stage in the Dodger Stadium outfield, “it’s starting to get a little bit comfortable up here. Let’s keep it going.”
“Losing,” star pitcher and World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto added, in English, in a callback to one of his memorable quotes from this past October, “isn’t an option.”
Doing it won’t be easy.
This year, the Dodgers’ win total went down to 93 in an inconsistent regular season. They had to play in the wild-card round for the first time since the playoffs expanded in 2022. And in the World Series, they faced elimination in Games 6 and 7, narrowly winning both to complete their quest to repeat.
“I borderline still can’t believe we won Game 7,” fan favorite Kiké Hernández said in a bus-top interview.
But, he quickly added, “We’re all winners. Winners win.”
Thus, they also get celebrations like Monday’s.
As it was 367 days earlier, the Dodgers winded down a parade route in front of tens of thousands of fans from Temple Street to Grand Avenue to 7th Street to Figueroa. Both on board the double-decker buses and in the frenzied masses below, elation swirled and beverages flowed.
Once the team arrived at Dodger Stadium, it climbed atop a blue circular riser in the middle of the field — the final symbolic steps of their ascent back to the mountaintop of the sport.
Anthony Anderson introduced them to the crowd, while Ice Cube delivered the trophy in a blue 1957 Chevy Bel-Air.
Familiar scenes, they are hoping become an annual tradition.
“Job in 2024, done. Job in 2025, done,” Freeman said. “Job in 2026? Starts now.”
The Dodgers did take time to recognize their newfound place in baseball history, having become just the sixth MLB franchise to win three titles in the span of six years and the first since the New York Yankees of 1998 to 2000 to win in consecutive years.
Where last year’s parade day felt more like an overdue coronation, this one served to crystallize their legacy.
“Everybody’s been asking questions about a dynasty,” Hernández said. “How about three in six years? How about a back-to-back?”
And, on Monday, all the main characters of this storybook accomplishment got their moment in the sun.
There was, as team broadcaster and rally emcee Joe Davis described him, “the Hall of Fame-bound” Roberts, who now only trails Walter Alston in team history with three World Series rings.
“We talked about last year, wanting to run it back,” he said. “And I’ll tell you right now, this group of guys was never gonna be denied to bring this city another championship.”
There was Game 7 hero Miguel Rojas calling up surprise October closer Roki Sasaki, on his birthday, to dance to his “Bailalo Rocky” entrance song; a request Sasaki sheepishly obliged by pumping his fist to the beat.
Yamamoto, coming off his heroic pitching victories in Games 6 and 7, received some of the day’s loudest ovations.
“We did it together,” he said. “I love the Dodgers. I love Los Angeles.”
Muncy, Ohtani and Blake Snell also all addressed the crowd.
“I’m trying to get used to this,” Snell said.
“I’m ready to get another ring next year,” Ohtani reiterated.
One franchise face who won’t be back for that chase: Clayton Kershaw, who rode into the sunset of retirement by getting one last day at Dodger Stadium, fighting back tears as he thanked the crowd at the end of his illustrious (and also Hall of Fame-bound) 18-year career.
Share via
“Last year, I said I was a Dodger for life. And today, that’s true,” Kershaw said. “And today, I get to say that I’m a champion for life. And that’s never going away.”
Kershaw, of course, is one of the few still around from the club’s dark days of the early 2010s, when money was scarce and playoff appearances were uncertain and parades were only things to dream about — not expect.
As he walks away, however, the team has been totally transformed.
Now, the Dodgers have been to 13 straight postseasons. They’ve set payroll records and bolstered their roster with a wave of star signings. They’ve turned the pursuit of championships into a yearly expectation, proud but unsatisfied with what they’ve achieved to this point.
“I think, definitionally, it’s a dynasty,” said Friedman, the architect of this run with the help of Walter’s deep-pocketed Guggenheim ownership group. “But that to me, in a lot of ways, that kind of caps it if you say, ‘OK, this is what it is.’ For me, it’s still evolving and growing. We want to add to it. We want to continue it, and do everything we can to put it at a level where people after us have a hard time reaching.”
On Monday, they raised that bar another notch higher.
“This parade was the most insane thing I’ve ever witnessed, been a part of,” Kershaw said. “It truly is the most incredible day ever to be able to end your career on.”
On Tuesday, the Dodgers’ long road toward holding another one begins.
“I know they’re gonna get one more next year,” Kershaw told the crowd. “And I’m gonna watch, just like all of you.”
Dodgers fans filled the streets of downtown Los Angeles early Monday morning, to celebrate the Dodgers becoming baseball’s first back-to-back World Series champion in 25 years.
The celebratory parade is commenced at 11 a.m., with the Dodgers traveling on top of double-decker buses through downtown with a final stop at Dodger Stadium.
The 2025 Dodgers team has been a bright spot for many Angelenos during an otherwise tumultuous year for the region, after historic firestorms devastated thousands of homes in January and then widespread immigration sweeps over the summer by the Trump administration.
(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)
Manager Dave Roberts holds the Commissioner’s Trophy during the Dodgers World Championship Parade and Celebration Monday.
(Kayla Bartkowsk/Los Angeles Times)
Ramon Ontivros, left, and Michelle Ruiz, both from Redlands, join fans lining the streets of downtown Los Angeles.
(Kayla Bartkowsk/Los Angeles Times)
From left, Mike Soto, Luis Espino, and Francisco Espino, join fans lining the streets of downtown Los Angeles.
(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
Mia Nava, 9, waves a flag. “She’s skipping school today and her teachers know her passion.” Said her mom, Jennie Nava.
(Carlin Stiehl/For The Times)
Alex Portugal holds onto a championship belt at Dodger Stadium. Claudia Villar Lee, poses with a model of the World Series trophy around her neck.
(Kayla Bartkowsk/Los Angeles Times)
Young fans line the streets of downtown Los Angeles for the Dodgers World Championship Parade and Celebration.
On Monday, in celebration of the Dodgers becoming baseball’s first back-to-back champion in 25 years, Los Angeles will throw another party for the Dodgers.
The Dodgers’ 2025 championship parade starts Monday at 11 a.m. and runs through downtown, followed by a rally at Dodger Stadium. The rally requires a ticket, which can be obtained starting at noon Sunday at dodgers.com/postseason.
For fans with rally tickets, parking lot gates will open at 8:30 a.m. and stadium gates at 9 a.m. The event is expected to start at about 12:15 p.m.
The parade and rally will be aired live on Channels 2, 4, 5, 7, 9 and 11 as well as SportsNet LA and AM 570, the team said.
In last year’s rally, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts and Ice Cube performed next to one another, with Roberts dancing and Ice Cube singing.
At one point, future Hall of Famer Clayton Kershaw took his turn at the microphone and hollered, “Dodger for life!”
In September, Kershaw announced he would retire at the end of the season. In his only World Series appearance, he got a critical out in the Dodgers’ 18-inning victory in Game 3.
He’ll make his final Dodger Stadium appearance as a player as part of a second consecutive championship rally. He’ll be back: The Dodgers will retire his No. 22 — they retire the number of all their Hall of Famers — and he’d certainly be in line to throw ceremonial first pitches in the Dodgers’ future postseason runs.
For now, though: Three-time champion Dodger for life.
