Broken Rails: What Went Wrong with LA Metro
December 1, 2025
Reason Foundation Los Angeles Office
October 30, 2025
When xxxxx
December 1, 2025
Monday, December 1, 2025
6:00 p.m.: Drinks and Reception with Kogi Food Truck
7:00 p.m.: Program and Q&A
Location
Reason Foundation Los Angeles Office
Join us for a reception and conversation with Baruch Feigenbaum and Kristian Fors as they unpack the findings behind the latest California Golden Fleece® Award, granted to the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LA Metro) for its spiraling costs, rampant crime, and failed expansion projects.
Baruch Feigenbaum
Kristian Fors
In a city famed for its car culture, LA Metro was meant to offer Angelenos a modern, reliable transit system. Instead, it’s become a case study in how not to run public transportation. Riders now face soaring crime rates, unreliable service, bloated construction costs, and a bureaucracy more focused on image than outcomes.
From shocking safety failures to rail projects that cost more per mile than anywhere else in the country, this Golden Fleece® report exposes how poor governance and misplaced priorities have derailed the agency’s mission, and what reforms could put it back on track.
Don’t miss this eye-opening discussion about one of the most costly and dangerous transit systems in the country, and what it reveals about California’s broader infrastructure crisis.
Hosted in collaboration with the Reason Foundation at their Los Angeles office.
The Los Angeles Metro: Unacceptable Crime, High Costs, and Unnecessary Expansions
Oakland, CA—For its unsafe, unclean, and poor performance, the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LACMTA), or LA Metro, is awarded the California Golden Fleece® Award. The dishonor is given to California’s state or local agencies or government projects that swindle taxpayers or break the public trust.
In an area known for its car culture, LA Metro has about 25 million riders per month. The Independent Institute researchers found those riders faced an increase of crime over the last two years, as well as lower on-time reliability for buses than those in London and Paris. Its inefficient operations, high costs, financial mismanagement, and poor customer service are just some of the criteria considered for the dubious distinction of the California Golden Fleece® Award.
Unfortunately, the Metro system has not been able to offer riders a safe experience. The month of May 2024 provides a good example, with six violent incidents cited in the report.
The system is also plagued by cost overruns and delays on new capital projects. Eliminating new projects and stations are included in the recommendations in the report.
“We have 19 recommendations to improve LA Metro, including lifting housing density restrictions near rail stations, choosing bus transit over rail for new services, and simply becoming a more customer-focused agency,” said Baruch Feigenbaum, senior managing director of transportation policy at Reason Foundation, and author of the report.
More than 10 million people live or work within the LA Metro’s service area of bus and rail lines. The recommendations included in the report would make a difference to those who deserve a safe and reliable mass transit system.
