Los Angeles officials are asking President-elect Donald Trump to budget $3.2 billion to improve public transportation for the 2028 Summer Games, calling the next Olympics to be held in the United States “the largest and most spectacular sporting event held in American history.”
The request was made in mid-November in a letter from LA’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority board that cites past contributions from the federal government to American Olympic hosts as $1.3 billion for the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City and $609 million for the 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Federal spending, relied on to provide security as well as spectator transportation, is not included in the budget for staging a U.S. Olympics. Funding for that budget, expected to add up to $4 billion for Utah’s next Winter Games in 2034, comes from private sources, largely the sale of broadcast rights, sponsorships and tickets.
In April, retiring Utah Sen. Mitt Romney advised getting an early start on securing federal funding and possibly teaming up with LA’s Olympic organizers to lobby Congress. Romney, who led the organizing committee for the 2002 Games, suggested the cost of the needed services for what he called the equivalent of staging 50 Super Bowls could end up being billions of dollars.
“Ten years from now, our country is likely to be facing some very tough financial times. We’re already in that circumstance with a lot of people very angry about how much is being spent,” he said then, warning that if Utah waits too long to ask for federal help, “that may not be a welcome request and it may not be granted. If it’s not granted, why that would be very, very difficult indeed.”
Fraser Bullock, who served as Romney’s No. 2 at the 2002 Games and headed the successful effort to bring another Olympics to Utah, estimated in April that the amount needed from the federal government for security and spectator transportation should be less than $1 billion.
The Biden administration signed off on a list of guarantees required by the International Olympic Committee as part of Utah’s bid to host in 2034, Bullock said, including a pledge to designate the Winter Games as a a national special security event protected by the federal government, just as the Super Bowl is every year.
He declined to comment on the funding request from Los Angeles officials.
The priciest item on the transit agency’s Olympic wish list is $2 billion for an estimated 2,700 buses to transport spectators during the Games. The LA28 organizing committee’s $6.9 billion budget does not include money for such public transit projects, which also include plans for creating fast lanes on freeways.
Trump is being asked in the letter to help make the “2028 Games a successful transportation showcase for the nation” by appointing a White House-based coordinator and assigning Department of Transportation staff to work with LA transit officials, the Los Angeles Times reported.
The incoming Trump administration has yet to respond to the letter from the transit board known as Metro, the newspaper said, stating, “Most of Metro’s requests for funding from the Biden administration were knocked down. Inside the agency, officials are worried that they are running out of time and money to prepare for the Games.”
Still, Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn, the Metro board chair, tried to sound optimistic.
“This isn’t just the L.A. Olympics — it is our entire nation’s Olympics,” Hahn said. “I would think that President-elect Trump would want to make sure they are a success and reflect well on our country.”