LA28 Needs Autonomous Car Plan

There are a little over 900 days until the LA28 Olympics commence, and while Long Beach City and the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee have already made their plans, a massive, overlooked problem is barreling toward us: traffic.

Long Beach is a primary host city. From the rowing events at Marine Stadium to handball at the Long Beach Arena and sailing off Belmont Shore, the world is quite literally coming to our doorstep.

First impressions matter, and the organizers are planning to address as many existing problems as possible for our visitors. On transportation, our current infrastructure is already struggling under the weight of daily commutes. Residents already know what to expect when finding parking at spots like 2nd Street.

Now, imagine that same gridlock multiplied by tens of thousands of international tourists, athletes and media groups. If we attempt to handle the Olympic influx by upping our current approach of rental cars, Uber drivers, and bus fleets, the result will be total paralysis.

We cannot dig our way out of this with more parking structures or wider lanes, as the space probably doesn’t readily exist. The only viable solution for 2028 is a strategic pivot to Autonomous Vehicles (AVs). The Olympics will be the ultimate stress test of Long Beach’s capacity, and it can go well if they plan for AVs.

It’s No Longer Sci-Fi

Self-driving cars still can sound like science fiction, whether you’re aware of their current existence or not. That is because the technology itself is unbelievable. A mobile system that can reliably and safely take you to any address, any time, is a technological revolution.

At its core, an Autonomous Vehicle (AV) is a car that sees as much of its surroundings as possible. Equipped with the necessary hardware and artificial intelligence to process sensor data, these vehicles can track hundreds of objects simultaneously in every direction, without ever losing focus. Since they are connected to the internet, they can benefit from real-world information for navigation decisions and software updates to improve the experience.

Waymo, owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet, currently has the largest fleet, with an estimated 2,500 vehicles across five cities, according to robotaxitracker.com. Self-driving Waymos have been operating in Westside Los Angeles since 2024, with an estimated 700 operational vehicles in the area.

In 2025, Waymo received approval from the DMV to test and operate in over 200 cities across Southern California, including Long Beach, stretching across 18 counties. Meanwhile, Amazon’s Zoox and Tesla are actively deploying their autonomous vehicles in pilot cities.

Although Waymo is the only current AV operator in Southern California, it is only a matter of time before autonomous fleets roll into Long Beach to connect the two Olympic host cities. We have a choice. We can let the AVs roll through blindly, resulting in confusion and regulatory fights, or we can plan for it strategically now. The technology works, and it’s getting better with time. How can we make Long Beach ready for them in time for LA28?

The ‘Smart City’ Framework

Technically, Long Beach has already adopted a “Smart City” strategy. In March 2021, the City Council approved a plan to leverage data and technology to improve the lives of residents. Ideally, a Smart City uses sensors, data and connectivity to solve hard problems like traffic congestion and environmental sustainability. It is supposed to be the bridge between our physical infrastructure and the digital future.

However, if you look at the current execution, the “Smart City” often feels more like a “Wi-Fi City.” Much of the current focus remains on basic digital inclusion, such as providing public Wi-Fi in parks or digital literacy training. While these are noble goals for closing the digital divide, they represent more proof-of-concept projects. We are using a framework meant for revolutionary urban change to simply catch up on internet access. A true Smart City prepares itself for the autonomous machines that will live there. We need to pivot our resources away from mundane IT projects and back to the true nitty-gritty, such as vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication.

Long Beach had piloted with Mercedes-Benz and Xtelligent in 2021 to test “intelligent intersection control systems” that adapt traffic signals based on real-time data. We can expand on this and make it the standard. We could have traffic lights that don’t just detect cars but talk to them. Imagine a Waymo approaching an intersection, and the traffic light automatically holds green because it calculates that shifting to red would cause a backlog. That is the Smart City future we need to explore.

Long Beach is currently operating under the TID 28 roadmap, which is a four-year strategic plan for city technology. While it aligns with the 2028 Olympics on paper, it completely fails to mention autonomous vehicles as a strategic priority. It focuses on “outdated equipment” and “fiber networks” but ignores the fleet of robotaxis that will likely carry Olympic tourists. It is acceptable to use the Smart City framework to improve quality of life with initiatives like free internet, but to have a “High Tech Infrastructure Master Plan” that ignores the biggest transportation shift in all of human history is a massive strategic error. In fact, the master plan specifically names “cars” as not a subject it would focus on.

The city needs to update the TID 28 roadmap to explicitly include Autonomous Vehicles. This isn’t just about cool tech, it’s about accessibility. AVs are a lifeline for the elderly, the blind, and the disabled. By failing to plan for AVs, we are failing to provide a critical accessibility tool to our most vulnerable residents. If we want to be a “Smart City” by 2028, we need our roads to be as smart as our phones.

‘Project Zero’ Can Be Done

In 2016, the Long Beach City Council committed to Vision Zero, a global strategy to eliminate all traffic fatalities and severe injuries. To achieve this, the city launched the Safe Streets Long Beach initiative. The goal they set was ambitious: to reach zero traffic deaths by 2026. We are here, and the reality is that it wasn’t on track to happen.

The city’s own action plan is built on the core principle that “people make mistakes” and that “human error is inevitable.” Their data confirms that the top primary collision factors in Long Beach are unsafe speed, automobile right-of-way violations, and improper turning. The current strategy tries to mitigate these errors through “Education” and “Enforcement” campaigns, effectively asking unruly humans to just “drive better.” Expecting human drivers to suddenly stop speeding or driving distracted after a century of evidence to the contrary is wishful thinking.

Autonomous vehicles offer the only solution that addresses the problem’s root cause: the driver. Robots do not get drunk. They do not text while driving. They do not get road rage, rubberneck, or experience fatigue. Safety is a core operational requirement for AVs, not an option. While the city’s current plan focuses on physical infrastructure, such as curb extensions and high-visibility crosswalks, to slow cars down, AVs represent the ultimate engineering fix by removing the variable behavior that makes speeding and reckless driving possible in the first place.

If the City Council is serious about “Project Zero,” they have to see that manual driving will become a legacy issue. The “Safe Streets” plan acknowledges that traffic deaths are “preventable and unacceptable.” If they are preventable, then we must embrace the technology designed to prevent them. Supporting self-driving cars is the only realistic way to eliminate traffic deaths and meet the targets Safe Streets Long Beach envisioned.

The Future LB

Let’s use Belmont Shore and 2nd Street. It is already one of the busiest and most congested commercial hubs in the city. During the 2028 Games, with sailing and other water events nearby, this area will be ground zero for tourists. Under the current “car-centric” infrastructure, the influx of visitors trying to park rental cars here will turn the neighborhood into a parking lot.

The “No Car Games” mandate explicitly states that venues will only be accessible by public transportation. We should lean into this by reimagining 2nd Street entirely. Imagine removing commercial street parking to widen the sidewalks, creating a pedestrian-first boardwalk capable of handling Olympic crowds. Instead of drivers circling for 20 minutes to find a spot, we utilize “mobility hubs,” a concept already identified in the city’s Strategic Roadmap. In my vision, a fleet of AVs performs “high-frequency drop-offs” at designated curbside zones. The car drops you off and immediately leaves to pick someone else up. No parking is needed, and the traffic consistently and predictably moves.

Compare this seamless flow to the reality ahead: thousands of confused tourists in rental cars and tiresome Uber rides, attempting to park in a dense neighborhood. While LA Metro is borrowing 3,000 buses to move the masses, plenty of visitors will inevitably seek the comfort of a private ride. Without a designated AV strategy, these private trips will result in traditional gridlock. An autonomous fleet, networked to move efficiently, offers the privacy people want without the parking burden the city can’t handle.

Long Beach is moving forward with a water taxi proposal to connect the Long Beach waterfront of Alamitos Bay with the LA waterfront in San Pedro. While utilizing zero-emission vessels as an alternative to the I-710 freeway is a positive step, we must be realistic. A water taxi is scenic and great for connecting specific coastal venues, but it is not a mass-transit solution for the thousands who need to explore the whole city. It is a supplement, not the spine of our transport network.

We know that LA Metro will be the heavy lifter for moving groups. But we also know that despite the “public transit only” rules, human behavior dictates that many will still hail a private ride. If we don’t expect those rides to be autonomous as the likes of Waymo and Tesla expand without notice, we are planning for failure. We need the water taxi for the views, the Metro for the masses, and the AV robotaxi for the “last mile” that makes the whole system work.

The Clock is Ticking

The year 2026 won’t last forever, and neither will 2028, yet the systems of tomorrow can help us now, before the chaos. The Olympic 28 Games are an explicit opportunity to display American achievement and innovation. Unlike the FIFA 2026 games, which will be held across the US, Mexico, and Canada, 99% of the LA28 Games will be in Los Angeles County and Orange County. Again, Long Beach is a host city with several games planned. Southern California is going to showcase American life to all our visitors on behalf of the whole country.

As cities plan for safety and coordination, I have no doubt that Waymo and Tesla expect to put themselves in the spotlight with their AVs. Specifically, Tesla, which sells cars unlike Waymo, has LA28 as their chance to prove their autonomous capability to international audiences, where their self-driving software is currently limited or unavailable due to regulations in that visitor’s origin country. AV safety remains under federal review, with ongoing investigations by NHTSA. It is a matter of time until AVs are everywhere.

In the unlikely narrative that AVs reach a threshold and are not a supplement for transportation during the LA28 Games, the imminent future still stands. We see AVs working as intended, demonstrated by private citizen David Moss, who achieved a record-breaking 12,961 miles of true zero-intervention driving in his personally owned Tesla in January 2026. Long Beach is already crazy about its Internet-of-things pilot programs, but what about AVs? The city can get ahead of it rather than fall behind. And that is only the tip of the iceberg.

Soon enough, autonomous anything will be the next topic of discussion, and I foresee plenty of space on your master plan to make it a meaningful Long Beach pilot program.

For any inquiries or further information, please contact Jose Cervantes at JoseC.Press@pm.me