Los Angeles Metro

The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, branded as Metro, is the agency that plans, operates, and coordinates funding for most of the transportation system in Los Angeles County, California, the most populated county in the United States.

Metro directly operates a large public transit system that includes bus, bus rapid transit, light rail, and rapid transit (subway) services. The agency also provides funding for transit it does not operate, including Metrolink commuter rail, municipal bus operators and paratransit services. The agency also provides funding and directs planning for the Los Angeles freeway system and railroad projects within the county.

In 2024, the Metro system had a total ridership of 311,250,200, and had a ridership of 953,200 per weekday as of the second quarter of 2025. It is the largest transit agency by ridership in the state of California, and the second-largest in the United States.

Metro was formed on February 1, 1993, by the California State Legislature which merged two rival agencies: the Southern California Rapid Transit District (RTD) and the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission (LACTC).

The RTD was founded on August 18, 1964, to operate most public transportation in the urbanized Southern California region, including Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Orange, and Riverside counties. RTD replaced the major predecessor public agency, the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority, and took over eleven failing other bus companies and services in the Southern California region. Services outside of Los Angeles County began to be divested in the early 1980s.

The LACTC began operation in 1977 after a state requirement that all counties form local transportation commissions. Its main objective was to be the guardian of all transportation funding, both transit and highway, for Los Angeles County.

The bickering between the two agencies came to a head in the 1980s. At that time, the LACTC was building the Blue Line (now A Line) light rail line between Los Angeles and Long Beach, while the RTD was building the Red Line (now B Line) subway in Downtown Los Angeles. It was revealed that due to disputes between the agencies, the LACTC was planning to end the Blue Line at Pico Station, instead of serving the 7th Street/Metro Center station being built by the RTD six blocks north.

Metro has assumed the functions of both agencies and now develops and oversees transportation plans, policies, funding programs, and both short-term and long-range solutions to mobility, accessibility and environmental needs in the county. The agency is also the primary public transit provider for the city of Los Angeles, the second largest city in the United States, providing the bulk of such services. even though the city's own Los Angeles Department of Transportation LADOT operates a smaller bus only public transit system of its own called DASH within the MTA service area in the city of Los Angeles, often overlapping with some Metro Bus routes and stops in several neighborhoods primarily in the central part of the city.