{"id":680512,"date":"2026-03-25T10:28:22","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T10:28:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/680512\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T10:28:22","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T10:28:22","slug":"a-great-city-needs-a-walking-path-to-dodger-stadium-do-it-frank-mccourt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/680512\/","title":{"rendered":"A great city needs a walking path to Dodger Stadium. Do it, Frank McCourt"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Dodgers<\/a> fans generally hiss at the mention of Frank McCourt \u2014 the former owner took the team into bankruptcy, after all \u2014 but today is about tipping our cap to him.<\/p>\n

Without him, fans would have no option to take public transit directly to Dodger Stadium. On his watch, the Dodgers helped secure government funding for the shuttle buses<\/a> that provide free rides between Union Station and Dodger Stadium.<\/p>\n

Sixteen years later, beyond the addition of a sister shuttle from the South Bay, that\u2019s it.<\/p>\n

The Dodgers boast the best team in the world. Shohei Ohtani is a tourist attraction<\/a>. So is their historic ballpark. The Dodgers sold a record 4 million tickets<\/a> last year.<\/p>\n

In 1990, the last year Fernando Valenzuela<\/a> pitched for the Dodgers, Los Angeles County unveiled a report<\/a> that suggested ways to improve access to Dodger Stadium \u201cfor those who cannot or do not wish to drive.\u201d<\/p>\n

The options: a monorail, people mover, or light rail extension from the Chinatown Metro station; the shuttle buses that McCourt and Metro launched 20 years later; the gondola that McCourt first pitched in 2018<\/a> and continues to pursue; and a walking path.<\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

A passenger exits the Chinatown Metro station in January.<\/p>\n

(Etienne Laurent\/For The Times)<\/p>\n

L.A. is all about the car. You will most likely drive to Dodger Stadium, and so will your children.<\/p>\n

For decades, the Dodgers have promised to ease traffic by adding amenities that encourage fans to come early and stick around after the game. That has not materialized, and notorious congestion within and around the stadium is as much a tradition as Dodger Dogs.<\/p>\n

What if you could walk, for real? What if you could head into the stadium along a beautifully landscaped and wide Dodgers-themed path, a blue ribbon of fans coalescing into a community, with decorations and food carts, shade and lighting, and chants of \u201cLet\u2019s Go Dodgers!\u201d along the way?<\/p>\n

You can walk now, sort of. It\u2019s about a mile.<\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

There\u2019s a map at the Chinatown Metro station displaying the pedestrian path toward Dodger Stadium.<\/p>\n

(Etienne Laurent\/For The Times)<\/p>\n

At one end of the Chinatown station, there is a map with a pedestrian route, in a glass case that faces away from Dodger Stadium. If you walk out of the station at the other end, or if you just start heading in the direction of Dodger Stadium, good luck finding the map.<\/p>\n

There are Metro signs leading you back to the station from Dodger Stadium, but none leading you along the route there.<\/p>\n

The Dodgers actually would prefer you did not take that route, or at least the last part of it. I walked it with Alissa Walker, whose Torched newsletter<\/a> is the go-to place to learn how major sporting events impact the everyday lives of Angelenos.<\/p>\n

We entered the Dodger Stadium property at an intersection with no crosswalks, where cars enter and exit the 110 freeway. We stood atop a dirt patch next to a crumbling curb.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo go a very short distance safely with a feeling that you\u2019re not going to die,\u201d Walker said, \u201cis very difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Game 3 of the World Series underway at Dodger Stadium last October, a few folks scurried across a pedestrian bridge with LED lights and blue glow sticks.<\/p>\n

The bridge connects Chinatown with Dodger Stadium, traversing the 110. Without this bridge, there is no walking path to Dodger Stadium.<\/p>\n

At night, the bridge offers magnificent views of downtown lights. But it had no lights of its own, so the volunteers used the LED lights and glow sticks to attach homemade Dodgers-themed signage<\/a> to the fence that encloses the bridge.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur goal was, just by adding some lights, to make the really dark path at the top of the bridge at night a little bit brighter, so that it felt a little less scary,\u201d transit advocate Jeremy Stutes said, \u201cand to add a little bit of fun and whimsy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Pedestrian <\/p>\n

Glow sticks forming the \u201cLA\u201d logo of the Dodgers were placed on a pedestrian bridge over the 110 Freeway connecting Chinatown to the area where Dodger Stadium is located during the World Series and for several months after. As of last week, the glow sticks were no longer there.<\/p>\n

(Etienne Laurent\/For The Times)<\/p>\n

From the Chinatown Metro station, the bridge is three blocks up College Street and one block down Yale Street. It\u2019s an easy walk, and for now you pass an elementary school, a church, a row of Chinese restaurants, a dirt lot where a hospital once stood, parking lots, and an auto repair facility with a Dodgers flag hung on a wall.<\/p>\n

When I did the walk last week, the trash at the foot of the bridge included a plastic cup, socks, a piece of rotting fruit, a half-full bottle of tequila, and half of a turkey sandwich, peeking out from torn plastic wrapping that indicated the sandwich had gone bad three days earlier. On the bridge: shopping bags, a pair of flip-flops, stray clothes scattered at one end, and graffiti everywhere.<\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

A sign painted on the sidewalk indicates the direction toward the Chinatown Metro station.<\/p>\n

(Etienne Laurent\/For The Times)<\/p>\n

That was the point those volunteers made last October: Clean up the bridge and light up the bridge \u2014 as they did for three days \u2014 and fans will walk there.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not that it\u2019s not used,\u201d Stutes said. \u201cIt\u2019s not designed to be a safe space to use as an alternative to driving.\u201d<\/p>\n

When you cross the bridge, you can turn right or left along Stadium Way to get to a stadium entrance.<\/p>\n

Turn right, as the map tells you to do, and you\u2019ll encounter decaying sidewalks, with cracked and buckled concrete that turns a modest uphill walk into an obstacle course. Once you get onto the stadium grounds, the paint is fading along the pedestrian path, which offers you no protection from passing cars.<\/p>\n

Turn left, and you\u2019ll have to walk part of the way in the street, on an unprotected bike lane. You also could walk along the road behind the Fire Department training center, a path with no sidewalks and passing fire trucks. Either route takes longer than the one on the map, but you would enter Dodger Stadium through a pair of protected and brightly painted pedestrian paths. (That entrance, along Vin Scully Avenue, is a quarter-mile from Sunset Boulevard, where two Metro bus routes stop.)<\/p>\n

If the primary choices for getting out of Dodger Stadium after a game are car congestion or Dodger Stadium Express shuttle bus congestion, a downhill walk to Chinatown Metro station \u2014 12 minutes, Metro says \u2014 would be a nice option. That\u2019s why those folks lit up the bridge over the freeway during the World Series.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe lights were just a fun way,\u201d transit advocate Kevin Dedicatoria said, \u201cto show, \u2018Hey, here\u2019s a bridge so you don\u2019t have to play, \u2018Dude, where\u2019s my car?\u2019 or have to worry about waiting for the bus.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

McCourt hails from Boston, where the local subway drops Red Sox fans a few short blocks from Fenway Park<\/a>. When McCourt owned the Dodgers, I asked him if he could envision a subway or light rail extension to Dodger Stadium.<\/p>\n

He\u2019d love it, he said then, but the Dodgers were a private business, and government should pay for public transit.<\/p>\n

\"Homes <\/p>\n

Homes line a street in Eylsian Park, where Dodger Stadium is located.<\/p>\n

(ETIENNE LAURENT\/For The Times)<\/p>\n

It was a fair point. The Dodgers pay taxes. In an era where teams regularly demand stadium and arena deals that exempt them from property tax, the Dodgers have paid $12.8 million in property taxes over the past three years, according to Los Angeles County tax collection records.<\/p>\n

Would demand for public transit amid a car culture justify the investment? The Dodger Stadium Express indicates it could: Ridership has just about quadrupled since its inaugural season, from 122,273 in 2010 to 463,147 last year, according to Metro.<\/p>\n

Even along the poorly maintained, poorly lit and poorly advertised pedestrian path, Metro said more than 700 riders returned to the Chinatown station on each of the three nights of World Series home games last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs seen in social media videos during the 2025 postseason, the walking path continues to explode in popularity,\u201d Metro spokesman Jose Ubaldo said.<\/p>\n

Next steps?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s astonishing to me that the Dodgers have not taken it upon themselves, as this great community partner, to fix this problem,\u201d Walker said. \u201cIt is the city\u2019s responsibility, but the Dodgers should be doing this, as part of what they want to represent to this community.\u201d<\/p>\n

The walking path includes segments along city streets, a Caltrans bridge, and Dodger Stadium property. Just who is the responsible party?<\/p>\n

A Caltrans spokesman said the city is responsible for maintaining the bridge. A spokesman for the city\u2019s department of street services did not provide an answer. A spokesman for the Dodgers declined to comment.<\/p>\n

You could almost hear the sigh from city councilwoman Eunisses Hernandez<\/a>, whose district includes Dodger Stadium.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what my job is: to bring people and agencies and organizations together to accomplish a goal,\u201d Hernandez said. \u201cWe\u2019re already in conversation with all these entities.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re looking at some of the things we can enhance to make this a more walkable and accessible option for people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"City <\/p>\n

City Council member Eunisses Hernandez, center, talks with Circle outreach workers in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

(Allen J. Schaben\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

How much might those enhancements cost?<\/p>\n

Without a look at a city-commissioned Dodger Stadium traffic mitigation study, expected to be completed this fall, Hernandez said she could not put a price tag on it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I can tell you,\u201d she said, \u201cis that it will be less than half a billion dollars, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

By year\u2019s end, the Los Angeles City Council is expected to vote on McCourt\u2019s gondola project, estimated to cost $500 million and proposed as privately financed. Last November, the council voted 12-1 to urge Metro to kill the project<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Metro granted its approval, but with conditions<\/a> that included a requirement to explore supplementing the gondola with other Dodger Stadium transit options, including more buses along Sunset Boulevard and a designated walkway from there to the stadium.<\/p>\n

The walking path proposed in that 1990 study would have avoided Sunset Boulevard and the current Stadium Way routes \u2014 the ones with crumbling sidewalks, or no sidewalks at all \u2014 by using escalators and walkways to get fans up and down the hill between Lookout Drive, just off Stadium Way, and Dodger Stadium.<\/p>\n

\u201cPedestrians could be directed through Chinatown,\u201d the study read, \u201cwhere numerous restaurants, shops and pedestrian amenities are provided.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to sell Chinatown businesses<\/a> on the benefits of the gondola when fans would ride between Union Station and Dodger Stadium, soaring over Chinatown. It would be easier if a walking path led at least some of those fans through Chinatown, even if only on the way back from the game.<\/p>\n

Even if the gondola system really can accomplish what its proponents say it can \u2014 loading 35 people into a cabin every 23 seconds \u2014 thousands of riders leaving when the game ends could mean a long line to board.<\/p>\n

\"One <\/p>\n

One of the entrances to Dodger Stadium on Stadium Way, the easiest access when walking from Chinatown Metro station.<\/p>\n

(Etienne Laurent\/For The Times)<\/p>\n

\u201cAlso,\u201d the 1990 study said, \u201cpassenger waiting following a game is psychologically perceived as being three to four times longer than actual waiting time.\u201d<\/p>\n

From this perspective, McCourt might win a few council votes by funding a first-class walking path. The cost, I\u2019m told, would depend on what the enhancements include: signs, lights, trees, shade canopies, sidewalk repairs, escalators, and so on. For something close to $5 million \u2014 one one-hundredth of the projected cost of gondola construction \u2014 McCourt likely could do an exceptional job.<\/p>\n

Is there any sign of progress here? Happily, yes.<\/p>\n

In an internal report last December, Metro said Zero Emissions Transit (ZET) \u2014 the nonprofit organization now shepherding the gondola project \u2014 is pursuing ways to link pedestrians and bicyclists to the transit system and to Dodger Stadium. Those potential improvements include sidewalk repairs and a revitalized pedestrian pathway from the Chinatown Metro station to the bridge across the 110 and then across Stadium Way, to Lookout Drive and the hill above.<\/p>\n

\u201cDodger Walk is envisioned as a series of switchbacks,\u201d the report said, \u201cinspired by the original walking path up Lookout Mountain that existed prior to the construction of Dodger Stadium.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whether such switchbacks would make the walk to the stadium longer or shorter than the current path remains to be determined.<\/p>\n

In a statement, ZET said: \u201cWe embrace and include active transit solutions to increase pedestrian and bike access throughout the project area.\u201d In particular, ZET said, it was \u201csupportive\u201d of a walking path to Dodger Stadium.<\/p>\n

The Metro report cautioned the concepts \u201care in the early planning stage,\u201d so L.A. might get an extravagant walking path, a utilitarian one, or none at all.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s hoping McCourt gives us a path of some kind \u2014 whether the city approves the gondola or not \u2014 because a pretty walk generations can enjoy would be a prettier civic legacy than driving a team into bankruptcy.<\/p>\n