How do I get around Los Angeles?

LA is a car city that has spent 40 years trying to become a transit city. The Metro Rail network now runs 6 lines across about 105 miles of track, and ridership reached roughly 300,000 daily trips in 2024. Those numbers sound reasonable until you realize Los Angeles County covers 4,750 square miles. For a first-time visitor staying in the Santa Monica-to-Downtown corridor, the honest answer breaks down like this. Uber and Lyft handle most of your trips. Metro covers the corridors it reaches. Walking works inside specific neighborhoods. A rental car makes sense only when you leave the basin, and the 16-mile gap between Santa Monica and Downtown LA is the distance that defines the city.

The B Line and D Line are the two subway routes, both running underground from Union Station through Koreatown. The D Line's Wilshire extension has been pushing toward Westwood in stages, with the VA Hospital terminus still likely a few years out. The E Line runs at street level from Downtown to Santa Monica's 4th Street station, about 48 minutes end to end, and drops you 4 blocks from the beach. The A Line connects 7th Street/Metro Center in Downtown to Long Beach, about 55 minutes. Fare is $1.75 per tap with a TAP card, and the system caps daily spending so your fourth or fifth ride is effectively free. Buy a TAP card from any station vending machine for $2. Mind you, Metro runs until roughly midnight on weekdays and 2 AM on Fridays and Saturdays, but frequency drops to every 20 minutes after 8 PM on most lines. Late-night service gaps are when Uber earns its keep.

LAX to Downtown runs $35-50 on Uber depending on traffic, and the drive takes anywhere from 25 minutes at 6 AM to 90 minutes at 5 PM on a Friday. The Automated People Mover at LAX now connects all terminals to the Metro K Line station, giving you a rail option to Inglewood and transfer points toward Downtown. The FlyAway bus still runs from LAX to Union Station for $9.75, departing every 30-60 minutes, and remains the cheapest direct route into Downtown at about 45 minutes. One thing that catches visitors off guard. LA's ridehail prices spike hard during rush hour and after events at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood or shows at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. A 4 PM Uber from Hollywood to Santa Monica that costs $22 at noon might hit $45. Check the app estimate before you commit, and consider Metro for the corridors it covers during peak hours.

LA earns its low walkability reputation at the city scale, but certain neighborhoods are different. Santa Monica's Montana Avenue and the 3rd Street Promenade sit on flat, shaded blocks connected by Big Blue Bus routes along Ocean Avenue. In Downtown, the stretch from Little Tokyo through the Arts District covers about 1.5 miles on level sidewalks, with coffee shops and galleries spaced close enough to make the walk feel short. Hollywood Boulevard between Highland and Vine is walkable but hot. The sidewalks along the Walk of Fame, where more than 2,700 terrazzo-and-brass stars have been embedded since 1958, radiate heat by early afternoon when temperatures reach 30°C. Bring water. Venice Beach's boardwalk runs about 2.5 miles from the Venice Pier north toward the Santa Monica Pier, and the smell of sunscreen and grilled elote from the street carts hits you 50 meters before you see the sand. Between neighborhoods, though, distances defeat you. Hollywood to the Getty Center is 8 miles through Cahuenga Pass.

Rent a car if your trip includes Malibu's Pacific Coast Highway, the San Gabriel Valley food corridor along Valley Boulevard in Alhambra and Rosemead, or a day trip to Joshua Tree National Park about 130 miles east. Skip the rental if you're staying in the Santa Monica-Venice-Downtown triangle. Parking in Downtown LA runs $20-40 per day in structures, and street parking in Hollywood requires the ParkMobile app and careful reading of signs that stack 3 or 4 different restrictions on a single post. The fine for an expired meter is $68. That said, traffic patterns are learnable. The 405 Freeway northbound locks up from 3 PM to 7 PM. The 101 through Hollywood crawls during the same hours. Sunday mornings before 10 AM are the one window when traffic drops, and the 10 Freeway from Santa Monica to Downtown takes 18 minutes.