The Brief

This story was supported by the Economic Hardship Reporting Project.

In the beginning, parking lots were created to curb chaos on the road. But climate change has turned that dynamic on its head.

Since the 1920s a little-known policy called parking minimums has shaped a large facet of American life. In major cities, this meant that any type of building — apartments, banks, or shopping malls — needed to reserve a certain amount of parking spaces to accommodate anyone who might visit.

But transportation makes up almost one-third of carbon emissions in the U.S. and cars represent a significant portion of those emissions. As the country attempts to aggressively cut carbon emissions, reducing dependence on fossil fuels will also mean rethinking what transportation and public space look like, especially in cities.

Earlier this month, the city of Austin, Texas, became the latest community to eliminate parking minimums and is now the largest city in the U.S. to do so.

“If we want half of all trips to be in something other than a car, then we can’t, as a city, in my opinion, mandate that every home or business have at least one parking space for each resident or customer,” said Zohaib Qadri, the Austin city council member who introduced the measure.

Reducing dependency on cars was a huge push for the initiative in Austin, said Qadri, who hopes the measure also will lead to a more sustainable city.

“Climate change is here,” said Qadri. “And we’re only going to make it worse by clinging to these very climate unfriendly and unsustainable transportation habits of the 20th century.”

The elimination of this seemingly innocuous law could pave the way for cities to build denser housing, increase public transit options, and reduce their carbon emissions, according to Donald Shoup, an engineer and professor of urban planning at UCLA.

“It isn’t just the housing crisis and climate change, it’s traffic congestion, it’s local air pollution, it’s the high price of everything — except parking,” said Shoup.

Climate change and air pollution are particularly costly outcomes, with both estimated to cost the U.S. billions of dollars every year. Parking spots, meanwhile, can run in the tens of thousands of dollars to construct, with one estimate putting that figure at almost $30,000 per spot.

“Even if climate change were not an issue, removing parking requirements is a good idea. But in addition to being a good idea locally, it will help the entire planet,” he said.

Momentum is building with cities like Anchorage, Richmond, and Raleigh, and states like California all eliminating their parking minimums within the last few years.

Paved parking lots not only take up valuable space, but also contribute to the urban heat island effect, where cities often experience higher temperatures than their rural counterparts. The asphalt and concrete used to construct parking lots often absorb and re-emit heat at higher rates than the natural environment. This happened amidst a record-breakingly hot summer which means that not only are parking lots contributing to the larger problem of climate change, but they also make the outcome worse in the short-term as well.

An important caveat is that undoing parking minimums does not mean that all parking will vanish overnight, but rather that any off-street parking built will not need to adhere to any minimum standard. These standards were not only outdated but often prevented meaningful conversation about how to increase housing density — an urgent need for most parts of the U.S., according to Tony Jordan, president of the Parking Reform Network.

“Imagine if all the parking was still built, but we just had another 10 apartments in every building in every city for the last 50 years,” said Jordan. “We’d have a housing abundance, like, that’s a lot of apartments that would have just been built that we basically prevented.”

Every time parking took precedence over other land uses, that was a deliberate choice, even when it was the result of relying on decades-old policy to avoid active decision making about public space according to Jordan.

“The cities just need to take an active role in managing what they own — the street and the curb.”

The most important effects of undoing parking minimums probably won’t be seen right away, it will take time for cities to build up their housing stock, or to increase investment in low-carbon transit options but repealing parking minimums represents an important step in building more climate-friendly cities.

“Austin is the same city that it was two weeks ago,” said Jordan. “It’s gonna take quite a while for that city to really reap the benefits of their parking mandate reforms. And so it just removes a roadblock and a barrier to other reforms.”

Low-polling Democratic candidates for governor of California struck a defiant tone Tuesday in the face of mounting pressure from party leaders to drop out before a key deadline this week.

With nine major Democrats still vying for the state’s top job, party insiders have fretted for weeks about a splintered primary vote that could result in the two leading Republicans — commentator Steve Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco — finishing first and second in the June 2 primary and ensuring a GOP victor in November.

In an open letter to campaigns published Tuesday, California Democratic Party Chair Rusty Hicks called that scenario implausible but “not impossible” and urged Democratic candidates to make an honest assessment of their chances before Friday — the deadline to file and officially appear on the ballot in June.

“If you do not have a viable path to make it to the general election, do not file to place your name on the ballot for the primary election,” Hicks wrote.

But candidates who have been mired in single digits for months, including state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond and former state Controller Betty Yee, showed no immediate signs of heading toward the exits.

At the Alameda County Registrar of Voters office in Oakland, Yee filed the paperwork to officially place her name on the ballot.

“When I was signing the declaration of candidacy, my hands were shaking because I just thought about my mother, who is 102, and how within a generation she’s able to see her daughter do this,” Yee told KQED. “We’re undergoing a process of constant assessment, and every time we do that, we just see that this is still a wide-open race.”

Thurmond, who is Black and Latino, accused the state party of “essentially telling every candidate of color in the race for governor to drop out.”

“Aren’t we supposed to be the party who embraces democracy — a party of, by and for the people?” Thurmond said in a video posted to social media. “Well, the establishment might not be, but our campaign is, and that’s why we’re in this race to win it.”

Hicks did not call on any specific candidates to leave the race but asked those who continue their campaigns beyond this week to “be prepared to suspend your campaign and endorse another candidate on or before April 15 if your campaign cannot show meaningful progress toward winning the primary election in the coming weeks.”

The chair’s plea comes weeks after Democratic delegates failed to agree on an endorsement at the state party convention in San Francisco.

Since then, polling in the race has been largely static, with investor Tom Steyer (who has spent tens of millions of dollars on television ads) being the only Democrat to see significant traction in recent surveys.

Rep. Eric Swalwell, former Rep. Katie Porter and Steyer were the top polling Democrats in polls released last month by Emerson College and the Public Policy Institute of California.

Below that trio is a crowded field of Democratic hopefuls that includes Thurmond and Yee, along with former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, San José Mayor Matt Mahan and former Assemblymember Ian Calderon.

Meanwhile, Hilton and Bianco have faced little competition for the Republican primary vote.

Jon Slavet, a GOP tech entrepreneur who was polling at around 1%, suspended his campaign Tuesday.

“The last few months have been a gift,” said Slavet, in a video posted on social media. “It’s also shown me that building a winning coalition, brick by brick, will take time.”

With Slavet out of the field, a primary election simulator created by Paul Mitchell, vice president of Political Data Inc., put the chances of a Republican vs. Republican general election at roughly 25%.

In his letter, Hicks said a Bianco-Hilton general election would not only upend Democratic leadership of state government but also depress Democratic turnout in the California congressional districts the party is hoping to flip in November.

“The result would present a real risk to winning the congressional seats required and imperil Democrats’ chances to retake the House, cut Donald Trump’s term in half, and spare our Nation from the pain many have endured since January 2025,” Hicks wrote. “We simply can’t let that happen.”

Last updated: Feb. 24, 2026

At least nine Democrats are competing to succeed termed-out Gov. Gavin Newsom in the 2026 general election, but first they'll have to get through the June primary. The crowded field has raised fears among Democrats that they could be entirely locked out of the November election.

Polls have shown former Fox News commentator Steve Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco leading the race, with the top Democrat — Bay Area Rep. Eric Swalwell — essentially tied.

With such a wide-open field, Democrats at the party's February convention were unable to endorse a single candidate, meaning pressure is building on candidates with lower polling numbers and less ability to fundraise to drop out of the race.

The primary election is June 2. Here’s a look at the field right now:

Matt Mahan

Mahan, the mayor of San Jose, is the latest Democrat to enter the race after saying in the fall he wasn’t excited by the selection of candidates. Don’t expect him to join the other candidates’ jockeying to be the biggest opponent to president Donald Trump. A Silicon Valley moderate, he’s criticized Newsom for overly focusing on “resisting” Trump, especially on social media.

He says the state over-regulates businesses and fails to comprehensively address homelessness and crime. He broke with the party in 2024 to support Proposition 36, the ballot measure voters approved to increase penalties on some drug and theft charges. Mahan has honed in on reducing street homelessness with hundreds of tiny homes as well as a policy to arrest unhoused people who refuse repeated offers of shelter placements.

Xavier Becerra

If former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra was looking for attention for his campaign, he found it in the form of negative headlines.

Last month, federal prosecutors indicted a Sacramento powerbroker in an alleged corruption scandal that rocked the state’s Democratic establishment. At its center? A dormant campaign account held by Becerra, from which prosecutors allege Gov. Gavin Newsom’s former chief of staff Dana Williamson conspired with other political consultants to steal $225,000. Williamson is charged with helping to divert the funds to the wife of Becerra’s longtime aide, Sean McCluskie, who has pleaded guilty in the alleged scheme.

Becerra was California’s first Latino attorney general before serving as a cabinet secretary for former President Joe Biden. He is running primarily on a platform of lowering health care costs.

He has not been accused of wrongdoing in the case and has said he was unaware of what was happening. But it’s still possible the association — and the implication he wasn’t paying attention — will taint his campaign, already polling at just 8% last fall.

The controversy is one of a few moments of intrigue in an otherwise quiet race.

Katie Porter

In October, former Orange County Rep. Katie Porter, a Democrat, was caught on camera trying to walk out of a TV interview with a reporter who pressed her on whether she needed Republican support in the race. A second video followed, showing Porter berating a staff member during a Zoom call. At the time considered the front-runner, she rode out the news cycle and later said she “could have done better” about the behavior in the videos, but they appeared to have dropped her approval ratings. She is essentially tied with the top Republican candidate.

Porter made a name for herself as one of a “blue wave” of female, Democratic lawmakers elected to Congress during the first Trump administration in 2018. A law professor at UC Irvine who ran unsuccessfully for U.S. Senate last year, she gained attention for her tough questioning of corporate executives using her signature whiteboard.

Tom Steyer

Joining a wide field of other Democrats, billionaire investor and climate activist Tom Steyer announced in November he is jumping into the race.

Then-Democratic presidential primary candidate Tom Steyer addresses a crowd during a party in Columbia, South Carolina, on Feb. 29, 2020.

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Sean Rayford

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Getty Images

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Steyer, who made his fortune by founding a San Francisco hedge fund, has used his wealth to back liberal causes, including the environment. He’s never held public office before, but ran a short-lived campaign for president in 2020. He has honed in on reining in Californians' second-highest-in-the-nation electricity bills, though some experts are skeptical of his proposals.

Chad Bianco

Pro-Trump Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco is neck-and-neck with Porter in the polls, though he is unlikely to last near the top of the pack in a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly two-to-one and a GOP candidate hasn’t won a statewide seat in nearly 20 years.

The cowboy-hat-toting Bianco has heavily criticized Democratic governance. He argues for loosening regulations on businesses and says he wants to overturn California’s sanctuary law that restricts local police from cooperating with federal deportation officers.

Eric Swallwell

Other Democrats have focused on their biographies and experiences in government to try to distinguish themselves in a race where name recognition is low across the board. All have said they want to make California more affordable and push back on the Trump administration’s impact on the state.

Rep. Eric Swalwell speaks during a press conference after a rally in support of Proposition 50 at IBEW Local 6 in San Francisco on Nov. 3, 2025.

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Beth LaBerge

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Swalwell, a former prosecutor and Bay Area congressman, will likely lean heavily on his anti-Trump bonafides. He was one of several members of Congress appointed by former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to help lead the second Trump impeachment after the attempted Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection and is now the latest Democrat under attack by the Trump administration over his mortgage.

Antonio Villaraigosa

Former Los Angeles mayor and former Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa is among the more moderate of the Democratic field. He boasts of his time running the state’s largest city, during which he boosted the police force. He ran for governor unsuccessfully in 2018.

Betty Yee

Former state Controller Betty Yee emphasizes her experience with the state budget and the tax system, having been a top finance office in ex-Gov. Gray Davis’ administration and having sat on the state Board of Equalization.

Tony Thurmond

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, a Democrat, is the only candidate currently in a statewide seat. He emphasizes his background as a social worker who grew up on public assistance programs in a low-income family. He has stated an ambitious goal of building two million housing units on surplus state land.

Ian Calderon

Ian Calderon, a former Democratic Assembly majority leader, is emphasizing his relative youth. He was the first millennial member of the state Assembly, and is part of a Los Angeles County political dynasty. He has some ties to the cryptocurrency industry and has name-dropped it in ads and debates.

Steve Hilton

Republican Steve Hilton, a Fox News contributor, was an adviser for British conservative Prime Minister David Cameron before pivoting to American politics. Before launching his campaign he released a book this year calling California “America’s worst-run state.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters, which is an LAist partner newsroom.

Metro will run buses to and from SoFi Stadium for World Cup matches this summer, the agency announced Wednesday.

Fans can catch a direct bus to and from the games from nine locations around Los Angeles for $1.75 —the fare for a regular bus ride. Those are:

• Hawthorne/Lennox Station
• Crenshaw Station
• LAX/Metro Transit Center 
• El Camino College in the city of Torrance 
• Harbor Gateway Transit Center in the city of Gardena
• Downtown Long Beach 
• Union Station
• North Hollywood Station
• Pierce College Station

Metro releases its map for enhanced service during the 2026 World Cup in Los Angeles.

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Courtesy of Metro

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The bus service will start four hours before each game, and end 90 minutes after matches end. Metro is working with regional transit providers in the region and charter bus companies to provide the service.

The locations are all accessible via Metro public transit. Fans that drive to the bus stations can pay Metro to park at most of nine locations, excluding LAX/Metro Transit Center. Parking reservations range from around $60 to $120 — and can be made now.

The U.S. Men's National Team will play its first game at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood on June 12, with a 6 p.m. kickoff. L.A.'s last match will be a quarterfinal on July 10.

In between, the city will host six more games and be the site of World Cup celebrations and viewings.