LOS ANGELES — Just 26% of Metro’s more than 10,000 bus stops have shelters, according to a new UCLA analysis.

Because most of those stops are in areas of Los Angeles County with average summer temperatures of more than 97 degrees, the lack of shade makes riders susceptible to extreme heat and its resulting health issues, especially in disadvantaged communities with high rates of public transit use, researchers found.

Black, Latino and older adults experience more deaths because of extreme heat in LA, according to the Los Angeles Urban Cooling Collaborative. Neighborhoods with large Latino populations are typically four degrees hotter than neighborhoods with fewer Latinos, and neighborhoods with more Black residents are also warmer on extreme heat days, the group says.

The UCLA study found that people of color are more at risk of extreme heat because of how they get around, with public transit riders being particularly susceptible because they walk and need to wait for transportation. In LA, most bus riders are low-income people of color.

The bus shelter report comes as LA is experiencing more days of extreme heat. LA is expected to have five times more heat waves by 2050 than it currently experiences, according to a climate vulnerability assessment from the LA County Sustainability Office released last year.

Metro’s service area covers over 1,000 square miles and provides bus rides to 560,000 individuals daily throughout LA County, but it’s up to local jurisdictions to build and maintain bus shelters because they own the public rights of way. The UCLA study found the percentage of bus stops with shelters varied greatly by city.

Beverly Hills, Downey and Bellflower each had fewer than 10% of their bus stops covered, whereas Bell had 89% shaded stops. In the city of Los Angeles, where 88% of Metro bus lines are concentrated, the percentage of bus stops with shelters varied by district. 

In Council District 5, which includes West LA and parts of Sherman Oaks, 32% of the bus stops had shelter — the highest of any part of the city. Council District 15, including parts of Wilmington in the city’s harbor region, had the lowest percentage of bus shelters at 17%.

In the city of LA, bus shelters have typically been sited based on their advertising potential, which is why there are more bus shelters in areas that advertisers deem valuable and fewer in low-income neighborhoods, even if bus ridership there is higher. 

But that system is about to change. In the city of LA, where 1,900 bus stops have shelters and another 6,000 have only bus benches, StreetsLA plans to add another 1,100 shelters to its Sidewalk and Transit Amenities Program following the award of a new, more equitably oriented bus shelter contract last year.