UCLA’s latest State of the Commute report cites three major developments from the past year that are creating a brighter future for Bruins.

Those developments — a significant increase in the usage of electric vehicle usage, the expansion of student housing and the resulting decrease in student commuters, and the ongoing positive effects of hybrid work schedules for many employees — are not only contributing to sustainability goals but also helping support better work-life balance for much of the campus community.

The State of the Commute report, published annually by UCLA Transportation, reviews efforts to provide the best access and mobility options for UCLA’s 85,000 students, staff and faculty. While the two previous reports, covering 2020 and 2021, focused on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the report focused on 2022 is more forward-thinking and delves deeper into sustainable transportation.

Since 2020, the percentage of new campus parking permits issued for clean fuel vehicles each month has doubled from 6% to 12%. In 2022, UCLA Transportation prepared an EV Readiness Plan that provides the university with a roadmap to a more electrified, sustainable future. This includes adding nearly 500 new charging spaces by 2025, ensuring that 10% of all commuter parking spaces provide charging for electric vehicles by 2030, and enhancing the campus’s EV charging infrastructure to support a fully electrical fleet of campus vehicles.

With the opening of new student apartment buildings on campus, the number of off-campus student commuters declined in 2022 by 3%, further reducing the need for parking spaces. Additionally, and for the first time ever, UCLA guaranteed first-year students up to four years of housing and two years for transfer students, which should also help reduce vehicle use.

For the third year, hybrid work schedules had a significant influence on the state of the commute. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, approximately 3% of UCLA employees telecommuted. By that figure stood at 34%. To accommodate the shift, UCLA Transportation continued to offer discounted daily parking for employees who only need to be on campus one day at a time. In 2022, most public transit agencies serving UCLA also began offering flexible transit passes for commuters who no longer needed to purchase monthly or quarterly passes.

The report also looks ahead to future transportation developments, including the opening of a new subway extension, the campus’s hosting the athlete village for the 2028 Olympic Games and, further ahead, the prospect of a subway or monorail line that will run from the San Fernando Valley to Westwood Village.

Learn much more about these and other developments at the interactive UCLA State of the Commute 2022 website.