Air traffic control

When Metro opened its LAX/Metro Transit Center in June, a new car-free era for the airport was hailed. As KTLA marveled: "You no longer need a car to get to LAX." (Real ones know you never did.) I published a short review in The Architect's Newspaper but decided to hold off on a formal assessment of how the car-free infrastructure delivered until the 2.25-mile people mover connecting the station to the airport was opened — an opening that has now become somewhat of a people-moving target.

I held off, that is, until I realized that LAX is basically building a brand-new freeway into the airport.

Yes, the very same airport where we just spent $2 billion — actually, more like $3 billion, plus another $900 million if you count Metro's investment in the LAX station; so let's just say $4 billion — to make cars go away. After all that talk about car-free connections for the transit-first games, LAX is building 5.8 lane miles of roadways in one of the most congested areas of LA.

I'm calling this hefty serving of spaghetti carbon-emissions the LAX-pressway. And the LAX-pressway must be stopped.

In the scheme of things, the LAX-pressway is a $1.5-billion blip in a $30 billion plan to "modernize" the airport by 2028. You may have seen that Terminal 5 is being demolished this week, with its replacement expected to be completed by the Olympics. (Yet another major project a broke city is racing to cram into a three-year construction window. Good luck with that!) I wrote about the airport's big plans last year, when I poked around an August 2023 report on LAWA's — that's Los Angeles World Airports — proposed ground-transportation strategy for the horseshoe that connects the terminals. After investing in so many airport transit projects, I wrote, "should private vehicles really be allowed to use the horseshoe anymore at all?" The answer, apparently, is not just yes, but HELL YES.

We've been here before. In the years ahead of 1984, similar calls to "modernize" LAX before the Olympics resulted in the double-decking of the horseshoe. After that the issue was solved and we've never had a single problem with LAX traffic since. Oh wait, no it wasn't, because adding more lanes never ever ever ever ever ever reduces traffic. (See: the 405.) And it definitely won't reduce LAX's traffic. What would fix the airport's traffic? Charging private vehicles to use the horseshoe, also known as congestion pricing. This is the preferred option for transportation advocates like Move LA's Eli Lipmen, who would like to see that money invested in car-free alternatives, like more FlyAway shuttles. "Instead of spending $1.5 billion, they could make money!" he told me. (Fun fact: LAX already has the transponder system installed. Next time you drive through the airport — but, really, why would you do that? — listen as your FasTrak beeps.)

Unfortunately, we're barfing this up instead:

Cord Thomas is a former member of the Neighborhood Council of Westchester/Playa who lives near the tail end of that asphalt serpent. He described to me how his street gets backed up from travelers trying to find an open route between LAX and the 405. As someone who rides Metro at least once a week to avoid that same traffic and is intimately familiar with the concept of induced demand, Thomas rejects LAWA's insistence that adding more roadways will bring his neighborhood relief. But they're not even trying to hide it, he notes: the airport's own calculations say the LAX-pressway will attract more daily car trips. "It's not going to help our community, and that’s their sole claim."

Thomas points to more holes in LAX's math. LAWA reports estimate that when the people mover is (ever) operational, one-third of current airport travelers will shift away from the horseshoe. That alone seems like a very solid argument against expanding roadways. But because LAX hasn't recovered from the pandemic like other major airports, future passenger predictions have also dropped. LAWA was planning for 110 million passengers in 2028. Now LAWA is only planning for 90 million passengers. That's one of the reasons that LAWA is holding off on a terminal expansion that would add additional concourses. Yet they're still building the roadways to accommodate these outdated passenger estimates? "They’ve tabled other efforts because they’re not getting the travelers they were expecting," says Thomas. "This may have seemed like a good idea a decade ago, but a lot has changed."

Last month, LAWA CEO John Ackerman let it casually drop in a Los Angeles Times interview that the people mover won't be open until June 2026, in part due to never-ending contract disputes and lawsuits. (Although does that really explain a three-year delay? When we can all see it clearly puttering back and forth for almost two years? Is it normal to be testing a people mover for that long? What's really going on?) But Ackerman also said even if we don't have the people mover ready by the World Cup, it's fine, because we can just use shuttles: "We do not need the train to operate the World Cup."

What's funny is that LAWA also doesn't seem to think we need the LAX-pressway finished to host the World Cup — or the Olympics. After taking a construction pause in 2028, the project won't even be complete until 2030!

Hold up, hold up. So you're saying that you don't actually need the people mover or this road widening project to be completed for what will likely be the most passengers this version of the airport will ever see at once? I'm old enough to remember back when the people mover was supposed to be done in 2023, back when we were still bidding for the 2024 games... when it was declared ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL for hosting such events. And now you're saying we'll get along just fine without them? So why are we building anything at all?

When I flew out of LAX last weekend — FlyAway both ways worked like a dream, please add more! — I noticed something else wrong with this plan. By mucking up the surface streets, people walking near the airport will be forced up and over the elevated roadways on a series of pedestrian bridges. This will also obliterate Paul Tzanetopoulos's untitled pylon installation (which looked like this) at the airport's entrance. The "LAX" has already been removed from its current location!

Don't worry though, we're adding this extremely mid gateway that looks like it was dragged and dropped from a 1998 airport rendering:

This shit sucks! And it's exactly the same thing that's happening elsewhere in the city. Lamenting the performance of a facility that's "fallen in rankings" and needs to make "urgent upgrades" before we host upcoming megaevents... hmmm, it all sounds so familiar. But because we can't deliver projects on time, now we're scrambling to build an airport transportation system for an LA envisioned in a 2015 Eric Garcetti Instagram post instead of the reality that we live in now.

Back in Westchester, Thomas's proposal to pause the LAX-pressway is completely reasonable: table the new roadways at least as long as LAX tables plans for its new concourses. See if passenger numbers recover. See how many of those passengers ride the new transit lines. And then determine if this project is actually needed. It actually makes a lot of sense. I mean, at the very least, the city should wait until the people mover opens — which will hopefully be sometime this decade. 🔥