When LAX was built in 1960, apparently no one thought to put a public transit system in place to take riders from the surrounding buses, directly in to LAX. Enter the LAX People Mover. Mayor Eric Garcetti is quoted as saying," I think it will fix a historic mistake of our past." Hopefully it will! Let's discuss.
Ok, so the funding has been stated. We all voted on it. Or at least the 12% of Los Angeles County residents that vote on this sort of thing voted on it, and passed it. So we have the dough.
How are we going to get there? The Metro Green Line, or Crenshaw Line, is currently under construction at a cost of approximately $330M. The station for the LAX people mover would be added to this expansion of the line and it would be located at Aviation & 96th. Currently the Green Line is 1.5 miles short of LAX and there is a shuttle bus that you have to catch to get into the airport. That is brutal and complete nonsense.
The people mover, which would be built by Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA) which runs LAX, would run on an elevated guideway, above traffic, directly to the airport. Detailed finalized plans for how many stops inside the LAX horseshoe are due in December 2014 but it is somewhere between 2-5 stops for the LAX terminals. LAWA would be responsible for covering the costs of the people mover itself, for all the construction, and for maintaining it. It could look something like this:
 |
| CONRAC refers to the consolidated Rent-a-Car Center |
 |
| Artist Rendering of the People Mover Station |
LA Metro is on the hook for the station (where our Measure R dollars go). Mayor Garcetti and others in City Government have asked that the Aviation/96th Station be state of the art and really worthy of the costs associated with the project. They want a fully encolsed station including: retail and convenience shops, WiFi, airline information boards, private vehicle drop off and taxi stands, ATM's, and even possibly currency exchange and luggage check in. All of this in LEED Silver Certified construction to make sure there is minimal environmental impact and that it is sustainably built.
Proposed dates for completion of construction at this point are, 2019 for the completion of the Aviation/96th Station, and 2020-2022 for the people mover to be completed and operational.
Is it worth it?
By 2022, LAWA estimates that 57% of travelers will arrive at LAX via private car, 33% by taxi, limo or shuttle, 8% by Flyaway, and 1-2% via buses and rail. Is is worth upwards of $1B to cater to 1-2% of all travelers at LAX? According to LAWA there were 66.6 million passengers that went through LAX in 2013. That means if that number doesn't change, a ridership of 660,000 - 1,330,000 for the people mover. Taking a million cars out of LAX every year seems pretty worth it to me!
So, in less than a decade we should correct a 60's era wrong. Garcetti likes it, do you?
Cheers,
TJ
PS - All of this movement to the airport is coupled with the MUCH NEEDED updates that are happening to the terminals themselves. Last year LAWA completed a $2.1 Billion update to the Tom Bradley International Terminal, LAX's busiest and most profitable terminal. Currently underway are updates as follows:
Terminal 1 - $508,000,000 - Southwest
Terminal 2 - $300,000,000
Terminal 3 - already partially done by Virgin America and Virgin Australia
Terminal 5 - $250,000,000 - Delta
Terminal 6 - Alaska has updated its part and United is in the process of updating its section
Terminals 7-8 - $400,000,000 - United
LAX is (hopefully) getting better and more efficient!
No comments:
Post a Comment