Alternate LAX Plan in the Works
By ANDY FIXMER
Staff Reporter
Unlikely allies have joined to develop an alternative plan to Mayor James Hahn’s controversial $9 billion modernization of Los Angeles International Airport.
A community-based group that had already elicited Hahn’s pledge to cap LAX passenger traffic at 78 million annually has joined a coalition of 80 airlines that lobbied to increase the airport’s capacity. Together, they are developing a plan they say can be implemented more quickly and for just $3 billion, one-third the cost of Hahn’s plan.
A first draft of the proposal by the airlines and the Alliance for a Regional Solution to Airport Congestion, dubbed the Westchester/Playa del Rey Community Plan Alternative E-1, was completed in October and is being refined. While no timeline has been set for a version to be finalized, the draft has been circulated among some Los Angeles City Council members and Hahn’s staff.
To be formally considered and reviewed, both Los Angeles World Airports, which operates LAX, Ontario, Van Nuys and Palmdale airports, and the mayor’s office would have to accept it. But the 120-day public comment period on Hahn’s plan (dubbed Plan D) closed on Nov. 7, and proponents of E-1 are not confident of getting a formal hearing.
“Hahn and his bunch don’t listen anyway they are going to do what they want regardless,” said Denny Schneider, ARSAC’s vice president. “I would like to work with our mayor and that’s why we have offered numerous times to meet with him in the last year and a half.”
By circulating the alternate plan informally to the City Council, which controls the purse strings for any revitalization effort, the groups are making a political play to force Hahn’s plan to be scaled back.
Shannon Murphy, a Hahn spokeswoman, declined to comment specifically about E-1 but said that the airport staff and consultants on the master plan were going through the comments on Plan D and would have a response to concerns raised.
Vast differences
The proposal being advanced by the airline/community coalition is far less ambitious than the one proposed by Hahn.
Hahn’s is the fourth plan offered during the last decade for renovating LAX. Plan A calls for building another runway on the north side of the airport; Plan B would build an additional runway on the south side of the airport; and Plan C, developed under former Mayor Richard Riordan, calls for a ring road that would connect a new terminal on the airport’s west side with the 405 Freeway and extend the Metro Green Line into LAX. Leaving LAX unaltered is another option.
While plans A, B and C are included in the environmental impact studies, the Hahn Administration and airport staff have taken them off the table.
After the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Hahn offered his “Safety and Security” Plan D, which entails demolishing the three northern terminals to make room for a safety taxiway between the north runways. The most controversial aspect calls for remote parking structures and a baggage and passenger screening station to be built on the site of the Manchester Square residential community, along with a “people mover” network with a Green Line connection.
It also calls for closing the Century Boulevard loop and demolishing the adjacent parking structures, which the administration has said would protect passengers from a car bomb or any other possible terrorist attack.
Neither the Transportation Safety Administration nor the Federal Aviation Administration has taken a position on the mayor’s proposal, according to the agencies’ spokesmen.
However, Nico Melendez, a TSA spokesman, discounted safety concerns as a reason to demolish existing parking.
“We have done a bomb blast damage assessment of parking structures at every airport, and in the cases where it would not impact the terminal or the passengers in the terminals those parking structures have been deemed safe,” said Melendez. He added that the structures at LAX had been found to pose no threat to the terminals.
E-1 would eliminate the Manchester Square component and the costly “people mover” system, retain the parking structures in the central terminal area and keep the terminals essentially intact. The plan, which proponents said would cost a third of Hahn’s proposal, calls for only minor runway adjustments and other minor airfield improvements.
Under the plan, only the southern runways would have a center taxiway to prevent runway incursions. Adding the taxiway, a runway safety feature, to the northern runways under Hahn’s proposal would have required the demolition of Terminals 1, 2 and 3.
Under the community/airline plan, both sets of runways would be updated and widened to handle the larger A380 jets that are expected to become standard issue with many commercial airlines.
Like Hahn’s plan, the E-1 alternative would also create a consolidated rental car facility, but shifts it to vacant land at the intersection of the Century (105) Freeway and Aviation Boulevard. The E-1 plan also keeps Hahn’s proposal for construction of a new maintenance facility and a new West Employee Parking garage.
“It looks very similar to the ‘no project’ plan,” said David Kissinger, Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski’s airport deputy. “There are subtle changes but they aren’t proposing to do a lot.”
Mutual complaints
Opposition to Hahn’s plan has been mounting over the past several months. Both the Economic Development Corp. of Los Angeles County and the Valley Industry and Commerce Association have both come out against major portions of the plan.
Community groups in the nearby Westchester area have also criticized the plan and a Rand Corp. study released in May raised questions about claims of increased safety under Plan D. Airlines, too, have expressed concerns about the billions of dollars they would have to shoulder under Hahn’s plan in addition to reconfiguring the terminals. However, United Airlines, which has the largest presence at LAX, has come out in support of the plan.
It is against that backdrop that the Alliance for a Regional Solution to Airport Congestion, formed to oppose expansion of LAX and to promote a regional solution to growing demand for air travel in Southern California, joined with the L.A. Airline Airport Affairs Committee, a coalition of about 80 airlines with operations at LAX.
ARSAC, which convinced Hahn to sign a pledge to honor the passenger cap when he was campaigning for mayor, as well as the airline group, had a series of meetings to draft the joint plan.
“When we sat down with the airlines, we found a lot of common ground,” said Schneider. “We haven’t finished all of our coordination efforts but we have an understanding of what it will look like.”
Schneider said ARSAC was funding the planning effort, which he said had only run into the hundreds of dollars.
The greatest concern raised by the community group is Hahn’s plan to level the Manchester Square neighborhood for a new ground transportation center. Airlines, though hungry for more capacity, fear higher landing fees and a decade-long loss of business resulting from the construction work.
“The airlines have come to understand a substantial expansion of LAX is not likely to happen at this point,” Kissinger said. “And they are now eager to work with the communities and officials to find something reasonable.”
Kelley Brown, executive director of the Airline Affairs Committee, said the industry is no longer pushing for greater passenger capacity, and instead has begun looking for an alternative to Hahn’s proposal.
“Historically, it hasn’t always been the case that we would work together like this,” he said. “We’ve been backing off (our demands) a little and trying to see what could be out there that could be supported by different stakeholders.”
Brown said that the Airline Affairs Committee, of which United is a member, hasn’t formally endorsed the plan. Still, he said airline executives have been working extensively with the group on the alternative proposal.
“We see ourselves in the early stages of trying to work with the community and others,” Brown said. “But this is a much more favorable approach from the airline industry’s point of view.”
Staff Reporter Howard Fine contributed to this article.
