Everyone acknowledges that Los Angeles International Airport is an important economic engine in severe need of upgrades. It inadequately serves visitors and tourists, and is in disrepair.
Members of my group, the Alliance for a Regional Solution to Airport Congestion, which is made up of local residents and businesses, also are frustrated by the snail’s pace of LAX modernization. So why is the Specific Plan Amendment Study to guide LAX’s future controversial when the need to fix it is universally understood? The answer in three words: north runway movement.
In their op-ed in last week’s Business Journal (“LAX Can’t Get Off the Ground”), Christopher Thornberg and Dustin Schrader wrote that NIMBYs were holding up progress at the airport. I object to that characterization. We’ve provided numerous positive improvements for LAX safety and passenger service while limiting impacts.
It’s the stubbornness of those who insist on unnecessarily moving the airport’s north runway closer to our neighborhood that’s causing delay. These runway demands are what have slowed the design and approval process to a crawl for the past five years.
Finally, in 2010, Los Angeles World Airports hired six world-renowned airport planning and runway safety academics to work with NASA to tackle the runway question once and for all. The professors concluded that the north runway complex operates so safely as is that even a 55 percent improvement in ground safety – which Thornberg and Schrader say would result from moving the runway – would only be a nominal change in overall safety. This was supposed to break the logjam, but despite the comprehensive scrutiny, runway movement promoters now ignore these experts’ pronouncement that runway movement is unnecessary.
Larger aircraft
Those promoting runway movement say the special ground movement needs of new larger aircraft such as the Airbus A-380 contribute to a safety problem. Their solution: move the north runway, increasing the separation between runways and adding a midline taxiway. Their approach is very expensive, and there are much less impactful ways to address this very small percentage of aircraft. It’s like using a sledge hammer to pound a finishing nail.
Moving north is fraught with construction uncertainties. Complicating factors include three outfall sewers too big to be rerouted, hot oil lines and other utilities. Two major highways, Lincoln and Sepulveda boulevards, would need below-grade diversion. The existing 740-foot tunnel under the runways would have to be removed entirely. The Argo Ditch flood channel would have to be reconfigured, exacerbating underground water flow and sinkhole issues.
There is an answer. The Specific Amendment Plan has what’s called Alternative 2, and that should be designated by the City Council as the preferred course. Alternative 2 meets LAWA’s stated goals and benefits all stakeholders without moving the north runway. Instead, it would extend the length of the inner runway and add major safety improvements to substandard taxiways.
Alternative 2 is the environmentally superior alternative, enjoys best aircraft ground movement efficiency, has the lowest cost, minimizes construction delay risks and is least impacting on surrounding communities.
Now the facts are out. Fix LAX now!
Denny Schneider is president of the Alliance for a Regional Solution to Airport Congestion.
