A progress report on the current LAX airport improvement program is scheduled on Tuesday, April 28, at 10 a.m. at the Flight Path Museum in the LAX Imperial Terminal, 6661 W. Imperial Hwy., Los Angeles. Tim Ihle of the Los Angeles World Airports development staff will provide a status update on upgrades to airline passenger facilities, ground transportation and other major construction projects underway or planned at the airport.

Forty years ago LAX was supposed to have a train called the MTA Green Line access the airport.  It stopped a couple miles short and people take a connecting bus from the nearest station at Imperial and Aviation.  That lapse has been the butt of jokes for almost 40 years.   Our current elected officials have stated we will not fail this time.

For several decades my wife, Nan, when asked if a connection would be made to LAX, would quip, “Of course, and it will look just like a great big blue bus.”  In the last decade voters authorized a $100M bond to extend the train.  Surely it would happen soon, right?  Well, not quite…

The Crenshaw-LAX MTA line is authorized and is in construction; it doesn’t go into LAX.   Strike one…

Los Angeles World Airports proposed then a new, innovative concept station, intermodal transport, and check in facility near its Lot C adjacent to LAX.  This station provides potential for train expansion along Sepulveda or Lincoln into the Westside.   Surely this would finally meet the elusive objective.   This, however, required a detour of the Crenshaw-LAX line that required more money than in current budget.  Strike two…

MTA Board countered and since approved a new Crenshaw-LAX station at 96th/Aviation from which LAWA could then be responsible to build an extensive people mover into the Central Terminal Area.

But will this work out?  Timing to connect the two projects is questionable.  LAWA tells us that an automated people mover (APM) takes seven to nine years from conceptual planning to operation.  The MTA station is scheduled for completion in 2022 when this line goes operational.  To meet that schedule requires LAWA to start now.  LAWA is nowhere near planning the APM which would have to support an unapproved Consolidated Rental Car facility or the incomplete plans for the Central Terminal Area.

Nan was right so very often…    OK folks, prove her wrong, please!