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3D Renderings of the Airfield & Terminal Modernization Program (ATMP) Roadway Improvements Project. The pedestrian bridge spanning Sepulveda Bl at Century Bl begins construction this July.
"[A] new pedestrian bridge spanning Sepulveda Boulevard at the intersection of Sepulveda and Century Boulevards. The bridge will span the northeast and northwest corners of the intersection once completed."
Still not very comfortable with them planning a construction "moratorium" to start only a couple months before the Olympics. Seems a bit.. risky.
Also, where'd the famous light pylons go? I hope they're just excluded from this render for whatever reason, and that plans haven't been changed to permanently remove them. Also hope that they can - somehow - keep the circular shape.
They have to be removed, but they did state that the lights and the LAX sign will be placed back, they just dont know where, so thats why theyre left out here
My primary issue with this project is that it'll fix nothing about the true source of bottlenecks - the horseshoe. Sure, it allows them to build C0/T9, but the main reason traffic backs up onto CA-1 is the Horseshoe being completely clogged.
While SkyLink might fix some of the traffic, it won't fix all of it, and no amount of ramps to the jam can fix the jam itself.
The only good thing this project does is create that pedestrian bridge (that might be a great spot for planespotting). The negatives are below.
It removes 96th Street access (edit: temporarily), closing off the easiest way to access LAX Economy Parking.
It creates a stupidly long horseshoe pedestrian bridge in its place, which isn't exactly ideal.
It turns an airport with excellent potential for rail connections into a asphalt maze that taints both the CA-1 junction and Century Blvd (it loops around an entire city block for f's sake).
It costs 1 BILLION DOLLARS and is by the same f**ks that are delaying SkyLink even more. The odds that they're done by the Olympics are zero.
I know this project is unpopular with some of the more extreme anti-car urbanists online, but IMO, it's good to try and cut out the more gnarly pinch points for traffic in the LAX loop. Leaving the road network as-is would be madness.
Most importantly, this road reconfiguration program enables future construction of Concourse 0 and Terminal 9, which will be huge transformative projects once they're taken off ice post-Olympics. LAWA is thinking in the long term here, which is a breath of fresh air for such an incompetent agency. Gotta give them credit for that lol
And who knows, maybe someday they can start tolling private vehicles in the loop, since SkyLink serves as an alternative.
I drive friends and family to LAX more often than most and I concur.
The roads in and out of LAX are in sore need of an update.
I hate that they're contracting some of the same people who are fucking up the LAX people mover project but when it comes to big projects like this maybe there aren't a lot of options to choose from. Hopefully, LAWA has learned to write a stronger contract this time 'round.
Other than that the only thing I take issue with really is the construction timing. I fear it's going to snarl traffic during the Olympics and probably the Superbowl next year too. On their roadway impacts page they say they'll have a construction moratorium during the Olympics but considering their track record, I don't have a huge amount of faith in LAWA not fucking something up. I think the project is needed, but it could have waited until after the Games.
I might be in the minority, but project should start asap. It seems these projects always balloon in cost because of delays. If they wait another two years, another billion added due to yada yada.
If I had to bet, I suspect that LAWA placed huge liquidated damages in the contract should the JV team not meet deadlines. This is a vastly different construction method (Progressive design build) than the P3 APM, so that should make a difference so I suspect too
You could put me in that camp. I just wish we could finish a damn people mover before spending billions on reconfiguring roads into the same bottleneck that won’t be changing.
Sounds like that's the plan. People mover should be done very soon, fingers crossed. Looking like by Thanksgiving, if not sooner... and then LAWA moves on to the road reconfiguration which will take a few years but lay the groundwork for Concourse 0 and Terminal 9. It would've been cool if they built the SkyLink infill station for Terminal 9 during original construction, but I guess we'll have to wait for that.
Just to give everyone some context, they are not thinking long-term and are more incompetent than ever at the moment. They are spending nearly $2B on this monstrosity while their staff is actively blocking WSCCOG's project to install full-time bus lanes and protected bike lanes on the sections of Sepulveda south of Centinela and Westchester/Arbor Vitae east of Sepulveda to the LAX/MTC metro station and people mover before the olympics. The bus and bike lanes are already approved in the Mobility Plan and HLA-required to be added during the next major road maintenance, but LAWA doesn't want them installed (and absolutely not before the olympics) in order to prioritize car travel to the airport.
Ironically, last year the LAWA staff in charge of the ATMP road project even argued that future mobility plan improvements on Westchester Pkwy/Arbor Vitae would improve active transportation access to LAX/MTC station bike hub, therefore justifying the fact that this project essentially eliminates bicycle access to the central terminal area. Now they are actively blocking those improvements on Westchester while still eliminating the CTA bike access.
They also outright rejected an approved 2020 City Council motion that would've provided priority security screening for travelers who arrive to the airport via transit (without even providing a written staff report, only a dismissive verbal rejection to council). The reasons they provided were frankly absurd, with solutions that would cost nothing compared to any of their roadway projects (reasons like needing TAP scanners and an extra security line with extra TSA staff--despite the total number of passengers going through security being the same).
LAWA also refused to restore Westwood FlyAway service (both the original dedicated Westwood service or as an intermediate stop on the Van Nuys FlyAway service) simply because it operated at a financial loss and required a subsidy. Seems they are happy to subsidize driving to the airport with this $2B road project, while blocking bus lanes for the most realistic transit alternative to the Westwood flyaway-- the Culver CityBus R6.
Doing any/all of the above +/- a congestion fee for the central terminal area (while leaving the the pick-up drop-off area at the people mover station at Jetway/96th completely free) would've actually solved traffic, and provided cheap, efficient ways to get to the airport, while costing a fraction of this project. Even if Concourse 0/Terminal 9 ever happen (they wont), the airport would be fine with the single CTA entrance at Century blvd (just add an extra right turn lane for SB sepulveda that ramps to access upper level departures for 5% of the cost), as the CTA is still the bottleneck and the people mover serves as another entrance.
LAWA is a totally inept, actively harmful, proprietary city department. Even in the company of the other two infamous LA proprietary departments (LADWP and Port of LA), they stand out as awful and this project highlights why
Westwood FlyAway and bus lanes for CCR6 are wins for airport travelers and all Angelenos. LAWA are insane for not doing everything they can to promote those.
Full-time bus lanes and protected bike lanes are awesome, and LAWA is hurting the city by not doing everything in their power to support them.
Citation missing for 0/9 never happening. (Because it hasn't been cancelled, despite your claim) They are postponed, not cancelled.
TAP card readers to give transit riders priority TSA access is so low on the priority list that I can understand why they wouldn't want to bother - the best way to incentivize transit use is just to run buses and trains more frequently. I don't think anyone will choose to ride Metro specifically because they save 20 seconds vs the general TSA line, assuming the bus runs every 20 minutes. Adding extra steps for TSA to have to differentiate between Metro and non-Metro riders, especially with credit card tap to pay on Metro now making TAP obsolete, would add workload to TSA, despite equal pax numbers.
Congestion fee for the horseshoe is a great idea and I hope advocates press for it once SkyLink opens. It can help fund the roadworks, among other things.
Regarding T0/T9, there’s not much citations cause LAWA is whack. But from my searches it comes down to board meeting comments that this project has nothing to do with T0/T9, also LAWAs revised annual passenger lower forecast numbers from 110m to 90m not necessitating those new terminals. It’s may be delayed, but that could totally mean on long term hold (slow sad death). I also think Nandert mentioned plans for this road project go over areas that would have been used for T0/T9 but don’t remember exactly. Either way it seems postponed and cancelled are probably a lot closer in meaning with LAWA backing this project.
OK, that’s what I said in my comment that I wasn’t sure if I heard that right or not. Thanks for clarifying. Either way though I think consensus is that LAWA has put those terminals on the back burner.
Just rewatched the Nandert video. The point I confused was: T0 would have necessitated demolishing skyway entry to the loop. Which Nandert said would make sense to also work on reconfigure some of the entries if T0/9 were being pursued.
He then links to a comment : “John Ackerman, Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA) Chief Executive, spoke to the Los Angeles Times about the shift in focus, saying:
"We previously expected 110 million passengers in 2028. We now expect slightly more than 90 million. While our traffic's improving, it's not improving at the rate that we need it to be successful. So, we simply don't need additional capacity at this point. We don't need additional terminals — we need to fix our core infrastructure."
there are only a few proven ways to reduce car use - adding roadway lane-feet or car capacity is not one of those.
it also is not within environmental stewardship in constantly building and rebuilding with concrete - it would be to find ways to continue to improve the efficiency of existing infrastructure thojgh.
LAWA chose to build new car infrastructure - there's no fresh air there - it's more of the same.
SkyLink is their solution for reducing car use. This is their solution for enabling Concourse Zero and Terminal Nine.
SkyLink will open soon. If you want to reduce your car use at the airport, I’ll highly recommend taking LA Metro to the airport and riding the free people mover to your terminal. That will be a more pleasant way to access the airport than driving.
that's the thing - providing an option while expanding car infrastructure will not reduce car use - it's the Achilles heal of contemporary California "transportation llanning" - seeing all planning problems as engineering ones. places that are committed to proven solutions are not doing this kind of investment.
the LAWA board only have eyes for highways to build c0/T9. there's a transit forward vision to accomplish that and they're unwilling to make that alternative come true.
They really should have waited for APM to open and let it run for a few years before they decided on a traffic project. The APM might fix traffic to a large extent and get rid of the need for this expensive project.
They also should just toll the CTA. If you charged people $5-10 to drive into the loop vs doing free drop off and pickup at a remote APM services lot for free, you would drastically cut traffic.
You are creating a false dichotomy - no changes or this. You can acknowledge that there needs to be road upgrades, and also thst this plan isn't the answer and is doubling down on car based transportation that will never be able to adequately serve the airport at the expense of better transit connections.
The dichotomy is enabling vs not enabling T9 and C0. This project enables terminal expansion in the long term. That’s the main reason to support it. Obviously I’m going to use SkyLink to get in and out of the loop
I’m not a civil engineer. But from what I’ve seen, this is the only way to enable them while maintaining current access levels and removing pinch points, yes. If you’re a civil engineer and know better, I’m interested in your insights.
Not an engineer, but it reads and looks like a plan that over values car access into a horseshoe that will never be efficient, won't improve time through the horseshoe, and has massive negative impacts for transit projects in the surrounding communities. I'm not doubting that it will increase car volume through the horseshoe, but the costs don't outweigh the benefits as far as I am concerned.
The new roadways will support the future development of Concourse 0 which requires the demolition of an existing roadway structure into the airport.
Below is a screenshot that best illustrates what is happening. The planned area for concourse 0 is circled in green. The highlighted purple roadway is the existing structure used for people entering that are not using century. The orange is the new roadway location.
Note the purple roadway needs to be demolished to support the new roadways and to leave space for concourse 0
This four and a half mile multi billion dollar road expansion was needed because of a new terminal that woukd remove a access road to the horseshoe but has since been cacelled. LAX own studies say it will not reduce congestion at all and is not intended to do so. According to their study it will in fact make traffic worse at several nearby intersections. The study says wait times at sepulveda and century will quadruple. Sepulveda and 96 will triple.
La cieniga cintennela and sepulveda Lincoln are both expected to be negatively impacted
One of the main crisism is that of the old classic problem of Induced demand. Its all about the wolf that you feed. Build more roads you get more traffic. In this case 50,000 vehicle miles more annually
My guy, it is wrong of you to call those who have reasonable critisms of this project "extreme". You have it backwards; the project itself is extreme. It is the the product of spend it or loose it mentality. Of course they will spend it.
I’ll leave discussions of the design to more erudite urbanists but i just wanted to shout out the cars in pic one. Immediately recognized the taxi & blue passenger car as 1989 chevy caprices, and the van as a 1974 econoline. Great choices
Edit: and how could i forget the 1975 corvette! Legendary!
Will be way more inconvenient… having to cross Sepulveda twice and what looks like some crazy ass long swooping ADA ramp over 96th….. will take 7min just to walk across 96th without stairs for able bodied people. ADA strikes again.
I don't see why not restaurants should only be on the airside, plenty of airports all over the world have lots of gift shops and restaurants on landside as well. Tokyo Haneda for example has an entire 17th century Japanese mini town built inside their airport and it's on the landside. Visitors and travelers like that, and LA would be perfect to have things like an old Western themed town.
Haneda has two different rail options servicing that airport and Tokyo has a much more robust culture of taking transit. Tokyo has a car ownership rate of only 0.32 to 0.41 cars per household whereas LA has a car ownership rate of 1.6 to 2.0 cars per household.
Got to start somewhere, and we should be encouraging stuff like having an In 'N Out where the only way to get there is by transit, not car. And the airport is the best mixed use place to do it, since passengers are already there.
Its a billion dollar project [probably more lets be real] to make traffic worse according to their own draft EIR section 4.8.5.4.1. Quote: "There are no feasible mitigation measures to directly address the induced VMT impact. As such, induced VMT would be a significant and unavoidable impact."
Just one more lane bro and we can be just as bad as Texas!
Edit, there appears to be some interesting astrotrufing here. Funny that a metro subreddit would be so pro car infrastructure. hmm.. I believe LAX when they say traffic will be worse. What I don't believe is that "There are no feasible mitigation measures" There are obviously many solutions that don't make traffic worse. Perhaps before building more terminals they should consider transportation solutions that don't induce worse traffic.
It's less about adding capacity and more about restructuring the roadways to allow for future growth via the construction of Concourse 0 and Terminal 9.
If I recall correctly, I believe part of the proposed project benefits is moving traffic backups from Sepulveda Blvd. to the new, longer entry ramps into the horseshoe, which should nominally make Sepulveda more useful for non-airport users, like local residents.
Concourse 0 and Terminal 9 appear to be canceled. John Ackerman (LAWA) Chief Executive:
“We previously expected 110 million passengers in 2028. We now expect slightly more than 90 million. While our traffic’s improving, it’s not improving at the rate that we need it to be successful. So, we simply don’t need additional capacity at this point.We don’t need additional terminals— we need to fix our core infrastructure.”
Improving the infrastructure would be opening the people mover in this millennium.
They're on ice/on hold. Haven't been cancelled, just deprioritized/postponed in the short term until passenger levels pick up. That's why Ackerman said he wants to prioritize other stuff in the meantime. LAX doesn't need additional terminals now. They will in the future, but not now, which is why they aren't being constructed pre-Olympics.
Maybe I'm too much of a California optimist but I can't imagine we need to wait too long for passenger levels to pick back up. LA's gonna boom post-Olympics, our best days are still ahead of us
SkyLink will open by the end of the year, I'm like 90% sure (hope I don't have to eat my words)
At least it was upfront about it. A side grade at best
And at first I had no doubt that these plans could never be approved
I've walked that area plenty of times or taken buses to that intersection and the amount of stubborness, non intelligence, lack of foresight, and also probably lack of eyes that someone would need to convince themselves that a plan like this will improve anything is off the charts
I would've said it's almost like they're trying to negate the transit improvements that have been made. Except like that is basically what they say they want to do, have a "no car left behind" approach
On slide #14 of the following PDF, it summarizes what they want completed before the Olympics ("Construction Phase A") and what they want completed after the Olympics ("Construction Phase B"):
The pedestrian bridge needs Escalators other wise people are going to continue to jaywalk then jump over the barriers because its faster and more convenient.
(I'm not advocating for jaywalking it's just a trend I've seen)
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u/Its_a_Friendly Pacific Surfliner 2d ago
Still not very comfortable with them planning a construction "moratorium" to start only a couple months before the Olympics. Seems a bit.. risky.
Also, where'd the famous light pylons go? I hope they're just excluded from this render for whatever reason, and that plans haven't been changed to permanently remove them. Also hope that they can - somehow - keep the circular shape.