Originally Posted by
bocastephen
The almost unfathomable incompetence with LA airport management ignoring the need for upgrades over so many years, decades, then trying to slam a band-aid project through just because of the Olympics, and lacking any innovative ideas, flies to Miami to take the blueprints for their multi-modal shared facility and high speed people mover system, to copy an almost identical implementation in LA.
They needed an over-cap built across all the terminal buildings to link them by the people mover, and have the cars setup so carry-on baggage customers could check in online, go to the multi-model center to do a kiosk check-in, clear security and board a secure airside car to their terminal assignment, while those needing to check bags or agent services would take the unsecure train cars and go downstairs to the counters for service. The now fully connected terminals could then use flex gate assignments to spread flights around the terminals and better utilize the gate space currently available before building more terminals.
Yes, that would have taken more innovation, more time, more money spent, but with better results, more longevity for the airport, better resource utilization and the putting off future upgrade which may never be needed for decades to come.
That would have essentially required completely rebuilding 8 or 9 terminal cores (depending on if you wanted to include T8) - all the concrete you see supporting the people mover guideway would have to drop down through the terminals or be doubled in front of and behind to let the supports span them and would have been far more disruptive for far longer. If you really want to consolidate things, the best thing to do once the people mover is done would probably be to knock down all the CTA parking, build a new consolidated headhouse underneath the people mover, and then make the airside alleys longer inward. No more horseshoe. But good luck with getting rid of that many parking spaces. And you'd probably need to add a couple more people movers going to points farther out where you can gather people to ship them into the airport.
I don't know how much time you spend at LAX these days, but why would you want a kiosk to check in if you're just with a carry on? I haven't used a kiosk in years at any airport. I check in on my phone before I get to the airport and prefer that there are 8 separate security checkpoints - it's rare for me to take longer than 5 minutes from the curb to airside (if it's even that long). Kiosks are for people who need to print bag tags. It's usually faster for me to park in the Economy lot and take the bus that gets to use the LAWA lanes than it is to park in the CTA because CTA traffic is so bad. Once the people mover is running, the timing should be even more predictable and reliably faster on average than parking in the CTA.
As a passenger I don't particularly want flex gate assignments, and I suspect the airlines don't, either. Knowing which terminal I'm going into makes all my preflight planning easier, and terminals being tied to airlines also limits how far you can get moved in a gate change. It also makes baggage transfers easier and faster for the airlines. Flex gates would also increase airside ground traffic significantly.
Originally Posted by
HkCaGu
The LAX horseshoe roadway problem isn't too many regular cars, but the volume of commercial vehicles from hotels, car rental companies, tour buses, LAWA buses, limo/taxi etc. I'm not sure when most of these vehicles are forced out of the loops the private traffic will overwhelm the loop.
The personal cars are as much of a problem as the commercial vehicles - the commercial vehicles are on average going to be more space efficient (passengers per square foot of pavement occupied) than personal vehicles that typically only carry one or two passengers who are coming into or leaving the airport. The LAWA buses are one of the most space efficient/high thorughput things going at LAX. They're generally large, rarely empty, and they don't have to fight traffic with personal vehicles once they're in the horseshoe. Dedicating those lanes and eliminating the crisscross traffic of personal vehicles and buses continually crossing multiple lanes and each other is one of the best things LAWA has done in the 25 years I've been using LAX.