Originally Posted by
chrisl137
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 certainly won't claim to be an architect, but I pictured the tracks being supported by an archway over the road/garages that then joined the roof support of the terminal buildings and was also capable of providing additional support to the new stations that would have sat over a spot between each of the terminals instead of over the garage structure. The stations would have been split into airside/landside so the same trains would have airside and landside cars to move people between the terminals, thus allowing flexible gate assignments. Had they started the project 10 years earlier, as they should have given the modernization and capacity increases needed by the airport, it wouldn't have been such a disruptive issue, and would have already been finished.
Also, instead of trying to destroy ONT, they could have leveraged ONT/BUR/LGB to shift some of the domestic O/D air traffic away from LAX to reduce capacity needs during the construction phase and incentivize some of the traffic to alternate airports.
But, of course it's LAWA we're dealing with, so <shoulder shrug>