Eurynom0s

Please just kill me now: https://www.latimes.com/california/s...ckup-uber-lyft

And this source is what mentions taxis: https://skift.com/2019/10/03/lax-lea...ft-congestion/

Apparently the airport authority will be putting out more information tomorrow morning.

15 minutes just to ride back around to terminal 1. Then I'm sure it'll still take a solid 10-15 minutes for your driver to arrive. And then you're probably going to get stuck in gridlock exiting this parking lot.

I'll get to spend my long flight back from Boston getting to think about landing in this at 10:30 PM on Sunday 11/3, when I'm sure it'll still be an especially large cluster since everyone will still be getting used to this. I probably won't get home until solidly after midnight. 😭

jrl767

walk across Sepulveda to the Hyatt

Eurynom0s

I've done this, but it's really not great doing it all the way from Terminal 6. You still have a bit of a slog after you've already slogged your way through the parking lots in the middle of the loop. It was a better option from Terminal 3 in the VX days.

chrisl137

Yes, taxis too. This link that was posted in the LA subforum has a PDF that looks like it's from LAWA that lists a bunch of changes in the pickup spots, including the Terminal connection, Lot E parking, and Flyaway buses moving to the inside curb, and private pickups moving to the islands.

Right now at T7 it's easily a 30+ minute wait a lot of the time for your Uber/Lyft to come from their waiting area, and when it's busy you're lucky if cabs even make it that far.

With a consolidated Uber/Lyft pickup spot they'll probably be switching to a system like in PDX. There's a single queue for each brand of rideshare driver, and on your way to get in line you request the ride and get a code in the app. Then when you get to the front of the line you give that code to the first driver in line, they enter it into their phone and get your destination, and you drive away. I've used it a few times already at PDX and it's pretty smooth as long as they keep feeding cars into the pickup area. They tend to do them in batches there, so it can be a little uncertain where the front of the line of vehicles is, but it's pretty minor.

ETA: it's about a 5 minute walk at ground level from T6/7 across the parking lots to T1. I walk from T1 to T6/7 all the time when I'm on a parking shuttle or flyaway and there's traffic in the loop, and I used to walk back to Lot C because the buses were so infrequent. The 3rd level crossing in the parking garages is gone as of a few weeks ago, so you have to do the walk at ground level.

PaperGlider

With this change, they are going to need a wider sidewalk.

To keep the traffic moving, I wish LAWA would do better at shooing away the cars in the loop that are parked at white zones and waiting for arrivals. (They even have trouble stopping gridlock near the North side In and Out)

For most of my ins/outs from airports, I don't use Lyft/Uber/Taxis. Therefore, this change quite possibly helps me most of the time in and out of LAX.

However, this change is dreadful for people who arrive at LAX and then must shuttle to a Lyft zone or, the reverse, try to get to a departure on time by Lyfting to a shuttle zone

chrisl137

Uber/Lyft dropoffs will still be at the terminal curb on the upper level, only pickups move to the consolidated pickup point.

PaperGlider

Now, rideshare drivers can pick up a rider after dropping someone off without returning to the holding area/dispatch lot. Source: I saw it on my app. Last week driver was dropping someone off at T4 and then picked me up from T7.

chrisl137

Yeah, that's the one thing you lose. I've gotten lucky a few times and had a driver within a minute or two, but I've also had to wait 20-30 minutes at 11pm for a driver to get from the rideshare waiting lot to T7, and there were no cabs making it that far without picking up riders. I went down to the taxi stand while I was waiting and there were people standing around confused as to why no cabs were showing up.

It should improve time through the loop for other users, too. LAX has gone sort of full cycle since I moved here. 20+ years ago there were three shuttle companies (Supershuttle, Primetime, and a yellow one whose name I forget) plus a bunch of smaller independents. You went out to the island, gave your destination to a person there, and they flagged down the next shuttle headed your way. Some time in the late 90s/early 2000s the number of independents was clogging up the works so they limited it to the big 3 and they each had their own dispatcher at each terminal. Traffic in the loop was better, but rides sucked because they want to pick you up 4 hours before your flight and they take forever to get home with all the dropoffs. Then uber and lyft came in and for prices competitive with the shuttle gave you times consistent with a cab. And the traffic got out of control again, especially with the huge increase in number of passengers in that time (rideshare is 27% of the traffic in the loop according to one of the linked articles above), so parking shuttles can take 20 minutes to get from the dropoff at the end of T3 to the one at the end of TBIT (I've timed it watching them on the live map waiting for them). Taking away half the rideshare traffic (the pickups) will reduce traffic by ~13% literally overnight.

The net effect will be that on average you get rides and out of the airport faster, but with all your times closer to the average with no lucky 1 minute pickups and hopefully fewer 35 minute waits.

ETA: btw, LAX does better than any other airport I've been to about shooing personal vehicle drivers trying to wait at the curb. I've seen multiple police banging on someone's car to get them to move, and preparing to arrest the driver, where at other airports you can either just wait because they're not busy (DTW), or they have a weird multi-lane waiting area right at the terminal like the start of an auto race (SEA), or they're just slow about chasing people off.

(also to add: the slow decline of Lot C also made traffic worse. Instead of 50 people parked off airport coming in together on a bus, they all started coming in rideshare because you couldn't count on getting economy parking anymore, and the price of a rideshare is competitive with a few days in the private lots)

beckoa

All this talk of In and Out is making me hungry.

Did see this posted elsewhere, and it sounds like quite the cluster unfortunately. Walking to the new p/u area sounds like the best plan for now. Until more details are released in the morning that is...

isaac.chambers

So how is Uber and Lyft not a taxi company then??? Sure acts and smells like a taxi company.....but we are a tech company??? anyway...glad they are doing something about it....SFO switched to the central garages and actually is a lot more civilized....

chrisl137

I'd call them taxis, but somehow they're different. Traffic at LAX has been so bad that I think it will be a speed improvement for everybody (on average).

Often1

Just adopt the PDX numbering system. It is fast & efficient.

Hand wringing now about ride share vs. taxi is 5 years in the past and not worth a second's thought.

jaguar

Not looking forward to the changeover.

NoLaGent

Yeah, I think for the immediate future I'll just take the Hyatt or the Sheraton shuttle on arrival and Lyft out of there.

be_rettSEA

This is going to make LAX more hellish than it is already (at least for those of us using ride shares). If I'm going to have to take a shuttle now anyway, I'll probably drive myself and park in the economy lot / one of the other private lots nearby. Or will take a hotel shuttle and request a car from there.