number_6

LAX had a great plan for fixing all of that -- with construction complete by 2010! This included tearing down T1-2-3, moving the parking garage out by the freeway, and using the area of the parking garage as a single airside terminal (feeding the existing plane concourses of TBIT-T4-5-6-7-8 with minor changes). Their was to be sterile light rail connecting to the landside facility to be built near 405, including a rental car center and heavy rail connection to LA downtown and maybe San Diego. The neighbouring cities sued (LAX is owned by the city of Los Angeles but most of the land around it is not part of LA but separate political entities). Settlement was to never build such a nice airport again, tear down 20% of the approved jetways in order to limit airline flights, pay hundreds of millions to householders near the airport, and lots of other terms.

So LAX is heavily tied in what it can do. Most of the logical expansions are prohibited by the agreement. Within the constrainst LAX has done a phenomenal job -- maybe the best of any airport in the world -- and I consider it to be one of the better airports in the world. But it's attempts to be better than SIN, HKG, MAD have been stymied by politics.

Mr. Roboto

Yes there was. I remember taking a SCRTD (predecessor to the MTA) bus from LAX to downtown in the 1970's, the fare was a little more than the ordinary city bus as it was an express line as opposed to a local line. I used to get off at the Los Angeles Hilton (now the Wilshire Grand Hotel). In those days the bus entered the airport and stopped at each terminal (2 through 7, there was no terminal 1 or TBIT then), unlike the present where you have to catch a shuttle to the bus center on the north side of 96th street, east of Sepulveda.

Los Angeles does not lack a direct downtown-airport connection, at least not for the last 4½ years, there's the LAX FlyAway, US$7.00 each way (20 miles/32 kms), which is a lot cheaper than other major US cities (it's less than ½ the fare of the IAH Metro Airport Direct bus which doesn't even operate 24 hours, unlike the FlyAway).

SoCal

There are also FlyAway busses between LAX and Westwood and between LAX and Van Nuys. We found the local busses, and the LAX "transit center" convenient when we stayed at an LAX hotel, and used it to get to LAX and to Westwood. Cheaper than the FlyAway (but we were not carrying luggage on those trips). '

Remember when Ontario Airport was built, in part to ease congestion at LAX? ONT has lost airlines, and overall passenger numbers, and is financially struggling, according to a recent LA Times report. No rail connection to it, either (there are Metrolink train stations 4-5 miles away, as I recall). Nor to Orange County Airport, right? In fact, I think the small Burbank Airport (Bob Hope Airport) is the area airport with the closest rail connection (just a short distance from the terminal-- there's a shuttle bus but one could walk easily--albeit a Metrolink commuter rail, with fewer trips than regular light rail or subway).