If you know the secondary roads and shortcuts, it's not bad. And I'd rather be picked up/dropped off curbside rather than schlepping onto a people-mover, then hop on a moving walkway to get to the terminal.

So hopefully this ITF gets built, so everyone else will use and open up traffic :D

Current thinking among city planners is that it's generally not worth the money to build main line rail transit all the way to the airport. Although we air travellers have a bias in that we think transportation to/from the airport is very important, current thinking is that this is really a minor issue that can be handled with a light rail spur. Yes, it is a bit inconvenient for air travellers but by far the transit system should be designed for people going about their daily business -- going to work, shopping, etc. That's by far the larger number of users.

That's why just about all rail transit to airports nowadays is not on the main line, but a spur, with the notable exception of BART to SFO.

The bullet train is a much bigger boondoggle than this. It won't ever connect Los Angeles and San Francisco IF it ever really gets built (and most likely will end up being the San Joaquin train to nowhere). It's just a pick-pocketing politicians dream come true (and some crumbs for the union bosses)...

How many decades have they been talking about just connecting the slow moving Green Line to LAX? Welcome to Los Angeles...

Simplicity works best in L.A...building on former rail lines...like the vast majority of the light rail lines...

The bullet train is already being build and it will connect to LA and SF because both regional rail network are being electrified.

Green line is a lot of things but it is definitely now slow moving :o It has its own right of way and is one of the fastest metro line in the US.

It's because it connects Nowhere to Nowhere... with nobody in between :D

Which is also not true :p

Green line averages 42,000 boardings on a weekday so it's definitely not "nobody"

Green line connects to several extremely heavily used N-S bus lines on Hawthrone Blvd (40 & 740), Crenshaw Blvd (210 & 710), Vermont Ave (204 & 754), and Long Beach Blvd (60 & 760). Not to mention the Blue line and Silver line, which combined has over 100,000 average weekday boardings.

So yea... nowhere to nowhere with nobody... ;)

As you point out, a large number of users, probably invisible to most people on FT.

The problem is that "everyone" thinks it's "nobody" because "everyone" drives. LA is a huge place with a huge population and a large amount of that population doesn't have the means to own a vehicle. So, they take public transportation - primarily in the form of buses. Something that "everyone" wouldn't dare think of doing.

So much snobbery involved in public transportation planning. :td:

And just imagine if the Green Line had actually connected the populated parts of the South Bay, LAX, and the Norwalk Metrolink station.

The fact is that, the way the Green Line is set up now could have just as easily been accomplished by a bus line. Eliminate Green Line service, and it would have little effect on the system.

So, is the Green Line actually raising ridership... or are the riders using the Green Line just because it just happens to be there?

(And don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of public transportation and even voted for the high speed rail measure. Even with that feather in my hat, I still feel the Green Line was a complete waste... maybe not complete, more like a 95% waste).

Population density in the green line service area is pretty high. It just so happens the area is ahem... very brown... so people just think there is "nothing" there. Connecting it to the "more populated" parts of South Bay would still leave the Eastern portion of the Green line in more populated area, by far. Connecting to Metrolink station in Norwalk would have been nice and should still be a goal but the connection to Blue line is much more important. Rail line is not necessary about the terminals, it is about the places it serves along the way. Green line is a relatively speaking, a very high performing rail line given that it is almost entirely in the middle of a freeway... but nonetheless, it plays an important role in the grid providing a fast east-west cross town ride in the south LA county.

And of course people are using the Green line because it is there... what kind of question is that? :confused: If you are saying people will change their commute method if there is no Green line, for sure... if there is no 405 freeway, people will change how they commute too.

I'm not sure how you can replace the Green line with a bus line... assuming average 100 boarding per bus, you'll need 420 extra bus a day to provide the same capacity. If you eliminate the Green line, basically you will add 42,000 cars to the 105 and 91 freeway... see how that works out :D

Will the taxis and cars be banned from the ring road? I can see having to go the the intermodal stop to pick up a cab, but it seems like dropoff could still happen at the terminals.

The Daily Breeze:

LAX access is going to get worse before it gets better
 

There's an article in the LA Times about the mess at LAX this holiday season. The short summary is that while there are a lot of plans to try to relieve things, it's going to get worse before it gets better, because loads will continue to increase and construction will disrupt things.

I flew out a couple days before the "official" start of the holiday season, on a Sunday night redeye, and getting into the airport was already a mess. I took the flyaway bus, which is usually pretty good about avoiding congestion - they don't have any stops between union station and the airport so they can take any route they want.

Apparently the first traffic light entering the airport had gone out earlier in the day and it caused backups all the way to the 105. Traffic was backed up for about a mile on the 105 at the Sepulveda north exit (google was suggesting to take the south exit and do a U turn), so it took about 40 minutes to get from 1 mile before the Sepulveda ramp to Terminal 1. If I hadn't gotten off the bus and walked across the top of the U I probably would have missed my flight. I could have walked from the 105 faster than the bus.

Later in the week was worse, with rain cancelling and delaying a lot of flights (and no doubt making traffic worse) and a couple incidents with unattended packages.

Some of the fixes that they're planning will help inside the U, like having all buses and transit drop off at Lot C and have a train, but access to there is still limited by the Sepulveda tunnel and traffic on Century. The layout of surface streets makes it difficult to get to the transit center without either going through the tunnel or spending at least a short time on Century. It seems like some sort of transit hub south of the tunnel (or east of the 405) with a dedicated train to the airport could make a big difference in the traffic load trying to get off at Sepulveda, which is probably going to continue to get worse, even with all the changes.

You linked a wrong article.

I tried finding it online, but couldn't.

Here's one from the Daily Breeze:

I believe this is the LA times article that chrisl137 was attempting to link to.

Thanks. I saw it in the print edition a couple of hours after I posted the link to the Daily Breeze article.

Here's an excerpt: