skyfly58

lax traffic- when are less crowded times? Before 10am or after 10pm?

Colin

the LAX traffic piece is not the relevant factor, the correct worry is LA traffic which will be non-existent after 10pm

chrisl137

Flying in the morning I try to take flights that are no later than 9 am, because if it's later than 9 am the traffic to the airport will have increased enough that you need to leave at the same time as if you had a 9 am flight. But I have to to through downtown LA, so that's a lot of what causes the big increase.

It can be quite crowded at 10-11 pm - according the the LAX facebook page and various articles, peak traffic is 5 pm to 11pm, with Sunday particularly bad (people arriving home from weekend trips). Around the holidays it can be a nightmare til midnight or later- I've been stuck in traffic on the 105 with it taking an hour to get from the 105 to T1 at ~9pm a week before christmas.

And as Colin says, the LA part is at least as important as the LAX part - once you're in the horseshoe you can either walk (it's a short walk from T1 to T6/7/8 across the top of the U) or you can hop on a LAWA terminal connections bus that now cruises in a dedicated bus lane.

But LA traffic is far from non-existent after 10 pm, depending on where you are and where you're going. Around the holidays the traffic into LAX will be bad after 10pm, and various parts of LA can be congested at nearly any time of night (3 to 5 am is probably the best bet for low traffic)

skyfly58

thanks

bzcat

This question requires more info to answer. Are you arriving or departing? Which airline? And where are you going/coming from?

For example, if you are going red eye to East Coast, after 10 pm is busy... peak departure time at TBIT means if you are flying AA from T4, it will be busy. But if you are trying to catch the last Southwest flight, there is probably very little traffic in front of T1 departure.

But the traffic inside LAX is really not your biggest concern. Worry about traffic getting to LAX.

corky

It pretty much sucks all the time. Last month (before the offsite lot) I landed around 11:30 pm....it took my uber driver 45 minutes to make it over to AA and then when I got in, it took another 20 to make it to the exit. Total standstill. This was a thursday night--no holiday, no nothing.

TWA884

Traffic around the horseshoe has improved considerably since the implementation of LAX-it.

chrisl137

I've flown into LAX 4 times since the LAXit lot opened, and it's been consistently much faster to be in a vehicle out of the airport than before. It's been less than 20 minutes from the end of the jetway to being on my way every time. I missed the first 3-4 days of LAXit, which I think were the worst of it. The big test will be the sunday after thanksgiving.

Taker Park

I left TBIT at 2000H last night. It took me 45 minutes to get out of the airport, including shuttle buses rolling through red lights and hired cars driving behind passengers in the crosswalk in order to change lanes.

I can't wait until 2029 when this mess is supposed to be over.

chrisl137

Is that the latest estimate for the end of the world?

Given that two more terminals will get added, all the traffic mitigation could just leave us with many more people taking the same amount of time to get out of the airport.

bzcat

APM is schedule to open in 2023 so the current arrangement will last about 3.5 years if construction stays on time (should be... there is no land acquisition left so no more lawsuits to significantly delay this project).

As for traffic mitigation due to more terminals... I don't think it will have any big difference in passenger levels for the next 3.5 years. MSC North is opening in 2020 but mostly just reshuffling existing service so LAWA can give AA more T5 and TBIT gates. Not a whole lot of new service will be added.

Concourse 0 probably can't start construction until the current ride share lot moves to ITC West or ITC East with APM opening. So we don't have to worry about that adding new passengers to the mix before 2023.

MSC South and T9 are both planned after 2023 as well so by that time, the traffic pattern will be completely different.