EDITORIAL : THINKING SMALL; LAX OFFICIALS STILL FAIL TO GRASP THE CONCEPT OF REGIONAL GROWTH.

EACH year the rush to get out of town for the Thanksgiving weekend begins earlier and earlier. This year, the heavy traveling began Tuesday evening. And for those heading to Los Angeles International Airport from the San Fernando Valley that night, it meant inching their way along the San Diego Freeway.

And that was at 9 p.m.

Imagine what the commute to the airport will be like in a decade or so if L.A.'s power elite and the airlines get away with massive expansion of the airport to more or less double the number of passenger and cargo traffic moving through the already-jammed airport corridor.

For more than a year, LAX officials have configured and reconfigured plans to add more landing strips and gates at the airport to handle more than 98 million passengers and 4.2 million tons of cargo annually. Last year, 60 million travelers caught flights at LAX and 2.1 million tons of cargo were shipped through it.

Last week, Jack Driscoll, the head of the semi-independent airport department that runs the city-owned LAX, announced yet another plan. It is more accommodating to residents living in the nearby communities of Westchester, Playa del Rey, Inglewood and, most of all, El Segundo. Driscoll also said the latest alternative is intended to reduce noise and traffic.

However, the ``master plan'' fails to reduce the expected growth in passenger and cargo load by calling on the city to build another major regional airport on property it owns in Palmdale, nor does it encourage the airlines to route more flights to the city-owned Ontario International Airport, and it does not promote the transformation of the former El Toro Marine Corps base in Orange County into an international airport.

Any plan that encourages greatly expanded use of LAX could only make life in the city worse. The latest one merely reconfirms that airport officials are thinking small.

There could be as many plans for LAX as there are flights every day, but in the end there will be too many planes, too much jet noise and jet fumes, and too many cars and trucks making more noise and spewing more fumes in such a concentrated area.

The way the city is trying to force the airport expansion issue ahead with little vision for the longer term is symbolic of what is wrong with the growth machine that built Los Angeles.

The latest airport alternative doesn't do any more to face the realities of a livable city.

It will not benefit Los Angeles to make a parking lot of the 405 Freeway and slums of the Westchester and Playa del Rey areas. A larger LAX won't make us a better city.

Airport officials are thinking small when they should be thinking big. The 20-year plan should be a 50-year plan. What's going to happen in 20 years when the airport is at capacity again, and there is no room to expand it?

Growth patterns suggest that more people will be moving north and west to created communities like Newhall Ranch near Santa Clarita and Ahmanson Ranch in Ventura County. Moreover, by 2025, California will be the fastest-growing state in the nation, and home to a full 15 percent of the country's population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

It would be extremely shortsighted to ignore those facts.

Councilwoman Ruth Galanter, whose district includes LAX and its surrounding neighborhoods, sees what's happening. She has worked hard to get airport executives to consider a regional approach, but thus far it has not had a lasting effect.

What is needed is comprehensive, regionwide planning for airports throughout Southern California. The economic benefits of increased air traffic are vital to the continued health of the region, but there is no virtue in concentrating the growth at LAX.

Quality-of-life issues are even more important to the region's economic health.

That ought to be obvious to L.A.'s power elite, which pays so much lip service to environmental concerns while remaining so willing to cash in on growth-machine economics that no longer make good business sense, no longer are good for the people of Los Angeles.

We urge city leaders to balance the interests of the community against those of airlines and truckers, and think big for a greater L.A.