LAX PLAN A DISASTER EXPANSION FAILS TO ADDRESS NEED FOR NEW FREEWAYS.

Byline: Lisa Mascaro Staff Writer

The master plan guiding the $11 billion renovation of LAX allows millions of additional airline passengers a year, but fails to provide more freeway lanes or significant mass-transit projects to handle the expected crush, according to documents and interviews.

Instead, the additional 6,000 vehicles projected to head in and out of Los Angeles International Airport during peak hours will have to make do with the existing freeway system, although two new interchanges will funnel cars straight to airport parking lots.

And while officials hope that additional FlyAway bus routes and a tram between the Green Line station and the LAX terminal will encourage more passengers to use those systems, experts are pessimistic about the future of the area's freeways.

``Essentially, the problem here is you have a very big airport that's going to get bigger. No matter how you cut it ... the area's congested and it's going to get more congested,'' said William Fulton, a senior scholar at the University of Southern California's School of Policy, Planning and Development.

Officials with Los Angeles World Airports, the city's airport department, had considered loftier traffic goals during the decade-long process of drafting the $130 million master plan.

But big ideas for change - like the new LAX Expressway that would parallel the San Diego Freeway - would result in substantially more airline passengers, and were defeated by community opposition.

City Councilman Cindy Miscikowski, who brokered the so-called consensus version of the $11 billion plan - which is backed by Mayor James Hahn and was initially approved last month by the City Council - said the new ``people-mover'' tram to the Green Line will help.

But she said unless Angelenos get out of their cars, there's little that can be done to resolve the growing problem of gridlock on the San Diego Freeway.

``Until we all change our habits, our road system will look like our road system. That's going to be the change that has to occur. We've got to stop thinking of our cars as the only way to get us every place.''

Hahn said he was satisfied that the transportation improvements will handle the growth while helping the flow of traffic.

The San Diego Freeway is already a nightmare commute for much of the day. Even after all the projects in the plan are completed in 2015, passenger volume can be expected to keep rush-hour freeway speeds at 27 mph, officials said.

The state Department of Transportation has long-term plans to build car-pool lanes on the 405 from the San Fernando Valley to the South Bay, and the LAX master plan factors those improvements into traffic projections.

But the master plan that goes to the City Council for final approval next month allows a maximum of 78 million passengers annually - 10 million to 15 million more than today - adding thousands of drivers to streets and freeways around the area.

One comparison says that's 200,000 airport passengers a day in 2015 - as many as are seen now on Thanksgiving Eve, the busiest travel day of the year.

Hahn and Miscikowski's strategy for handling that crush is to keep motorists on the freeways as long as possible to avoid clogging local streets and neighborhoods.

It therefore calls for an interchange to be built at the 405 Freeway at Lennox Boulevard, and for new ramps at the 105 Freeway between La Cienega and Aviation boulevards.

Each would carry motorists directly to the airport's parking areas.

The plan also calls for more FlyAway bus terminals across the region, including another one in the San Fernando Valley and at Union Station, as well as beefed-up bus service.

Dozens of local streets around the airport would be widened, signals synchronized and turn lanes built.

LAWA officials say they purposely didn't count on ambitious plans for a maglev train or Green Line extension - a project Councilman Tom LaBonge wants to study - because they wanted to provide a conservative look at future conditions.

But questions remain about how to pay for even these improvements.

City officials have said master plan improvements won't cost city taxpayers any money, and LAWA agrees it can fund transportation improvements with airport revenues - such as fees it collects on leases, concession stands and passenger charges.

But LAWA officials say they also could try to seek grants, pitting the airport against projects from across Los Angeles County in the competition for transportation funds.

Regional agencies such as the Southern California Association of Governments and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority have both raised questions about funding in their comments on the master plan.

``Obviously, it's something that's important as the plan develops and is important to discuss,'' said Brad McAllester, the MTA's deputy executive officer for long-range planning.

``There are always limited dollars. There's always more need than dollars,'' he said. ``These questions are important to raise now, and important for us to track as we go through the process.''

It's also unclear how the promised transportation improvements will go forward after the City Council ``yellow-lighted'' major aspects of the plan in the face of community opposition.

For example, the controversial off-site check-in facility at Manchester Square was taken off the board for study, and it's uncertain if the promised freeway interchanges leading to the area would be altered.

City officials and master plan supporters say it's too early to know the answers to many of the planning and financial questions, since the master plan is merely a blueprint and more detailed studies will follow.

And they note that the master plan requires improvements that wouldn't have been mandated otherwise.

But opponents say such uncertainties bolster their claim that the plan is flawed.

``What they're saying is, trust us,'' said Ruth Galanter, a former City Council member who represented the LAX area.

``It's going to wind up costing you and me money, whichever way it goes.

``When they're saying they're going to pay for these things out of revenue, what are they talking about? They're talking about what it's going to cost to park your car at the airport. They're talking about the cost of buying a sandwich at the airport.''

Fulton, the USC professor, said it will take a gigantic - and coordinated - civic effort to be able to do more than what's on the table.

``If you could back up, and look at that, and say, hmm, what kind of opportunity can it create? ... But that's not what the system is set up to have you do. ... The truth is, that's too much trouble for most people if you're narrowly focused on one thing.

``True city-building is too much trouble, so it gets done incrementally and remedially.''

Lisa Mascaro, [phone]

lisa.mascaro(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

photo, map

Photo:

As the number of people using LAX grows, auto traffic is expected to get worse. One strategy to ease future congestion is to add freeway ramps that will take cars directly to parking areas.

Michael Owen Baker/Staff Photographer

Map:

LAX TRAFFIC

SOURCE: Los Angeles World Airports

Gregg Miller/Staff Artist