Proposed LAX people mover could finally link region by rail.

Los Angeles International Airport could finally be hooked up to many parts of Southern California by rail if a "people mover" proposal--part of the airport modernization plan--gets approved later this year.

But like so much of the LAX modernization saga, the ride is certain to be circuitous.

In the proposal drafted by L.A. Mayor James Hahn and Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski, passengers of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's Green Line would take a moving walkway across Imperial Highway into an intermodal transportation center and then board an elevated light rail people mover for the trip to the airport.

Miscikowski maintains that the people mover, estimated to cost $100 million, is a step toward relieving nearby freeways and streets of airport-related traffic. "We would do tremendously good things for air pollution and traffic congestion" she said. "We'd have better control of the delivery of people so they don't all have to come in on a four-wheel vehicle."

Predictably, there are critics.

"The first rule of mass transit is, "Transferring discourages use,'" said Dana Gabbard, executive secretary of Southern California Transit Advocates, a non-profit community organization, who called the ITC a "Band-Aid" approach.

"With this thing, you have to wait in line to get processed, get on the 'people mover' to the terminal, then walk to the gate," he said. "Somebody will look at that and say, 'Well, hell, I might as well drive to the airport."

Political turf war

For many, it's also a painful reminder of the bickering between the MTA and airport officials about extending the Green Line to LAX in the first place. Mass transit advocates said the decision in the early 1990s to stop service at Imperial Highway and Aviation Boulevard symbolized the ambivalence of Angelenos about getting out of their cars--even if it meant avoiding congested freeways.

"There was this big issue of a huge political turf war between L.A. World Airports and the MTA," said Kenneth Alpern, co-chairman of Friends of the Green Line and president of the Transit Coalition, a non-profit organization focused on mass transit in L.A. "It's gone through a long evolution. There were a lot of different agendas and a lot of urban legends."

At this point, the betting is that the City Council will sign off on Miscikowski's modified version of Hahn's airport plan later this year. That includes construction of a car rental complex, as well as the intermodal center and people mover, but not the mayor's more controversial proposals, including a check-in facility at Manchester Square and the tearing down of three airport terminals.

"The ITC is a connection to the Green Line and the L.A. mass transit system," said Kelley Brown, executive director of the L.A. Airline Airport Affairs Committee, which represents 80 airlines. "It's a way for people to access the airport and the airlines are fine with that."

Under the Hahn-Miscikowski plan, the ITC and people mover would be included in the specific plan submitted to the City Council this fall. The plan would also need to be approved by the Federal Aviation Administration. Construction of projects in the first phase is slated for early next year.

From the ITC, passengers would take the elevated people mover to the central terminal. Traveling north above Aviation Boulevard, then west, the people mover would make one stop at the consolidated rental car facility, from which more passengers would be picked up. The people mover would drop off passengers at each terminal in much the same way shuttle buses do now.

There are many unanswered questions about the system, including whether passengers will be able to check in and go through security at the intermodal center, the time it will take to get to the airport, even the details of the covered walkway that would connect the Green Line and the ITC.

"It hasn't received a lot of analysis just because the other issues have received such greater analysis," said Miscikowski. "Even in the 'green lighted' projects, it's not, 'Go forth and build. It's go forth and do the analysis with stakeholders with whatever environmental specific reviews are needed."

Evacuation concerns

Another question is safety and security. L.A. City Councilman Bernard Parks, who has proposed his own LAX Master Plan, cited Rand Corp.'s eight-page security analysis of Hahn's proposal. The report concluded the people mover would be difficult to evacuate in the event of an attack. "Molotov cocktails" or biological weapons could be used to disable the people mover at any point along its two-mile route, the study said.

"There's nothing to stop somebody from taking a truck bomb and driving it into a pylon," said Denny Schneider, vice president of the Alliance for a Regional Solution to Airport Congestion, who has aligned with Parks. "This is a stationary target. The people mover moves, but the tracks don't."

Miscikowski said that her current proposal differs from what Rand analyzed in its study last year because not everyone would have to ride the people mover.

"We have now asked Rand to be a part of the planning process for each leg or each element of this plan, both overall and individually," she said.

Under Parks' proposal, which eliminates the Manchester Square project entirely, the Green Line itself would be extended to the north and drop off passengers at a transportation center northwest of the intersection of Aviation and Century boulevards. From there, passengers would take shuttle buses to airport terminals.

That would bode well for Schneider's community group, which wants the Green Line to continue north and veer right through Inglewood along a right-of-way and former cargo rail line that continues into downtown L.A.

The idea for an intermodal terminal is not new. Every alternative plan for modernizing LAX has included a facility that would connect with the Green Line.

The first three alternatives extended the Green Line just south of LAX. Those plans called for the Green Line to drop off passengers at a facility in the southwest corner of LAX, said Nancy Castles, an airport spokeswoman. At that time, airport plans included a new Western terminal, but with the elimination of that proposal, extending the Green Line was less critical to the LAX Master Plan.

Alpern, who said he is working with Miscikowski on the people mover, wants the City Council to also approve plans to carve out a trench on the west side of Aviation, where the MTA has a right-of-way line. A Green Line train would travel north, but lowered in the trench so its wires would not interfere with airport communications--the goal being that someday, with funding and political support, the line could travel further north or possibly to Union Station.

"That's why we're doing this," he said. "Some day we want to see the Green Line revisited."