DONT MISS! The 100,000 points question!
The planned east intermodal facility at LAX will connect an automatic people mover with a new light rail link. (Image: Los Angeles World Airports)
Departing passengers coming into Los Angeles International Airport too often ride into a traffic nightmare as they try to get to their terminals. Los Angeles World Airports – the agency that operates LAX – has big plans to make that better, and it just came out with some renderings of what the “new” LAX might look like after it implements its years-long overhaul of intra-airport transportation.
“Today, regardless of transportation mode, passengers, employees and visitors face uncertain travel times, congestion and overcrowding to and from LAX. Approximately 63 percent of all departing air passengers used private vehicles, taxis, limousines, or Transportation Network Companies (TNCs) such as Uber or Lyft to get to LAX in 2015; this percentage is even greater for those departing passengers who are residents. During peak periods, over 6,000 vehicles enter the airport on an hourly basis,” the agency said in its new Draft Environmental Impact Report for LAX’s Landside Access Modernization Program.
New walkways will link people-mover stops with the adjacent passenger terminals. (Image: Los Angeles World Airports)
You can see the full report here, as a .pdf file – but keep in mind it is really long. Basically, LAWA’s plan aims to bring more people to the airport via mass transportation, and get them to their terminals on a new Automated People Mover (APM) system that will run up through the middle of the central terminal area, with the APM stops linked to the terminals on either side by new pedestrian passageways.
Here’s a map of the people-mover route through the central terminal area. Dark yellow lines are new pedestrian walkways linking the people mover stops to terminals. (Image: Los Angeles World Airports)
The APM line will originate on the east side of the airport at a new consolidated car rental center – which will also take the many rental car shuttles off airport roadways. It will be linked to an intermodal transportation facility on the east side of the airport for passengers connecting to or from a new light rail line that will be part of the city’s mass transit system; and another one closer to the terminals for bus connections.
Don’t get too excited yet; all of this construction will take several years. But the airport is well into the planning stages for improving passenger access to LAX terminals, many of which are getting their own massive upgrades. Keep scrolling down to see more renderings:
An automated people-mover station with LAX’s iconic theme building in the background. (Image: Los Angeles World Airports)
DONT MISS! The 100,000 points question!
The plan calls for terminals to get new facades as well. (Image: Los Angeles World Airports)
The west intermodal facility will let passengers connect with bus lines. (Image: Los Angeles World Airports)
This map of the east side of LAX shows the planned consolidated rental car center (CONRAC), intermodal facility (ITF East), light rail line running top to bottom and people mover running right to left. (Image: Los Angeles World Airports)
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