In an effort to improve traffic flow coming into and out of Los Angeles International Airport, the Airport Board of Commissioners has voted to spend $1 billion to reconfigure 4.4 miles of streets. The plan was criticized by some residents near the airport who say the plan will make traffic worse, not better.
Courtesy photo
From City News Service
LOS ANGELES — One day after the Los Angeles Board of Airport Commissioners approved $1 billion in additional funding for the final phase of construction of a modernization initiative, critics warned that the project will make traffic worse and undercut efforts to encourage people to use public transit to reach the airport.
In a unanimous vote, commissioners authorized the use of $1 billion for its Airfield and Terminal Modernization Program, part of a larger $30 billion capital improvement program. The roadway improvement project is aimed at reconfiguring 4.4 miles of streets to better manage traffic entering, exiting and surrounding the airport.
The funding will support new roadways, bridges, retaining walls, drainage systems, utility relocations, landscaping, lighting, and signage.
Airport officials hope to complete ingress roadways ahead of the 2028 Summer Olympics while they anticipate egress roadways to be complete by 2030.
“The project is one of the most significant investments made to improve traffic in and around LAX,” Commission President Karim Webb said in a statement. “We’re prioritizing both guests and the surrounding community by separating airport traffic from local traffic, reducing congestion and enhancing pedestrian safety throughout the area.”
Los Angeles World Airports CEO John Ackerman said the project will make traveling through LAX “smoother and safer,” and create more jobs for the local economy.
Airport officials said the project will remove more than 500 cars from Sepulveda Boulevard at “any given time,” and create protected pedestrian bridges and paths for pedestrians and cyclists. It will also be part of the airport’s new arrival and departure plans alongside the Automated People Mover, Consolidated Rent-A-Car facility and auxiliary curbs.
Airport officials emphasized the project will have workforce development and local hiring goals.
Skanska-Flatiron Joint Venture will serve as the project’s design-builder.
Airport officials said that since 2019, they’ve conducted outreach for the roadway improvements project with more than 150 community meetings, three public meetings under the California Environmental Quality Act, among other efforts.
The project also received support from the Westchester Playa Neighborhood Council, Westchester Streetscape Improvement Association, LAX Coastal Chamber, LA Conservancy, and several West L.A. rotary clubs.
But critics say the project doesn’t make sense.
“I’m asking you not to approve the billion-dollar Roadway Improvements Project as currently proposed,” Kenneth Ehrenberg, a captain with the U.S. Space Force at Los Angeles Air Force Base, and resident of Westchester, told commissioners.
“The expensive undertaking is unnecessary and plans for it only exist because of conditions that are no longer present. The completion of this effort will only result in over a billion dollars spent, 50,000 more vehicle miles traveled on Sepulveda to and from the airport everyday, and increases in local congestion, air and noise pollution,” he added.
Ehrenberg argued that widening roadways will not reduce traffic or flows to LAX because the “bottleneck in the system is the backup of the pick-up and drop-off points at the terminals, and not at the capacity of the roads leading into the airport.”
He opposed the choice of developer as well, noting it was the same contractor completing work on the yet-to-be done people mover.
Connor Webb (no relation to Karim Webb) echoed Ehrenberg’s concerns, adding that LAX’s proposed Concourse Zero and Terminal 9 were the only justifications — but since both are on an indefinite hold, the roadway expansion should be too.
Webb said he biked to LAX for the meeting from UCLA, emphasizing that it was already hard enough. He could only imagine how much worse it could get.
“(Automated People Mover) is not even in operation yet, and we need to allow that to reach its full potential before committing billions to the road projects that will undermine it,” Webb said. “There are plenty of better options to improve traffic at LAX that cannot cost billions, and can even be revenue generating like congestion pricing the horseshoe or providing priority screening for travelers who arrive to the airport by transit.”
