[SGVLUG] Ride to SCALE tomorrow morning?

[Michael Shulman]

There's been a lot of discussion around putting green line station in
LAX, but they elected to go with a people mover instead for a variety
of reasons. The two that immediately come to mind are:

1) It would make LAX a terminus for the Green Line, similar to the
Blue Line in Chicago which ends in Ohare. The current plan is for the
Green Line to continue north, and doing so with a stop in the airport
would be extremely costly and inefficient for everyone not going to
the airport.  The other option would be a split terminus, similar to
the green line in Chicago, which would be confusing for commuters and
would require a higher number of trains to run

2) The people mover is actually needed because LAX lacks an internal
transit system. It's not particularly feasible for a pedestrian to
walk between certain terminals, and the existing inter terminal bus
system would not handle the extra people well. It would also make for
a MUCH more confusing experience for commuters.

When I lived in Pasadena, I made use of the LAX Flyaway -- just take
the gold line down to Union station and catch a bus for $7. The entire
trip took somewhere about 1.25 hours, which seemed to be less than if
I dealt with driving to LAX, figured out parking, and took the shuttle
from parking.  For this conference it's not particularly convenient
due to the hours.


On Fri, Feb 21, 2014 at 2:13 PM, Dustin Laurence
<dllaurence at dslextreme.com> wrote:
> On 02/21/2014 10:53 AM, Henry B Hotz wrote:
>
>> Don't get me wrong, I'm glad *a* public transit system exists, but how
>> long does all this take?
>
>
> Public transit in LA has always taken me far longer than a car trip, even
> with parking and logistics on the end. Maybe twice the time if you can use
> the train directly, and three or four times if you take a bus? Not sure. I
> avoid it except for situations like avoiding parking a car for a long period
> at the airport when I don't have a ride to get there.
>
>
>> (Also, why doesn't Metrorail get you all the way to the airport?
>
>
> I once observed the same thing--logic would dictate a train station built
> into the airport itself. believe I was told that the reason is protection
> for the vanpool industry. Governments don't make decisions based on the
> utility of you little people, the make decisions based on the utility of
> businesses big enough or well-connected enough to lobby effectively, and
> local politics seems to have dictated the particular situation in LA.
>
> Dustin
>



-- 
----------------------------
Regards,
Michael Shulman
michael.shulman at gmail.com
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.