Network of regional airports could not get off the ground

The effort to create a regional network of airports -- a concept designed to take the pressure off Los Angeles International Airport -- has collapsed again.

Three members of the Southern California Regional Airport Authority, the only three who bothered to join, agreed this week to pull the plug.

“We need to move on,” said Los Angeles County Supervisor Don Knabe, who added that most of the problems at the agency stemmed from a refusal by Orange and Riverside counties to participate.

Knabe said the decision represents the third time in two decades that the agency has fallen apart.

The airport authority was revived most recently in 2006, after Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa settled a lawsuit over an $11-billion plan for remodeling LAX.

The mayor picked one of his closest allies, City Councilman Bill Rosendahl, to head the agency as it tried to persuade elected officials across Southern California to work in concert.

Soon after it reconvened, the panel struggled to develop consensus. Meetings were repeatedly canceled. And the only representatives willing to serve on the authority were from Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties.

One neighborhood activist who lives near LAX said he hopes those few representatives will at least try to develop a plan for sending new rail lines to such locations as LA/Ontario International Airport.

“I’m obviously dismayed that we didn’t come up with something stronger than that,” said Denny Schneider, who serves on the Neighborhood Council of Westchester/Playa del Rey.

Rosendahl said the participants in the authority will reconvene in 60 days to look at ways of improving public transit to airports. From that, a new strategy could be devised for spreading air traffic across the region, he said.

“I’m the eternal optimist,” he said. “So to me this is not the end.”

david.zahniser@latimes.com