Put Airports Where They’re Most Needed

The debate about the wisdom of expanding Los Angeles International Airport--and the role of other regional airports--is not about meeting the air commerce needs of today. Rather, this discussion is about meeting Southern California’s needs 20 years from now and beyond.

The airport system that makes sense over the next 20 years does not require an expanded LAX, but rather appropriate utilization of airports in each of the three emerging economic centers of Southern California: Los Angeles County, Orange County and the Inland Empire. Each of these areas has a natural candidate to serve as its hub airport and one or more candidate satellite airports.

In Los Angeles County, Los Angeles International Airport, obviously, continues to be the hub and the region’s major international airport. Burbank and Long Beach airports should continue as satellite airports with short and medium haul service appropriate to their communities. Palmdale airport can develop to serve a similar satellite role.

In Orange County, the proposed El Toro airport should become a hub airport with international service as well. Orange County can determine if John Wayne Airport should continue in its current role. El Toro is an essential part of any equitable system. It makes no sense for the communities around LAX to continue to bear the burden of Orange County air travel.

In the Inland Empire, Ontario Airport should grow to be a hub airport with cargo service. International service may be appropriate eventually. The former Norton Air Force base can become a short and medium haul satellite airport while March and George Air Force bases aspire to serve the region as primarily cargo airports.

Such a system can capture all the growth in air commerce--passenger and cargo--anticipated in Southern California without requiring a expansion of LAX. These airports exist now and require few runway additions. As a result, this system can meet the region’s needs at a fraction of the cost projected for expanding LAX.

Most important, this system recognizes and responds to the changing growth patterns in Southern California. It simply makes sense to use existing airport resources in the heart of the new growth centers rather than requiring the expenditure of enormous sums of money to expand an airport that will be increasingly remote from the markets of the Southern California of the future.

Planners at the Southern California Assn. of Governments like to say that we will add “two cities the size of Chicago” to our population over the next 20 years. However, this population will be distributed quite differently than now.

The communities of Southern California closest to LAX will grow the least; the communities most remote from LAX will grow the most. For example, one of those “Chicagos” will be in the Inland Empire. San Bernardino and Riverside counties together will double in size to nearly 7 million people. A similar rate of growth is expected in north Los Angeles County.

Parts of the region once thought of as primarily rural and sparsely populated soon will be decidedly urban--and will create their own needs for air commerce. Happily, they already have their own airport resources if we choose to use them.

Furthermore, because of their cheap land, the high-growth communities in the Inland Empire and north Los Angeles County have become bedroom communities to the rest of Southern California. Every morning and evening, hundreds of thousands of commuters fill the freeways heading to and from jobs in Orange and Los Angeles counties. Utilizing existing airports in these high growth areas and helping industry to locate near them will provide local jobs for local residents in these areas.

Building our airport resources in the heart of these new growth centers, rather than at LAX, is not only the least costly and most sensible alternative available, it is also an important part of our regional efforts to avoid unnecessary congestion and improve future air quality.

Gridlock serves no one.