Sharing the Load
* Re: “Panel Explores Scenarios for Airport Use,” Sept. 20: The Southern California Assn. of Governments estimates the demand for Southern California airports to be 158 million passengers annually by 2020.
SCAG planners ran a “what if” scenario to see what would happen if Los Angeles International Airport weren’t expanded and El Toro was not built. They found that half the demand would simply go away.
Another one-quarter would be redistributed to other airports, and the remaining 25% would find alternate modes of travel.
They established a table to determine how this demand would be met with an expansion of LAX, building an international airport at El Toro and doing neither. I found it interesting that this table ignores the possibility of expanding John Wayne airport from its restricted volume of 7.5 million passengers a year. It actually suggests the 2020 volume to be reduced to 7 million.
Also, six potential closed military airfields earmarked for civilian use are noted. Why not spread the wealth?
JIM KELLER
Mission Viejo
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