Hahn’s CPR for LAX Plan

Like almost everything else, the bitter debate over expanding Los Angeles International Airport changed Sept. 11. Mayor James K. Hahn has used the shifting landscape to look for common ground unimaginable before the terrorist attacks. He may have found it in a plan announced Monday that emphasizes what has added significance now: safety.

Before, the battle over expansion pitted the airport’s stimulus to the economy against its impact on surrounding neighborhoods. Nearby residents frustrated by years of noise and congestion forged a potent coalition with more distant communities eager to attract business to their own, underused airports. Convinced that only severe crowding would force airlines to choose regional airports, opponents fought the expansion of LAX to a standstill.

Then came Sept. 11 and hijacked commercial airliners ramming into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Since then, travel is down and some airlines face bankruptcy. Airport officials at LAX and elsewhere have scaled back growth projections.

But doing nothing to improve LAX was never a good option. Built to serve 40 million passengers annually, LAX last year served 67 million. While growth may slow in the aftermath of the attacks, it will not stop. Today’s intensified screening causes lines and bottlenecks in an airport built before security checkpoints were required. Hahn’s plan calls for constructing a new building away from the main terminal where passengers would go through security before taking high-speed “people movers” to the terminal and gates.

Before terrorists redefined security, LAX’s biggest safety concern was near misses on its crowded runways, for which it holds the worst record in the country. Although eclipsed by today’s emphasis on security, the problem hasn’t gone away. Hahn’s plan would widen the distance between runways and add a taxiway so that, upon landing, planes wouldn’t have to cross an active runway to reach a gate.

The stalled master plan was six years and $60 million in the making. Hahn, offering his proposals as options for part of the existing plan, said he hopes to avoid starting over completely. His scaled-back plan has already received tentative approval from some expansion opponents.

Whether the mayor’s plan meets all security needs and adequately addresses growth will be considered in public hearings and before the city Airport Commission and City Council. It will of course have to meet evolving federal safety standards. LAX can’t stay as it is. This modest plan, at this time, has ended a nearly hopeless standoff.