Mass Transit to LAX Connects With Citizens

“Bus Connection to LAX Is the Weakest Link” (Oct. 16) exposes the glaring lack of access the Green Line has to LAX. The bad news: Neither the proposed LAX expansion plan nor its detractors have adequately focused on the lack of mass transit access to LAX. The good news: Mayor James Hahn has proposed a new LAX plan that does address a potential Green Line connection to LAX.

Furthermore, MTA Board member and City Council member Hal Bernson will be proposing to the MTA Planning Committee that the Green Line be extended one mile to connect with LAX and also be extended two miles eastward to connect with the Norwalk Metrolink station (and thereby connect Orange County with LAX).

It is long overdue that Southern California fix this glaring inadequacy in its budding mass transit system. I respectfully call on California’s elected federal representatives, including Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, as well as Reps. Jane Harman, Maxine Waters and Diane Watson, to join forces to provide the federal funding to improve Californians’ secure and efficient access to LAX.

Kenneth S. Alpern

Member, Friends of the

Green Line, Los Angeles

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I’ve wondered for years what the planners were thinking when they decided not to run the Green Line directly to the airport. To have spent countless millions of dollars to have a public transportation system constructed and then force passengers to board a surface bus to get to the largest airport in Los Angeles is indeed the height of ignorance, especially when one can see the advantage of doing so (in Chicago, Cleveland and countless other cities). They’re even extending BART now to run to San Francisco International Airport.

Now, when we truly need the system to work it doesn’t. Is anyone surprised?

Doug Bello

Los Angeles