Island Airport in Harbor Worth Studying

As “Airports’ Growth May Spark Booms” [James Flanigan, March 7] points out, the Los Angeles area has a very large and growing problem, and its solution is of overwhelming importance to the whole of Southern California.

The area must have a new central airport to serve the growing need for air transport that will reemerge when the present turmoil dies down.

Many sites have been suggested but they all have fatal flaws.

Why doesn’t Los Angeles follow the examples of Hong Kong and Osaka, Japan, and build a modern airport on an island within Los Angeles Harbor?

With east-west runways, all approaches and departures would be over water, and if the runways were far enough out, next to the breakwater, the nearest homes would be miles away.

You wouldn’t have to build much more than landing strips and airplane parking on the island.

The conventional passenger terminals could be onshore next to the freeways and convenient parking.

A single means of entry, a bridge, a tunnel or monorail, carrying only approved trucks and buses, with screened goods and passengers, would give near-perfect security.

Freight, the major part of which is carried in the belly compartments of passenger planes and which composes a large portion of today’s traffic, could be handled on the immediately adjacent shipping-container properties.

I believe it should be given some study.

William Watson

Rancho Palos Verdes