No Hares in This Rush Hour Race to the Airport
What could be worse than getting to the airport during rush hour?
Driving to Los Angeles International Airport from just about anywhere is a nail-biting, teeth-grinding ordeal. Taxis are expensive, and airport shuttles can be cramped, uncomfortable and unpredictable.
So we decided to run a little test, inspired by a reader who said he always takes the bus to LAX from his home in Los Feliz, and gets there quicker than he could by car -- all for just $2.
Kurt Streeter would take public transit to the airport. Sharon Bernstein would drive. We would start from Bernstein’s house in Studio City, head out as if we held tickets on a 10 a.m. flight, and see who got there first. Winner buys loser a low-carb latte.
The first task was to settle on a route.
Bernstein decided to brave the San Diego Freeway, figuring that even though it would almost certainly be clogged, it was the most direct route. She would enter the Ventura Freeway at Coldwater Canyon Avenue, head west for a couple of miles to the junction with the San Diego Freeway, and inch south to the airport.
Streeter wanted to see how well the MTA’s Internet trip planner would work for mapping out a route to the airport. He logged onto MTA.net and typed in the trip coordinates. Up popped two options: He could try an all-bus route that would require several transfers and take 1 hour and 53 minutes; or he could shave five minutes by using his car to drive from Bernstein’s house to the North Hollywood Red Line stop and taking a subway, light- rail and bus combination.
We set out at 7:43 a.m., both of us in cars for the first part of the journey.
Streeter drove for four minutes in his beloved 1989 Honda Accord, ESPN radio blasting, to the North Hollywood Red Line station. He wasted five precious minutes driving around the parking lot, seeking one of the few spots that remain in that crowded facility after 7:30 a.m. on weekdays.
Bernstein steered west on Riverside Drive toward the freeway entrance. The freeway rumbles just three blocks from her house, and the entrance is less than a mile away, but it took 11 minutes before her own Accord was on the Ventura Freeway.
At 8 a.m., Bernstein was listening to a story on National Public Radio about people killed in a terrorist attack on a subway in Moscow, and thinking about Streeter, who was whooshing under the Santa Monica Mountains on his way downtown on the Red Line. Still barely west of Coldwater, Bernstein pondered which of them was more the sitting duck. She got cut off by a milk truck and almost drifted out of her lane looking at a guy in a weird hat who was driving to her left. She put on lipstick when traffic on the freeway stopped completely.
Streeter’s trip was going well. The ride from North Hollywood to downtown Los Angeles, which can take 45 minutes or so by car, was a smooth and quick 25 minutes as the rail cars reached speeds near 70 mph.
At 8:20 a.m. Bernstein was still sitting on the long entrance loop to the San Diego Freeway. It took 30 minutes to get fully onto the freeway.
Streeter, at the same moment, was almost downtown. His subway car was crowded, with about 40 people standing during the heaviest part of the trip.
“You’re going to the airport?” Chicago native Allen Lipsey asked Streeter. In Chicago, the transplanted commuter pointed out, “they have a train that takes you all the way there. Drops you off right at the terminal.”
Not so in Los Angeles, where the light-rail Green Line goes right up to the edge of the airport and then veers suddenly south. Travelers must get off and take a shuttle the rest of the way.
For that matter, Streeter needed three trains to even get near the airport, traversing a wide U-shaped route from the San Fernando Valley. First he had to go downtown, then switch to the Blue Line light-rail train for a ride into South Los Angeles, and then take yet another ride west on the Green Line toward the airport.
At 8:27 a.m., as Streeter was getting off the Red Line, Bernstein’s drive opened up. Near the Sunset Boulevard exit, traffic edged up to 60 mph.
Just four minutes later, though, at the junction with the Santa Monica Freeway, the San Diego Freeway stopped again. Surely Streeter was having more fun than this, she thought. He might even be getting close to the airport.
But he was not. At 8:39 a.m., nearly an hour into his trip, the Blue Line pulled out of downtown. It rumbled through some of the city’s most troubled neighborhoods, passing broken-down warehouses, storefront churches, fried chicken shacks and depressing housing projects.
Bernstein approached the freeway exit at La Tijera Boulevard. On impulse, she decided to take a shortcut, and wound through city streets alongside taxis and private cars heading to LAX.
By 8:55 a.m., she was at a security checkpoint for autos entering the airport, worried that the freight dolly and bag of old books she’d left in the trunk might arouse suspicion.
Five minutes later, as Streeter waited at the Rosa Parks Green Line station south of Watts, his cellphone rang. The noise on the Green Line rail platform, situated in the middle of the car-clogged Century Freeway, was so loud he could barely hear Bernstein’s voice at the other end of the line.
Tired, frustrated, annoyed, in need of a restroom and a cup of coffee, she stood downwind of a bunch of cigarette smokers on the sidewalk outside Terminal 7.
Defeat, thought Streeter. But at least the pressure was off. And if it didn’t take too much longer, the transit ride would still be worthwhile: After all, it was so inexpensive. And he had certainly experienced less stress than Bernstein had in her 75-minute drive.
Streeter talked to some Green Line passengers who were also heading to the airport.
Jessica Galloway and Tiffany Hines, who live two hours south of Los Angeles, had taken a Metrolink train to Los Angeles and transferred to the Green Line, figuring it would be easier than driving from their homes in Oceanside.
Besides Streeter, they were the only people on the train who were heading toward the airport.
All three got off the train and boarded the MTA’s shuttle for the final mile.
By 9:30 a.m., an hour and 47 minutes after he left Bernstein’s house, Streeter was riding up the escalator at Terminal 7.
His verdict? It took a few more transfers than he’d like, but the trip was relatively stress-free, although maybe he should have left a little bit earlier. In these days of take-off-your-shoes security checkpoints, it would have been awfully tight trying to board a 10 a.m. flight.
Streeter bought the latte.
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If you have a question, gripe or story idea about driving in Southern California, write to Behind the Wheel c/o Los Angeles Times, 202 W. 1st St., Los Angeles, CA 90012, or send an e-mail to behindthewheel@latimes.com.
