Several local infrastructure construction projects – each costing more than $1 billion – are expected to wrap up construction in the coming year while others move closer to their 2024 completion targets.
At LAX, construction is expected to finish sometime next year on the $2 billion, 2.2-mile automated people mover project that when operational will whisk passengers from the terminals to a Metro rail line connection and on to a consolidated car rental facility.
All this work is in preparation for a momentous 2024, which is now slated to witness the largest transformation at LAX since the central terminal loop opened in the early 1960s. In the first half of 2024, the people mover and consolidated car rental facility are expected to be ready for operation, while the Metro Airport Connector is scheduled to wrap construction later in the year. By the end of 2024, Los Angeles World Airports’ grand vision of moving passengers away from the central terminal area to outlying transportation connector points is expected to come to fruition, at a cost of roughly $5.5 billion.
Completion is anticipated in the middle of next year on the massive $2.3 billion modernization of Terminals 2 and 3, home to Delta Air Lines, Aeromexico, and WestJet – paid for largely by Delta – that broke ground in April 2019. The project was accelerated by nearly 18 months because of the downturn in passenger traffic caused by the coronavirus pandemic that enabled the complete shutdown of Terminal 3.
Also next year, a groundbreaking is anticipated on the southern extension of the $1.7 billion West Gates terminal on the tarmac behind the Tom Bradley International Terminal.
Meanwhile, Metro’s long-awaited $1.8 billion, 1.9-mile Regional Connector project in downtown is slated to be ready for operation at some point during the first half of next year, more than two years behind the original schedule. It will interconnect three Metro rail lines.
Work will also be continuing on all three phases of Metro’s D (Purple) Line extension. The $3.2 billion first phase has a slated opening of late 2024. That’s also when the roughly $900 million Metro Airport Connector station is slated to open.
