Scaled Back Airport Plan Draws Hint Of Support

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Scaled Back Airport Plan Draws Hint Of Support

By AMANDA BRONSTAD

Staff Reporter

The contesting factions that have all but shelved L.A. Mayor James Hahn’s $9 billion proposal to modernize Los Angeles International Airport are cautiously supporting a scaled-back plan that in its first phase calls for a consolidated rental car facility and a light rail connection to the airport from the Green Line.

The behind-the-scenes discussions, which have taken place in the midst of public hearings on Hahn’s original plan, could lay the groundwork for a vote by the City Council, perhaps as early as late summer.

But among city officials, community groups, airlines and others involved in the discussions, there remains concern that the “specific” plan, proposed by City Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski, is structured so that the more controversial portions of Hahn’s plan might later emerge.

There also is uncertainty about the findings of an airport security study now under way by Rand Corp. that some councilmembers said will strongly influence their vote.

“I don’t think there’s much disagreement among people that the things Cindy has pulled out are consensus LAX improvement ideas,” said Councilman Jack Weiss.

The stumbling block, he said, is whether the “specific” plan serves to derail other aspects of Hahn’s original plan. “The Rand Corp. study will be the most important study done of the LAX modernization proposal,” he said. “It will probably be the most important study that I consider when I make my decision to vote.”

Since being announced two weeks ago, the “specific” plan has drawn the support of several important groups most notably community organizations and most of the airlines that have criticized Hahn’s plan as too expensive and unnecessary. They specifically oppose the tearing down of Terminals 1, 2 and 3, and the construction of a remote passenger and baggage screening station at the site of the former Manchester Square residential community.

Working out differences

Miscikowski’s plan scales back Hahn’s plan, called Alternative D, by breaking it into two phases. The first phase would include smaller elements, such as improvements at the Tom Bradley International Terminal, construction of the consolidated rental car facility, and a light rail tram that would take Green Line passengers directly to the airport.

“It sounds to the airlines like what she is proposing in her Phase I projects, or go-ahead projects, are very similar to what we have been calling a modified Alternative D plan,” said Kelley Brown, executive director of the Los Angeles Airlines Airport Affairs Committee, a coalition of 80 airlines.

Former El Segundo Mayor Mike Gordon said, “nothing’s been decided but it appears there is a pack of people working out their differences.”

What remains unclear and to opponents of the Hahn plan, unsettling is the second phase of Miscikowski’s “specific” plan.

Because the councilwoman’s proposal falls under the broad umbrella of the Hahn plan’s Environmental Impact Report, some of the mayor’s more controversial recommendations would still be in play, including tearing down the terminals and building the Manchester Square facility. Miscikowski said that her alternative plan must be structured this way in order to avoid another costly and lengthy EIR.

“Part of her challenge is demonstrating or articulating that it’s just as much, if not more, a process for moving forward than it is a specific design with a map to point to,” said City Council President Alex Padilla. “It’s significantly different from what the mayor has suggested. For some people, that’s too much of a change.”

U.S. Rep. Jane Harman, D-Venice, who has questioned the security of the remote passenger and baggage screening station that Hahn wants, said Miscikowski’s plan couldn’t assure her constituents that future members of the City Council, or even future mayors, would shelve those controversial elements.

“Where is the guarantee beyond Cindy’s service?” she said. “I see problems. I see promises made and broken in the public world when the people in office change.”

Instead, Harman said the existing EIR, released by the Board of Airport Commissioners on April 28, should be amended to reflect a scaled-back expansion plan more like the first phase of the “specific” plan. The approved EIR is based on Alternative D.

Rand study critical

But several members of the City Council have dismissed that idea, stressing the need to move the planning process along. “Time is of the essence here,” Padilla said. “If we wait too much longer, like two years, we’re back to square one.”

City Councilman Ed Reyes said the “specific” plan would keep development of LAX from being bogged down, although he acknowledged that other non-airport “specific” plans have often taken longer than expected.

Miscikowski acknowledged the concerns of her plan.

“Some still prefer to take Manchester Square out of the plan, do a new Master Plan even if that means another nine months or a year,” she said. “I’m trying to salvage those good projects but also give impetus and power to the elected officials and community of serious revisiting of the remaining issues.”

Several opponents of Hahn’s plan said they are waiting for the findings of the Rand report, which follows up a more limited Rand study last year and will analyze whether Alternative D’s security aspects are cost effective when compared with other plans.

Hahn, under pressure from critics, announced the new study in mid-May. The Board of Airport Commissioners still has to approve a contract for the study, which should take 60 to 90 days.

“What will it say? We don’t know,” said Robert Dibblee, managing director for state and local government affairs at the Air Transport Association of America Inc., which leads the local airline coalition. “But we already have a preview of the little Rand study that was put together at Jane Harman’s request that said Alternative D didn’t achieve those security goals.”

Rand’s earlier report, commissioned by Harman, questioned the security of the remote passenger and baggage screening station in Hahn’s plan. That study, however, was limited in scope and conducted by consultants, not Rand staff.

“The outcome of the Rand study has a huge potential to impact this design one way or the other,” Padilla said. “It’s too early to judge what Rand will say. It can either be very reaffirming to what we’ve done thus far or it could turn everything upside down.”

Meanwhile, the airlines and the city of El Segundo disagree on another element of the “specific” plan’s first phase: whether the airport’s southern runways should move 50 feet to the south.

The airlines consider the southern runway expansion critical to alleviating the Federal Aviation Administration’s concerns about runway incursion, which occurs when planes taxi too close together.

El Segundo Mayor Kelly McDowell said he is concerned about the imposing aspects the runway expansion would have on his city. One alternative is to have a center-line taxiway loop around, rather than through, the two southern runways.

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