Neighbor Noise Stifling LAX

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Maybe it’s wishful thinking, but it appears a critical mass has built up finally so that the deplorable problem of the north runways at Los Angeles International Airport can be fixed.

The runways there are too close to comfortably accommodate today’s bigger aircraft, and particularly the new Airbus A-380 and similar jumbo jets that are coming. LAX has the real estate to move the northernmost runway 340 feet farther north. But any suggestion that it do so is met with immediate and vociferous opposition from neighbors, who don’t want the noisy and disruptive planes taking off and landing even closer to them.

Because the neighbors are adept at applying pressure at the right points, the political peril of moving the runway has been intense. As a result, nothing has happened. In fact, most proposed improvements to LAX get pushed into long-term studies, where they wither in the paralysis-by-analysis machine. (After five separate studies concluded that the northern runways are too close together, the Los Angeles City Council last summer ordered a sixth.)

This chronic inaction is causing an economic problem. While all major U.S. airports have seen an increase in traffic since 2000, LAX stands alone as having seen a decrease of 10 percent in domestic passengers and 11 percent in international travelers. What’s more, the new generation of jumbo jets can simply bypass LAX.

Worse, the inaction is creating a safety problem. Last summer, two airliners came within 37 feet of each other, apparently the aviation equivalent of a paint scrape.

In fact, the federal Government Accountability Office reported last month that LAX has more on-ground close calls than any major U.S. airport.

Federal Aviation Administration Administrator Marion C. Blakey, speaking at a luncheon in Los Angeles last summer, urged Los Angeles to get going. “Fix that north airfield now.”

All this is creating cover so that the political class can finally take action. The City Council can turn to the residents of Westchester on the north side of LAX and declare they really didn’t want to move the north runway farther north, but they had no choice. The safety and economic issues were too great. Too many considered opinions were telling them they must do it.

As if they needed it, they got even more political cover last week. The blue-ribbon Economy and Jobs Committee, begun more than a year ago by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, issued its report in which it wrote that it is “critical and urgent to move the runway 340 feet to the north, for the benefit of the whole region and the safety of passengers.”

Gary Toebben, the president and chief executive of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce and who’s been keenly interested in the issue, said that for the first time he’s optimistic that the city will move forward on this important matter.

In an important step, he said, the Board of Airport Commissioners decided a couple of weeks ago to approve a contract to begin an environmental review for several projects, including the runway issue.

Anyone can sympathize with LAX’s neighbors. No one wants the primary view from their back porch to be landing gear. Those folks need to be taken care of in a reasonable way.

But it is time for the City Council to realize that a relative handful of people has been stopping progress and jeopardizing safety for too many for too long. It is time to do the right thing.


Charles Crumpley is editor of the Business Journal. He can be reached at

[email protected]

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