Maybe like you, I flew out of the Los Angeles International Airport recently. And maybe like you, it occurred to me that the experience must roughly approximate being in hell.
It’s hurried, crowded and tense. And that’s just the food court. The single worst part of LAX, in my opinion, is the traffic circle – that mish mash of a horseshoe where you can’t tell exactly where to drop off your loved ones without being ticketed by a grumpy cop or where you wander around after a flight, dragging your bag, looking for the red sign where a bus supposedly will take you to your parking lot. If I left my car at Wally Park, I’ll see 10 Parking Spot buses pass by. If I left my car at Parking Spot, I’ll see 10 Wally Park buses go by.
That’s why the big construction project to quickly move people in and out of LAX could truly improve the lives of travelers. (See the article on page 1.) Imagine landing and walking straight out of the terminal onto a so-called people-mover train that will quickly take you to a parking lot, a new train station or to a big single building where each car rental company has a booth. No more traffic circle.
Of course, as with any big construction project, LAX-area businesses are the ones likely to suffer the most. They are now concerned mainly about traffic diversions for seven years. It’s bad enough for a business to sustain a construction-related downturn for months, but seven years can be a killer.
However, I wonder if a bigger concern will come later, when the people-mover system becomes fully operational. That’s because it will drastically alter the migration patterns around the airport. Some businesses may benefit, of course, while others will suffer as formerly highly trafficked streets become used much less. Look up at all those passengers flowing by on the elevated people-mover train – they used to be street-level drivers.
But at least those of us up on that people-mover train can exclaim: no more traffic circle.
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A personal note: As you can see from the article on page 3 of this issue, on Monday I will become editor and publisher of the San Fernando Valley Business Journal, a sister publication, after 10 years at the L.A. operation.
While I’m not really leaving – I’ll still be accessible in my new post, of course – this is as good a time as any to thank you.
Many of you have taken time, over the years, to reach out and suggest a story or an idea for this column (and I’ve written about 500 of these) or to give me an attaboy or to argue that I’m totally benighted. I have appreciated each one of those messages. It’s a true joy to get an email from a reader because it means that our work provoked some reaction. If you ever sent me a message, please accept my sincere thanks.
And even if you never reached out, I’m grateful to you for being a reader, a member of our community of business. It means you want to, you need to, be informed. Our mission is to help you stay informed. As we know, to be informed is to be armed.
The new editor in Los Angeles is Jonathan Diamond, a very capable journalist who has worked at the Business Journal twice before. I am confident he will help bring this news operation to a higher level. And please don’t be shy about sending him an email in the future. Or me, in the Valley.
Charles Crumpley used to be editor of the Business Journal. He can be reached at
[email protected] for a few more days and after that at [email protected].
