Dec. 17, 2025 8 AM PT
To the editor: Visitor contributor Jacob Wasserman isn’t considering large enough (“Only Los Angeles could spend $1.5 billion to make airport traffic worse,” Dec. 16).
I prefer to drive. Far. Throughout my street journeys, generally my spouse flies out to hitch me for a couple of days, which has had me choosing up or dropping off at Dulles Airport close to Washington, the George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston and the Dallas Fort Value Worldwide Airport. It doesn’t matter what time I bought to these airports, visitors was, at worst, 20% of that at LAX. Why?
Dulles is a 40-minute drive from Washington with out visitors. It doesn’t have a horseshoe as LAX does. It’s one lengthy terminal the place folks drop off passengers at numerous spots. George Bush and DFW are fairly completely different. Their terminals are unfold out and the street system into these is sort of a freeway that has numerous offramps for every terminal. One doesn’t must observe the visitors of each automobile by means of all the airport to get to the proper terminal, in contrast to at LAX.
The latter two must be fashions for each new airport. However with so little land, how might this be completed at L.A.’s airport? The reply is, it can’t — if we insist on having our airport the place it’s presently positioned.
Within the late ‘60s, the town bought 17,000 acres of land in Palmdale for a deliberate “second” airport. There was quite a lot of criticism over the space from the town and the dearth of mass transit to it, and the airport was by no means constructed. Los Angeles World Airports, nevertheless, still owns the land, which suggests, in idea, the Palmdale airport might come to fruition a long time later.
I counsel that the place folks as soon as lamented touring, they’d now go willingly. However the place to get the cash for such a mission? Straightforward. Promote LAX. I might assume that the beach-adjacent location would make it simple for the town to promote the land to salivating builders.
So, if our airport leaders merely need to apply a bigger bandage, Wasserman’s solutions can be good. But when they need to really resolve this important drawback, they need to strive doing what different cities have completed with success.
Joel Drum, Van Nuys
..
To the editor: Congestion at LAX has gotten intolerably dangerous. Overriding the entire makes an attempt to enhance circulation is the extraordinary lack of understanding, courtesy, concern and good citizenship of lots of the vacationers and drivers. Many choosing up or dropping off passengers cease and idle throughout two lanes, sit on the curb ready, dawdle loading or unloading their passengers as others look ahead to the valuable spots and block entry to the curb.
The worldwide terminal is the worst. I don’t know if including extra lanes to funnel into LAX is the long-term resolution, however I’m optimistic that if we had extra visitors management officers who sternly ordered these vehicles to maneuver, the LAX visitors expertise can be a lot improved.
Paula Glosserman, Los Angeles
