I think LA needs a bigger airport.

[El Supremo]

An Airbus A380, the world's largest passenger jet, passes the Los Angeles International Airport Theme building as it prepares to touch down on the inaugural visit of the superjumbo jet to Los Angeles Monday, March 19, 2007. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon)

[BOSSHOG]

1. More then 500 passengers...

That requires an incredibly large septic tank. Christ it would take an hour to get everybody off it.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

2. L.A. DOES NEED A BIGGER AIRPORT!

Unfortunately if you want to do it in Inglewood your a racist, if you want to do it on reclaimed land your Dick Cheney and if you want to do it anywhere else in Southern California your a monster who isn't thinking of the children (or property values, but they won't just say that).

[Bluebear]

4. Wow I see 'your' concerned and troubled by this!

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

5. I am concerned and troubled that no real infrastructure has been built in SoCal in my lifetime,

no matter what the motive, local malcontents can shut down any project embarked upon by city, county or state and this more than a generation of hyper-sensitivity to any complaint, reguardless or motive or validity has left us with a infrastructure disaster. Everywhere from the Mexican Boarder to half-way to San Francisco the basic solution to air travel problems is "our residents can goto LAX", well LAX is getting pretty close to full and even then every other community will fight against anybody flying there.

I live in Orange County where rich assholes have sucessfully shut down the turn-key conversion of a military base into a new airport and have put an arbitrary cap on flights out of John Wayne Airport. All the while the loudest and most polluting aircraft flying out of there are thirty year old corporate jets that they fly out of there and not the commercial flights they have capped.

All the while, the local environmental useful idiots support the rich in their war on the travelling public, I only wish Antonio Gramsci was alive to comment on it.

[bridgit]

6. correct...

:thumbsup:

[The_Casual_Observer]

7. Long Beach airport is very underutilized.

However, it's very nice for those of us who know about it & use it for getting places.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

8. underutilized by design, it is restricted just like John Wayne

[The_Casual_Observer]

10. I never use any other airport.

It meets all my needs. I will never go to the other ones again, if I can possibly help it.

[enid602]

3. move

They need to move the airport out of the Los Angeles Basin so they won't have to breathe what comes out of those jets.

[A HERETIC I AM]

9. There is already one in place about 60 road miles north of downtown...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmdale_Regional_Airport

I lived about 2 miles south of the Plant 42 property from late '01 through June of '04
The problem using Palmdale is the 55 - 60 mile drive to downtown. There is a rail link but it isn't high-speed by any means (I've ridden the MetroLink trains from Palmdale to Union Station - about an hour or so) and it doesn't connect directly with either LAX, John Wayne, Long Beach A/P or Ontario. (The train stops somewhat near Burbank, if i am not mistaken) Passenger service is slated to start up again in June but all of the past service providers out of Palmdale quit after a relatively short time. It is a perfectly suitable airport with 2 10,000+ foot runways. You just have to convince passengers to make the drive up to the high desert.

[The_Casual_Observer]

11. The 14 is an absolute nightmare parking lot AM & PM.

Getting through the valley isn't any better.

[A HERETIC I AM]

12. I know. I drove it scores of times in those 3 years.

The best solution would be a faster rail link but straightening out the current line to allow for higher speeds would be cost prohibitive.

Palmdale, CA. One of the few towns i ever lived in where it seemed every alarm clock went off at 4:00 AM so the entire town could go park on the 14 fwy by 5!