FAA joins push toward regional airports, trains

A government association today will examine using passenger rail to link Palmdale Regional Airport with Los Angeles International and other regional airports in Southern California, thanks to a $2 million grant from the FAA.

The FAA grant, given to the Southern California Association of Governments, is to study establishing a rail link between Palmdale, LAX, Van Nuys, Los Angeles Union Station and possibly the Inland Empire, said Rich Macias, the manager of aviation of environmental planning for SCAG.

Macias is set to present the proposal for the analysis, called A Regional Airport Connectivity Study, to SCAG's aviation task force today in downtown Los Angeles.

"(The aviation task force) will attempt to identify as part of this aviation system analysis, a plan that links all the major airports in the region by rail . . . in an effort to make them more efficient in the distribution of demand," Macias said.

The study would be conducted in conjunction with other rail studies SGAG has ongoing, such as an analysis of the state's planned high-speed rail system.

Palmdale was made a priority stop on the envisioned 680-mile bullet train route that could take passengers from San Francisco to Los Angeles in about two hours.

If the plans for a bullet train in California come to fruition, passengers could fly into a less crowded Palmdale airport and travel by rail to Los Angeles in 30 minutes or less.

To begin the high-speed rail project, a business plan being formed by a state commission would have to be passed by Legislature and the governor, then voters would have to agree to tax themselves one-quarter of a cent to pay for the public-private funded project.

SCAG will also look at alternatives to plans to expand LAX to handle the growing number of passengers boarding airplanes in Southern California.

According to a report released nearly two years ago by SCAG, the number of airline passengers in the region will double by 2020 to 158 million passengers per year.

The answer may include massive expansion at Los Angeles International Airport; construction of a new airport at the former El Toro Marine Corps Station in Orange County or perhaps more reliance on outlying airports in Palmdale, Ontario and nearby Riverside.

The list of groups who want to see Palmdale airport used instead of having LAX expanded has come to make a powerful statement.

Besides officials in both Palmdale and Lancaster, proponents of bringing commercial air service to Palmdale include the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, Mayor Richard Riordan and the L.A. City Council, SCAG and the Department of World Airports.

Representatives of those groups argued during a meeting in July in downtown San Francisco for establishing Palmdale as a viable passenger airport.

After a heated two-day debate, the High-Speed Rail Authority - the group charged with planning the rail project - voted to make Palmdale a preferred choice as a stop on the planned bullet train system over having the train parallel Interstate 5 and pass over the Grapevine.

SCAG, which is governed by 75 elected officials from Southern California cities and counties, plans to release an update on its projections today during its aviation task force meeting in Los Angeles.

The task force also will decide if the new information should be included in the updated regional transportation plan, to be released sometime in the year 2001.

"We are in the midst of doing a regional aviation system study," Macias said. "We are looking at where capacity in the region is; what of that capacity is constrained; what of that capacity is not constrained; and we are hoping to determine how best to accommodate future growth in aviation demand throughout the region."

SCAG is using sophisticated computer software called the Regional Aviation Demand Allocation Model to determine where demand for air travel is and where that demand will be decades into the future, Macias said.

Macias said SCAG is working toward having a draft of the document completed before the holidays, with a final recommendation for an aviation system plan finished sometime in March.

The document in March will set the stage for what will be analyzed in the regional transportation plan update in 2001.

"This is just a continuing analysis," Macias said.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.