Palmdale airport said vital
to region

With air traffic into Southern California growing at a rapid pace, the region must find an efficient way to deal with airport crowding, said economists and business leaders who spoke this week at a conference titled the 2000 to 2001 Regional Economic Forecast for Southern California.

The conference, hosted Wednesday by Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG), focused on the economic outlook for the region in the next 20 years.

With unemployment continuing to decline, economic expansion will continue to be powered by growth in services, particularly in the entertainment, private education, engineering and management and financial sectors, according one forecast.

Speakers also cued in on the need for regional airport expansion.

Dr. Steven P. Erie, associate professor of political science at the University of California, San Diego, pointed out that Palmdale has about 1,700 acres available for the establishment of an international airport.

Currently, the city has a joint use agreement with Air Force Plant 42 to use runways for a regional airport with a capacity that some believe can accommodate 6 million passengers per year - the size of the operation in Burbank.

Erie said the unused acreage, which is adjacent to the dormant Palmdale Regional Airport, is big enough to eventually support 120 million passengers annually - twice the number of passengers flying into the overcrowded Los Angeles International Airport.

The busiest airport in the state, LAX served 61 million passengers in 1998.

With air traffic increasing, Southern California must make provisions to deal with the overflow or it will lose business to other regions that can accommodate more air passengers and air cargo, Erie said.

If the region doesn't increase air passenger and air cargo capacity by 100% and 150% respectively by the year 2000, Erie said, Southern California will begin to lose business to cities like Phoenix, which is already happily shouldering some the air cargo burden from LAX.

Instead of expanding LAX, as current plans call for, air traffic should be distributed between all airports, including outlying regional airports, such as the one in Palmdale, Erie said.

"The most important public investment a region can make is in a local airport," Erie said, adding that airports are self-financing.

Much concern over expansion of LAX stems from fears of worsening noise and air pollution, and increased ground traffic.

Cities such as El Segundo and Burbank have waged fierce battles both in the state Legislature and through petition drives to halt the expansion of LAX and the airport in Burbank.

Erie said the economic impact of routing more air traffic to regional airports can be offset by reducing environmental constraints, such as noise and air pollution, and by eliminating the need to continually enhance ground infrastructure.

Erie added that he believes expanding Palmdale airport and rerouting air service from LAX to the Palmdale Airport is a viable solution, but said airlines would need incentives to establish operations in Palmdale any time soon.

"One day, with population growth, the Antelope Valley will become a market airlines will seek," he said. "But the question is `When?' "

One way to hurry the establishment of an airport in Palmdale is through high-speed ground transportation to shuttle passengers from the Antelope Valley to the L.A. basin and back, Erie said.

That's where Mark Pisano, executive director of SCAG, comes in.

Pisano maintains that a viable airport could more readily be established in Palmdale if the area is served by a high-speed rail connecting LAX, the San Fernando Valley, Santa Clarita and the high desert.

According to SCAG studies, there is sufficient demand to support high-speed ground service to the Antelope and San Fernando valley corridors.

A magnetic levitation (maglev) high-speed train system could run parallel to State Route 14 and Interstate 405, Pisano suggested. The proposed system could conceivably operate at speeds exceeding 300 mph, with stations spaced every 20 to 25 miles.

SCAG studies also show that substantial growth constraints on the region's airports through 2020 will result in redistribution of air passengers to other airports in the regional system.

Without sufficient improvements to ground infrastructure, this will likely result in significant loss of air service and regional economic benefits, SCAG's study shows.

Increased use of existing and future airports will impact population growth, creating a greater reliance on ground infrastructure, Pisano said.

High-speed rail would compensate for the increased ground traffic, Pisano said.

Maglev trains save energy and time. It's believed maglev trains could top out at speeds of 500 mph.

A high-speed train would also bring success to SCAG's regional plan to make more use of outlying airports, such as Palmdale and Ontario, to provide relief to LAX, which is expected to be inundated with up to 20 million passengers per year by the year 2020.

Overall, speakers at the conference painted a rosy economic picture for the region, at least through the next year.

Dr. Tom Lieser, who delivered UCLA's forecast model, noted job growth in Southern California in 1999 is projected at 3.4% - slightly below the 1998 growth rate of 3.7%.

However, unemployment continued to decline throughout the year, reaching 4.9% in September - the lowest in California since 1960, Lieser said.

The state's economic expansion continues to be powered by growth in services, particularly in the entertainment, private education, engineering and management and financial sectors, according to Lieser's forecast.

Construction, transportation and communication sectors also experienced significant growth.

A forecast compiled by California State University, Long Beach, presented by Dr. Lisa Grobar, noted that after several years of moderate economic recovery, Southern California's economy finally began to grow more rapidly than the nation during the past two years.

The economy of the six-county Southern California region - which includes L.A., San Bernardino, Orange, Riverside and San Diego - grew at a rapid pace, adding more than 530,000 jobs to its employment base.

Job growth was especially strong in the construction, finance, insurance and real estate sectors, Grobar said.

Employment in Los Angles County is expected to grow by 90,000 jobs in 1999. The county is expected to finally replace the jobs lost during the economic recession of the early '90s, but will not fully recover until the latter part of 2000.

Employment growth was the greatest in the Riverside and San Bernardino metropolitan area, with more than 4% in 1999, regaining its status as the fastest growing area in the region.