LAX one of many gridlocked airports

Editorial Focus: Virtually all of the major airports in the country are facing the kind of growth and congestion problems that Los Angeles International Airport faces. More and more leaders are finally realizing that alternative airports - such as Palmdale - must be developed.

All across the land, too many airplanes and too many passengers are entering gridlock patterns as they invade inadequate, overcrowded, runway-deficient airports.

The second part of the dilemma is that most airports in our giant metropolises are small islands, completely surrounded by industrial, commercial and residential development.

That's true of 3,000-acre LAX - except that it has an ocean to the west that is totally unsuitable for takeoffs or landings.

USA Today covered this national - and international - problem in its Sept. 12 front-page cover story, headlined with the on-themark question "Can gridlock be cured by expanding airports?" The secondary headlines said, "Using alternative sites may be a better solution" and "Former military sites, underused airports may help ease traffic."

The writer reported:

"Critics say the money being bet on new runways at already crowded airports will prove only a stopgap against the growing number of flights and passengers. In the end, they say, billions will be spent, hundreds of people and businesses forced to relocate and the delays won't be fixed.

"The money would be better spent, they say, investing in underused airports, retired military fields and new airports in outlying areas where land is cheaper and the population more welcoming.

" `We are crowding ground and air traffic into one place while the population and development are growing somewhere else,' says Mike Gordon, mayor of El Segundo, which is just south of Los Angeles International Airport."

Mayor Gordon spoke at the AV Country Club in March 1999, at a Palmdale Regional Airport Advisory Council luncheon on the topic, "Southern California needs a truly regional airport plan."

LAX had 64.3 million passengers in 1999 and is projected to have about 90 million by 2015. USA Today reports - in a remarkable understatement - that "with 60,000 people driving to the main terminal every day, parking and traffic are problems."

The inadequate "solution" for LAX, the newspaper said: "A $112 million construction/landscaping program is aimed at making LAX more user-friendly and includes improved signage and lighting, a new public-address system for the lower arriving level and aesthetic improvements. American Airlines is renovating its terminal."

That's $112 million for BandAid measures. (It would, however, be wonderful if the PA announcements could be understood by nervous passengers.)

The same issue of USA Today contained a 12-page Business Travel section that reported numerous personal horror stories about problems encountered by business travelers in overcrowded, deferred-maintenance airports.

The Palmdale Air Terminal, located on leased property on Air Force Plant 42, is still "underused." In fact, it remains idle despite the growing problems and traffic frustrations at LAX.

Los Angeles World Airports owns 17,700 acres of vacant desert land to the east of Plant 42. Almost all of that acreage could be utilized for vastly expanded agricultural purposes over the coming decades so that the department could gain some minimal return on its huge investment.

L.A. World Airports must expedite development of alternative, regional airports. LAX can't handle an infinite number of planes and passengers on its 3,000-acre little plot of ground.

Palmdale is a ready-made solution that is vital to the air transportation future of Southern California.