Bonin Weighs in on LAX Preferred Alternative Plan

Mike Bonin – who is running to replace outgoing Los Angeles CD 11 Councilman Bill Rosendahl in the March 2013 elections - issued a statement regarding LAX’s plans to upgrade the airport.

"I am glad that [Los Angeles World Airports] has selected a Preferred Alternative for the Specific Plan Amendment Study Environmental Impact Report so we can finally discuss, debate and compare it against other proposals,” Bonin said.

He said there’s a lot in the plan “to love,” but there’s also “something to oppose and a few things to fix.”

Bonin said he is in favor of LAX’s plans to go ahead with a Consolidated Rental Car Center, an Intermodal Transportation Center, the Automated People Mover and a Green Line extension directly into LAX.

“Each of those projects have nearly universal support, create tremendous economic impact and provide great benefit to airport neighbors,” he said. “And by putting a new airport plan in place, we will finally free up Terminals 1, 2 and 3 for real modernization.”

However, Bonin said while he supports a plan that modernizes LAX, that plan should not include expanding the airport, nor should those plans impact neighbors.

“An irrefutable study has shown the north airfield to be safe, and the Draft Environmental Impact Report says that not moving the runways is the ‘environmentally superior’ alternative,” Bonin said, noting that LAWA’s plan for the runway that would include reconfiguring the north airfield is not justified and would “create more pollution, produce more noise and not do a thing to improve throughput or operational efficiency at LAX.”

Bonin also said LAWA’s timing of the project is wrong.  

“The ConRac, the People Mover and the Green Line should be built before traffic and congestion at LAX spikes,” he said, not after. He concluded that if the runways do land up being moved that should be the last project on the list and should only be done “after the airport has made good on its various commitments to mitigation."