The Los Angeles World Airports Board of Commissions voted on Thursday to spend $1.5 billion on a new road into the airport.
The LAX People Mover is estimated to cost $1.5 billion per mile (that’s building it, not including operating costs).
- Phoenix airport’s Sky Train Stage 2 comes in at $300 million per mile.
- Orlando’s South People Mover clocks in at $340 million per mile.
Since this is just a road LAX ges 4.4 miles for the $1.5 billion price. But Orlando might that distance of a people mover not just a road.
At $341 million per mile of road (for structures, ramps, demolition, utilities, landscaping, etc.) this seems like 2–5× what you’d expect in a normal U.S. city for this kind of road work. And U.S. work is more expensive than global norms.
- Compass International gives elevated major freeway, 4 lanes, urban U.S. at about $68 – 71 million per mile.
- The Federal Highway Administration suggests urban freeway lanes cost around $8 to 15 million per lane-mile, so a 4-lane facility is on the order of $30 to 60 million per mile for non-elevated work.
That triangulates around $60 to $70 million per mile. Let’s add in recent construction inflation, and add a premium for airport work, so double it and you’re looking at $140 million per mile, or $616 million total. LAX is spending $1.5 billion. Nashville airport just spent $137 million on their roadway project.
To be fair, projects at a live airport are hard. They involve constant phasing and strict safety and access controls.
Add in a long, litigation-prone environmental process under the National Environmental Policy Act and California Environmental Quality Act, which create veto points and leverage for myriad agencies and community groups and endless design studies and re-studies; layered agency involvement (LAWA, City, County, Metro, Caltrans, FAA, TSA, CBP, utilities); significant “mitigation” and community-benefit obligations (noise walls, aesthetic treatments, workforce agreements, local hire, disadvantaged business goals); and high local construction wages union agreements and you get LAX costs.
This is why we can’t have nice things.
And this isn’t even touching on how utterly absurd the new layout is. I understand the purpose is to increase the length that cars can queue in before they reach the horseshoe so that traffic will flow smoother, but this spaghetti soup is not the answer. Insanely overcomplicated, ugly as all sin, and has a bunch of last minute switch-overs that I guarantee will cause endless confusion and driver’s trying to cut in to long lines at the last minute.
Also, why can’t they add a budget for making it beautiful? This is the first impression travelers will get upon entering Los Angeles. Add some fricken palm trees please?
Seems expensive, but, as Gary says, “projects at a live airport are hard. They involve constant phasing and strict safety and access controls.” I’m confident there more about this than just the salacious price tag and low number of miles. Oh, and I fully expect anti-climate, blue state/city, California-bashing, which, fellas, is just silly.
Sometimes it’s just easier to build an entirely new airport Somewhere Else.
Dear Mr Leff, a friendly word of advice, please remove this article.
Yours Sincerely, Paddy’s Concrete & Construction. Supplying concrete boots to all major US cities
The People’s Republik of Kalifornia strikes again. Highest fuel prices in the nation. They lost a Congressional seat for the first time in state’s history as people and companies continue to flee the grasp of Newsom
When you consider that CA has spent nearly $30 billion on homeless and homelessness has only gotten worse this all makes sense. Everyone is on the take. I was in Balboa Park last month. I remember when I first visited back in 1997 how blown away I was. Today? Homeless everywhere. Buildings in poor repair. More Newsom success.
How deep is MediCal in debt? Keep raising those taxes Newsom as more and more companies and taxpayers flee the state.
Standard government waste, trash. Disappointment as ever.
Why does there need to be a road all the way to the terminals of an airport? And this won’t probably be built for another decade or two which makes the “road” concept even more outdated.
@Coffee Please — My dude, California, by itself, is the 5th largest economy in the world, $4 trillion in 2024 (that’s $4,000,000,000,000); California’s GDP per capita is higher than any other large state and all countries except the US, China, Germany, and Japan. Throw all that shade, but, your talk is cheap.