LOS ANGELES — The Automated People Mover that’s designed to whisk people through the terminals at Los Angeles International Airport marked a major milestone this week. The first three electric rail cars for the elevated and automated rail system were delivered, enabling track testing before the end of the year and full operation for the public in 2023.
“We often joke that the seven most feared words in Los Angeles are ‘Can you pick me up at the airport?’” LA Mayor Eric Garcetti said Tuesday, when the new rail cars were first unveiled. “The hell that we knew as LAX is going to be a thing of the past.”
The Automated People Mover is a major key in the $15 billion LAX overhaul city leaders approved shortly after winning their bid to host the 2028 Olympics. When it opens next year, the Automated People Mover will allow airport travelers to ditch their cars and take a free train to the terminals from one of three stops: the new economy parking area that LAX opened last year, a stop on Aviation Boulevard that connects with the new Metro Crenshaw line opening later this year and a new consolidated rental car facility on 96th Street that will open late next year along with the People Mover.
From inside the airport, passengers will be able to board the train from a platform accessed with new pedestrian bridges that connect to each terminal. Running along a track that stretches for 2-1/4 miles past the Federal Aviation Administration tower toward Sepulveda Boulevard and over Century Boulevard, the trains will run every two minutes during peak operating hours from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. and will last ten minutes.
Designed to reduce traffic and emissions, the Automated People Mover is entirely electric and will not have a driver. It will be controlled from the LAX maintenance facility, also under construction, and will operate and be staffed 24/7.
LAX received the first three of a planned 44 electric rail cars for the system this week. Each car can hold 200 passengers and their luggage.
Part of the funding for the LAX modernization project came from the American Rescue Plan Act President Joe Biden signed in early 2021, which provided $27 billion to modernize the nation’s airports, including $79 million for LAX. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provided another $130 million for new roads in the LAX terminal area.
“Two and a half years ago, when I took on this role, this was all dirt,” Los Angeles World Airports Chief Executive Justin Erbacci said Tuesday. “None of this new infrastructure existed.”
Now, he said, the airport has improved its airfields and roads and modernized every terminal. Earlier this year, as part of a $2.3 billion terminal modernization project, LAX upgraded terminals 2 and 3 with a new centralized headhouse that consolidated and modernized the ticketing, check-in, baggage claim and security screening areas.
In addition, the terminal 3 concourse will get a new bridge next year that will connect it to the Tom Bradley International terminal next door without passengers needing to go through a second security screening.
As exciting as those improvements are, the Automated People Mover is the centerpiece of the LAX modernization plan and the culmination of a decades-old idea that many Angelenos thought would never come to fruition.
“Welcome to the future of LA and future of LAX,” Garcetti said. “Welcome to a day that we have waited our lifetimes for.”