5:00 according to the original Grimshaw render video all that dirt is gonna be landscaping and solar panels. They'll also be installing electric bus chargers.
I'm always amazed by how long projects stay in the "dirt phase" before going vertical. In this case, however, it seems that above-ground work is taking longer than anyone expected or hoped.
This is shaping up nicely but it does seem kind of nuts that getting out of lax by rail will involve multiple transfers. Getting downtown will be APM to Crenshaw to expo lines, for example.
@@robertcalderas4671 Both of the rail options from LAX to DTLA will require three vehicles so two transfers: LAX APM to Metro K Line to Metro E Line or LAX APM to Metro C Line to Metro A Line.
Construction Committee at their October 2024 meeting said that progress on LAX/Metro is at 92.7% at that point. Yet, we feel that it's going to be opened much, much later than anticipated (if it's not open by the end of February 2025). I knew how long I had to wait until Redondo Beach (Spring 2023) and Torrance (Summer 2023) Transit Centers opened. Construction was lengthy at that time.
Ideally, it should’ve been just another metro line, directly connected to the greater metro network. That’s how it is in most major cities around the world. America is lagging behind, hard.
I'm hoping that for now, the goal is to be able to run the K line through the new station, and get enough bus pads in so that the LAX shuttle buses can start going directly to the new station, rather than Aviation/Imperial. This would at least get the public transit sector in a usable state. It would eliminate that "link" shuttle bus between Westchester and Aviation/Imperial. Parking lots and other stuff can be finished later. After all, they opened the K line partially 2 years ago, saying they couldn't open it fully until the platforms at the new station were complete. So I hope those platforms are just about ready to open to the public.
The people mover isn’t testing. So much dirt lots still waiting to be filled in. No wonder another year is needed. They are slow walking their paychecks. Drag this out as long as possible.
The main reason this has been dragged out was due to LAWA, not the contractors. Their IT department had issues with providing the contractors connection access to their systems which was needed to begin testing. That was resolved earlier this year and they have begun testing between the 3 stations outside the terminal area.
LA really needs to get their butt in gear. About half the light rail projects Metro was supposed to build. Will not be built for the world events Los Angeles was to host: FIFA 2026 SUPER BOWL 2027 OLYMPICS & PARALYMPICS 2028 The People Mover is cutting it extremely close if they open January 2026. FIFA WORLD SOCCER GAMES begin June 2026. With just five months leeway.
How are people going to get from here to the terminals before the APM is open? The same metro connector bus that's used to get to the station on Aviation?
They're definitely not rushing at this point. Their rush open date was October of this year and it's now pushed to Q1 next year. Having the Metro station open will still be beneficial. The LAX shuttle from Aviation/Imperial will use this station instead resulting in a shorter roundtrip. I personally hope that this will push LA Metro to extend the C line to the Norwalk/SFS Metrolink station. It would be a lifesaver coming from OC/IE to LAX.
I think there is some benefit to opening it sooner than later. The southbay stations lost their 1 transfer ride into downtown la due to the C/K reconfiguration. Completing the station will allow the K line to fully open. And restore the single transfer to the 4 South Bay stations.
This thing is far from being finished. They had better get a move-on if they want this working for the Olympics. But this is LA where things drag on and on, nothing ever gets done.
How fast is metro? 1 or 2 minutes is ok, but if passengers having to wait for 10 to 15 just to leave the airport then I can see why they opted for the people mover since many people wouldn’t me talking metro instead they’ll be going to the rental car facility, the bus stations, and Ubers and Taxi outpost. The people mover is to relieve the airport of taxis, Ubers, and horde of people waiting around.
Almost ONE BILLION dollars for one train station?? Consider that Kansas City just built their brand new airport, YES a complete airport from scratch for $1.7 Billion. Fire the idiots at Metro accountable for this kind of spending mis-management. (Another great video though by the incomparable John Kay)
The spending is insane when other cities are spending less and getting so much more for their Buck. JFK is spending similar amounts but their project is moving faster and they’re doing an entire reconfiguration of the roadways plus two new terminals and improvement of the other existing terminals. LAX is doing piecemeal work and it has ballooned. All this time the port authority did LaGuardia top to bottom with Newark next in line. LAX will still be arguing whether to even start their vision 30 projects.
@@JeanClaudeCOCO LAX's stations for their People Mover (officially called Sky Link) are designed and run by LAX World Airports. LAX spent $3.6 Billion for 2.1 miles of their overhead people mover. It's not even underground. Yes, LAXWA is just as inept in not being able to control their costs and deliver projects on time. But at least LAX is largely funded by passengers that use it. Unlike the Bloated Los Angeles Metro who has taxed the entire populous to built their terrible product. My previous comment herein was focused on Metro's transit station. Metro deserves the ire of the taxpayers in L.A. Country and a study to see how a private company might take it over to fix things. Metro is one of the most horribly run agencies in the United States and leadership there never lose their jobs for doing a bad job for their terrible product, over and over and OVER. Yes they are expanding their system quickly. But they have a horrible product that's rife with grift and cost overruns, late (they never deliver on time), slow (Metro trains run at 1/2 their rated speed, expensive, unsafe (I was assaulted twice on Metro when I used to take it as my primary mode of transportation), hemorrhages money (they don't even put up physical barriers to enforce fare collection), and full of open drug use, insane people and the homeless. Los Angeles has the FIFA World Cup and Olympics coming up and I doubt Metro will even be able to control the graffiti on their stations (scratched into glass, steel and cement). Let alone fix the other issues I just highlighted. It's sad that my bet is that Metro is an embarrassment for the City of Los Angeles when the fans show up and see this Metro station after landing at the airport. I really hope I'm wrong.
Really wish they could have elevated that metro line so that there wouldn't be a at grade crossing right outside the station.
Since the people mover is already elevated, they would have to double elevate it. I say put Arbor Vitae in a trench.
What do you expect for a mere $900 million. Ha ha.
5:00 according to the original Grimshaw render video all that dirt is gonna be landscaping and solar panels. They'll also be installing electric bus chargers.
I'm always amazed by how long projects stay in the "dirt phase" before going vertical. In this case, however, it seems that above-ground work is taking longer than anyone expected or hoped.
This is shaping up nicely but it does seem kind of nuts that getting out of lax by rail will involve multiple transfers. Getting downtown will be APM to Crenshaw to expo lines, for example.
It’s one transfer? How is it multiple transfers?
@@robertcalderas4671 Both of the rail options from LAX to DTLA will require three vehicles so two transfers: LAX APM to Metro K Line to Metro E Line or LAX APM to Metro C Line to Metro A Line.
I think they included apm to k line as the first transfer
Construction Committee at their October 2024 meeting said that progress on LAX/Metro is at 92.7% at that point. Yet, we feel that it's going to be opened much, much later than anticipated (if it's not open by the end of February 2025). I knew how long I had to wait until Redondo Beach (Spring 2023) and Torrance (Summer 2023) Transit Centers opened. Construction was lengthy at that time.
great video bro! appreciate you going out there and filming it
Loos great. As far as the people mover tram - that should have been built 50 years ago.
Ideally, it should’ve been just another metro line, directly connected to the greater metro network. That’s how it is in most major cities around the world. America is lagging behind, hard.
I'm hoping that for now, the goal is to be able to run the K line through the new station, and get enough bus pads in so that the LAX shuttle buses can start going directly to the new station, rather than Aviation/Imperial. This would at least get the public transit sector in a usable state. It would eliminate that "link" shuttle bus between Westchester and Aviation/Imperial. Parking lots and other stuff can be finished later.
After all, they opened the K line partially 2 years ago, saying they couldn't open it fully until the platforms at the new station were complete. So I hope those platforms are just about ready to open to the public.
Thank You John Kay!
👍 Great update!
Hopefully cement pouring and landscaping can be done by end of January. The site is starting to really take off.
Knowing Metro, I wouldn’t expect any of this to be publicly accessible until Summer 2025, but I trust that the results will be at least decent.
The people mover isn’t testing. So much dirt lots still waiting to be filled in. No wonder another year is needed. They are slow walking their paychecks. Drag this out as long as possible.
they should be charged for negligence and fraud
The main reason this has been dragged out was due to LAWA, not the contractors. Their IT department had issues with providing the contractors connection access to their systems which was needed to begin testing. That was resolved earlier this year and they have begun testing between the 3 stations outside the terminal area.
LA really needs to get their butt in gear. About half the light rail projects Metro was supposed to build. Will not be built for the world events Los Angeles was to host:
FIFA 2026
SUPER BOWL 2027
OLYMPICS & PARALYMPICS 2028
The People Mover is cutting it extremely close if they open January 2026. FIFA WORLD SOCCER GAMES begin June 2026. With just five months leeway.
How are people going to get from here to the terminals before the APM is open? The same metro connector bus that's used to get to the station on Aviation?
At this point theres no use rushing the project if the people mover wont be ready until end of 2025, thats the real draw to the station.
They're definitely not rushing at this point. Their rush open date was October of this year and it's now pushed to Q1 next year. Having the Metro station open will still be beneficial. The LAX shuttle from Aviation/Imperial will use this station instead resulting in a shorter roundtrip.
I personally hope that this will push LA Metro to extend the C line to the Norwalk/SFS Metrolink station. It would be a lifesaver coming from OC/IE to LAX.
I think there is some benefit to opening it sooner than later. The southbay stations lost their 1 transfer ride into downtown la due to the C/K reconfiguration. Completing the station will allow the K line to fully open. And restore the single transfer to the 4 South Bay stations.
Once the Metro station opens how can I get from the Terminal to the new Metro stations because the People mover won't be open at the same time right?
This thing is far from being finished. They had better get a move-on if they want this working for the Olympics. But this is LA where things drag on and on, nothing ever gets done.
the LAX skylink should extend outside of the airport. like JFK they can require fare for travel outside the airport.
metro board needs to be jailed. this is taking way way way way way way too long
Any solar ?
To this day I don’t understand why they didn’t just extend the metro into LAX instead of having to change to a slow, low capacity people mover
How fast is metro? 1 or 2 minutes is ok, but if passengers having to wait for 10 to 15 just to leave the airport then I can see why they opted for the people mover since many people wouldn’t me talking metro instead they’ll be going to the rental car facility, the bus stations, and Ubers and Taxi outpost. The people mover is to relieve the airport of taxis, Ubers, and horde of people waiting around.
The transfer between systems will allow them to quickly shut down and isolate the airport if there is an emergency/security issue.
Political corruption. That's it.
Almost ONE BILLION dollars for one train station?? Consider that Kansas City just built their brand new airport, YES a complete airport from scratch for $1.7 Billion. Fire the idiots at Metro accountable for this kind of spending mis-management. (Another great video though by the incomparable John Kay)
The spending is insane when other cities are spending less and getting so much more for their Buck. JFK is spending similar amounts but their project is moving faster and they’re doing an entire reconfiguration of the roadways plus two new terminals and improvement of the other existing terminals. LAX is doing piecemeal work and it has ballooned. All this time the port authority did LaGuardia top to bottom with Newark next in line. LAX will still be arguing whether to even start their vision 30 projects.
@@JeanClaudeCOCO LAX's stations for their People Mover (officially called Sky Link) are designed and run by LAX World Airports. LAX spent $3.6 Billion for 2.1 miles of their overhead people mover. It's not even underground. Yes, LAXWA is just as inept in not being able to control their costs and deliver projects on time. But at least LAX is largely funded by passengers that use it. Unlike the Bloated Los Angeles Metro who has taxed the entire populous to built their terrible product.
My previous comment herein was focused on Metro's transit station. Metro deserves the ire of the taxpayers in L.A. Country and a study to see how a private company might take it over to fix things. Metro is one of the most horribly run agencies in the United States and leadership there never lose their jobs for doing a bad job for their terrible product, over and over and OVER. Yes they are expanding their system quickly. But they have a horrible product that's rife with grift and cost overruns, late (they never deliver on time), slow (Metro trains run at 1/2 their rated speed, expensive, unsafe (I was assaulted twice on Metro when I used to take it as my primary mode of transportation), hemorrhages money (they don't even put up physical barriers to enforce fare collection), and full of open drug use, insane people and the homeless.
Los Angeles has the FIFA World Cup and Olympics coming up and I doubt Metro will even be able to control the graffiti on their stations (scratched into glass, steel and cement). Let alone fix the other issues I just highlighted. It's sad that my bet is that Metro is an embarrassment for the City of Los Angeles when the fans show up and see this Metro station after landing at the airport. I really hope I'm wrong.
😮oh wow! 🤯
And still you can’t get to DTLA without changing trains unlike any other major city with a rapid transit system.