[dcftoapv]

The Los Angeles taxi union prevented (read: bribed and coerced) the state / city government from installing a train from LAX to DTLA because they were rolling in cash.

Then, they got pissed about Uber, and had a rule enacted that forced passengers to take a bus to an external lot which turned the world's worst airport congestion into a way worse situation.

It is not unrealistic to think that they are a driving force behind this situation as well. California is corrupt as fuck, from GM paying LA to take out way more efficient train lines so they could sell buses to Beverly Hills preventing LA from building a subway. It makes living here absolutely miserable.

[dcftoapv]

@tom No, it's not being built. The train that is currently under construction will connect the airport terminals to a cab stand and car rental station less than a mile from the airport because LA taxi drivers threw a shit fit when they suggested building a train into downtown and Santa Monica.

By the way, we're paying $4 billion for that. $4 billion to carry passengers less than a mile from the airport so they can then take a cab...

LA cab drivers are all unionized now and they had their entire hand stuck in this process. It was corruption as an art form.

Our government sucks.

[gamblor956]

The train that is currently under construction will connect the airport terminals to a cab stand and car rental station less than a mile from the airport because LA taxi drivers threw a shit fit when they suggested building a train into downtown and Santa Monica.

This is false to the point of being deliberate FUD.

The LAX people mover is $4 billion because the FAA requires a fuck-ton of care to be taken so that construction and the people-mover itself doesn't interfere with the operation of the airport. It is a 2.25 mile system with 6 stations: the terminals, the rental car facility, the parking lots, the metro station, and two employee-only facilities.

The shuttle you speak of will only operate for 2-3 years, between the parking facility (expected completion 2021) and the terminals, while the Peoplemover is built out to the terminals (expected completion: 2023).

LA taxi drivers had literally no influence over the design of the airport or public transportation to it. I don't understand the bizarre logic required to think that a few hundred people making just above minimum wage have the political leverage to block a multi-billion dollar project.

[dcftoapv]

No, it's not. Nothing you wrote contradicted anything I said. The ultimate passenger destinations are less than 1 mile from the airport. They do not include connections to ongoing transportation other than cars, buses, and taxis. It cost $4 billion for something that adds little to no value.

LA taxi drivers were actively protesting outside of the airport when the original train was proposed. Stop lying.

I agree with you. It is bizarre that they have any influence whatsoever, but they do, and they have been forcefully exerting it for decades.

[gamblor956]

The ultimate passenger destinations are less than 1 mile from the airport. They do not include connections to ongoing transportation other than cars, buses, and taxis. It cost $4 billion for something that adds little to no value.

Again, that is completely false.

Only the parking lot facility is less than a mile from the airport terminals. The public transportation hub itself is 1.25 miles away from the airport; the same facility will provide access to rail, bus, taxi, and apptaxi (fka rideshare), and the rental car facility at the end of the people mover is roughly 1.5 miles away (across the street from the transportation hub), or roughly 2.25 miles from the other end of the peoplemover in front of tom bradley. https://www.lawa.org/-/media/lawa-web/connecting-lax/lamp-bu...

LA taxi drivers were actively protesting outside of the airport when the original train was proposed. Stop lying.

Yes, they were. And their protests accomplished nothing. Because taxi drivers have no leverage.

It is bizarre that they have any influence whatsoever, but they do, and they have been forcefully exerting it for decades.

No, they have not. They have had literally no influence on public transportation to the airport.

Think about it: they couldn't even stop Uber and Lyft from operating at the airport. And you think they had the leverage to stop public transportation for decades?

(Another example: Uber complained about the new temporary pickup lot for taxis/apptaxis, and LAX made changes the next day to accommodate apptaxis. The taxi drivers made the same complaints...and got no changes at all...Almost a year later, the regular taxis are still complaining about those same issues.)

[dcftoapv]

What rail? The one into Inglewood? Super helpful for everyone involved.

I'm not arguing the measurement of 1 mile versus 1.5 miles with you. You are nitpicking to confuse the argument and it doesn't change the point in the least.

I have lived in LA long enough to see proposal after proposal made, the taxis protest, and the proposals get canned. You can talk about lack of influence all you want, but they have gotten their way every time they made a statement for the last several decades by threatening to shutdown airport traffic. They are nothing but thugs.

[monadic2]

Blame the corrupt officials that enabled this, you can hardly blame a union for trying to act in their own self interest. They don't represent you but the city does.

[dcftoapv]

I'll continue to blame the minority interests that are doing everything possible to keep LA transportation stuck in the stone ages, thank you.

[monadic2]

I mean sure but to what end?

Regardless, you couldn't have this effect without the corrupt politicians that ARE supposed to represent your interests, unlike the taxi union. What's the point of raging at perfectly understandable lobbying?

[TheAceOfHearts]

It's possible to blame both. You can certainly blame the union for acting against the common good.

[gamblor956]

The Los Angeles taxi union prevented (read: bribed and coerced) the state / city government from installing a train from LAX to DTLA because they were rolling in cash.

This is false. Pure FUD. The LA taxi union isn't a very powerful union, and was never the primary roadblock to building the Green Line all the way to the airport. The FAA was the reason: they thought the power lines for the rail line would interfere with landing paths of planes. https://www.dailynews.com/2008/01/09/why-green-line-stopped-...

California is corrupt as fuck, from GM paying LA to take out way more efficient train lines so they could sell buses to Beverly Hills preventing LA from building a subway. It makes living here absolutely miserable.

This is also a fraudulent representation of history. The old rail lines (i.e., Pacific Electric) were never profitable because they were intended as loss leaders for suburban housing developments. The lines ultimately went bankrupt when cars became popular because they had a max speed of approximately 15 mph. When LA formed its nascent public transportation system in the 50s, it acquired the few busy/profitable lines remaining. Some of those rights of way were used for new rail construction (for example, the E line to Santa Monica).

[dcftoapv]

Every other city in the country has figured out rail transportation. The FAA could have been pacified if there was any political will to find a real solution. Blaming the FAA because they rejected one design is pure bs.

GM most definitely ran a campaign through the '50s and '60s designed to increase the use of buses as a replacement for street cars. That's not anywhere close to debatable and LA was not the only city that went along with it.

And if you're going to continue to claim that corruption is not the driving force behind these decisions then I would love your explanation for BH doing everything in their power to prevent and delay a rail line because they didn't want homeless people to be have easy access to the area. It's all about money, not the common good. Nobody here is planning for anything other than their own pocketbook.

[gamblor956]

The FAA could have been pacified if there was any political will to find a real solution. Blaming the FAA because they rejected one design is pure bs.

It's literally the truth. You can't build a rail to the airport if the ultimate governing body for airports in the country won't let you build the rail to the airport. It took decades to get the FAA to withdraw its opposition, and that didn't happen until a Democratic president took over.

I would love your explanation for BH doing everything in their power to prevent and delay a rail line because they didn't want homeless people to be have easy access to the area.

That's not corruption. That's residents of the city of Beverly Hills being opposed to having a rail line in their city because they don't want homeless people having easy access. (And they're not wrong to be worried about it; the homeless use the E Line daily to shuttle between Santa Monica and downtown LA.) It's not corruption simply because you disagree with them. That's how democracy works.

Notably, the businesses in Beverly Hills were very much in favor of a rail line station terminating in the city. However, businesses aren't voters, so if the rail station had been built over the objections of the voting residents, that would be an example of corruption.

[mdorazio]

Was there ever a legitimately priced proposal for a train to go from LAX to DTLA? The only reason the Expo line worked was because the rights of way, and in some cases the rail itself, was already in place. I don't remember seeing anything other than concepts for an LAX train (not the people mover under construction now, an actual train) and thinking they would never get the funding and permits to make it work.

To your comment about rideshare pickups at the terminals. Just no. Pre-COVID I was flying for work weekly and Uber & Lyft pickups were awful for congestion in the circle, in addition to taking forever to get to you. It was often faster to walk off-airport and get a ride from the Hyatt. And that was with normal level of traffic, not the expected Olympics-level. I'm sure the taxi union was involved, but the decision to switch to LAX-it made a whole lot of sense.

[dcftoapv]

Also a frequent flier. It sucked before but the solution was 100% designed to benefit cab drivers. Moreover, it absolutely fucked up the entrance to the airport which went from long, but doable, to dozens of people missing their flights per-day bad.

I live in Playa Vista and had a 1.5 hour trip to LAX in November. I was this close to driving through there at 3am and stealing every one of their traffic cones.

[tomjakubowski]

What "Los Angeles taxi union" organization specifically lobbied against the LAX train, which, by the way, is now being built?

There may well have been industry lobbyists fighting this but until very recently (the last five years) almost no taxi drivers in Los Angeles were unionized.

[labcomputer]

> which, by the way, is now being built

Yea, over 25 years late.

The Green Line (opened 1995) was originally supposed to have a real LAX station, instead of the (current) station-near-LAX-with-a-bus-transfer. The Crenshaw Corridor train (which connects to the Green Line) will open an LAX station sometime in 2021, if it isn't delayed.

[gamblor956]

The Green Line (opened 1995) was originally supposed to have a real LAX station

...until the FAA intervened and said the Metro couldn't build all the way out to the airport, due to the potential danger from crossing existing flight paths. (In a nutshell: the Green Line would have crossed perpendicularly to the existing runways, which would be fine normally but a huge risk in the event a plane overshoots or undershoots the runway.)