One of the great mysteries of Los Angeles area transportation is why the Green Line light rail system goes near, but not to, LAX. To an amateur, it might seem that the world’s fifth largest airport by passenger count (62m of them last year) would be a natural stop on any rail system; fortunately, the Green Line was designed by professionals.

The missing connection to LAX spurs as many conspiracy theories as the demise of the Pacific Red Cars over a half century ago. It’s the taxi companies, say some; the airport itself, afraid of losing parking revenue, say others. The Daily Breeze recently looked into the mystery and concluded that it was just poor planning: the line was supposed to serve El Segundo’s then-thriving aerospace industry, not the outlying … well, it was a pretty big airport back then too.

But someone did think ahead, or at least cover their bases. Travelers headed south on Aviation just past the 105 can see evidence of what might have been: a spur to nowhere that should have been the Green Line’s LAX connection.

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In an alternate universe, tired travelers are walking out of LAX terminals and stepping aboard Green Line trains that whisk them off downtown, sparing both lives and expense accounts. That trip might still take two transfers and an hour, but where do you think you are? Portland? Miami? Shanghai?

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 27th, 2008 at 9:54 pm by A Senior Administration Official and is filed under California Schemin'. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.