Quote:
Originally Posted by kittyhawk28
They would still have a net gain of gates of up to 172 total gates up from the current 146 gates, even if they demolished the remote gates.
Also can't they still renege on the deal and still move the runway further north if the FAA forces them to for safety concerns?
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Yeah here's the thing, I know the newspapers and Wikipedia all say LAX has 146 gates. But they are all wrong. There are, as we speak, 153 gates at LAX, the same number it has had since 2010. This is a decrease of 10 gates since 2006. This will remain true until at least 2024.
The reduction in gates was due to a CEQA lawsuit over the 2000 Master plan, and a resulting 2006 settlement agreement, which is available
here. In addition to the gate reduction, the opposing parties were given virtual veto power over any new terminal construction. The only exceptions were what would become the Midfield Satellite Concourse (MSC) and the people mover, and even those could still be CEQA sued.
In 2015 LAWA had a look back into the 2006 settlement agreement. At the time they were struggling to get the LAMP project (airport people mover, etc) through a CEQA lawsuit from the same group that had sued over the 2000 Master Plan (ARSAC). In 2016 they managed to reach an agreement with ARSAC, which is why you suddenly started seeing a lot more movement on that project in 2017.
Per the terms of the MOU, available for viewing
here, LAWA agreed to the following things:
-Not to relocate the northern runways further north
-Until 2024, only construct projects to replace remote gates, keeping the total number of gates at 153
-After 2024, not to build any gates outside of the of a designated Passenger Terminal Modernization Area (see exhibit D for map)
-After reaching 153 gates in the PTMA, decommission all of the remote gates
-Pay ARSAC $400,000
In return ARSAC agreed not to sue or otherwise delay any project that didn't break these boundaries. If this seems like a massive climbdown, it's because the political situation had changed since the early 2000s and the old settlement agreement was due to expire in 2020. They knew they weren't going to get nearly as good a deal this time around.
As for where the other numbers come from, it's because a lot of people don't understand the structure of all this. When LAX "replaces" a remote gate, they don't physically demolish it, it just legally can't be used. Today there are ~135 gates in the CTA/MSC, and 24 remote gates (of which only 18 can be used). T0 and T9 will add ~15 new gates and they will demolish 9 remote gates, meaning there will still physically be ~174 gates total on the airport, but still only 153 of them will be able to be used.
It's only after 2024 that LAX can truly expand. My guess is they'll extend the MSC south (not the current plan, a true extension which would involve relocating the AA maintenance hanger, probably to physically replace the remote gates). After that, it'll probably mainly be minor extensions/renovations in terms of absolute gate count. I would suspect the final number of gates will end up at a bit over 160, although technically 153 can support all of LAX's required capacity that assumes nothing ever delays a plane at the gate. Most likely finish date would be mid-late 2030s.
Oh and yes, LAWA technically can go back on the deal if the FAA forces them to, but only if that's part of a general FAA rule that all dual runways need a taxiway in-between them. Which will never happen, because that would involve rebuilding dozens of runways nationwide and raise such high holy hell it wouldn't be worth the trouble. Consider the controversy over the Metroplex projects and realize this would assuredly be worse.