A Change of LAX Players

Mayor James K. Hahn released the final environmental impact report Wednesday for his proposed $9-billion overhaul of Los Angeles International Airport, clearing the way for a City Council vote on the controversial plan by September. It is no more likely to pass now than it was the day it was made public. The best that can be said is that the key players have changed, even if the details haven’t -- yet.

The plan calls for rerouting private vehicles to a remote passenger check-in center near the San Diego Freeway. It would replace the parking structures in the central terminal area with a giant terminal complex and demolish Terminals 1, 2 and 3.

For all of the expense, federal analysts say the overhaul would not add capacity or permanent jobs or boost the region’s long-term economy. Experts disagree over whether it would improve security -- the plan’s selling point -- dependent as it is on scanning technologies that are still being developed. The centralized check-in center and automated people mover, besides being inconvenient, could simply create new targets for terrorists.

For two long years, city Airport Commission President Ted Stein and Deputy Mayor Troy Edwards, Hahn’s point men on the airport, refused to budge. The one sign that there may yet be a chance to salvage a plan is that both men resigned this month.

The resignations came during county and federal investigations into claims that contracting at the city’s airport, port and water and power departments was linked to campaign donations. Both men deny wrongdoing, and Hahn defends them. But investigations aside, their bullying promotion of the mayor’s plan and refusal to even consider alternatives doomed coalition-building.

Noisy and congested, yet economically vital, airports are always controversial. No single plan will please everyone. But Stein and Edwards managed to alienate pro-growth supporters and no-growth activists, airlines and airport neighbors alike.

Now Hahn, who is pushing the September vote so he can tout the airport overhaul in his reelection campaign, has just four months to fix things, when he could have had two years.

Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski is working on a compromise. Her challenge will be to balance the needs of the airport neighborhoods she represents against the needs of the region. Consensus already exists on consolidating rental cars into a single facility, greatly expanding the express bus system serving LAX and extending the Metro Green Line train into the airport.

Other improvements, such as a federal recommendation to widen the south runways to improve the airport’s sorry record of near collisions, ought to be no-brainers.

At this late date, the trick will be figuring out what can be changed and still meet environmental safeguards spelled out in the study. A greater challenge will be providing the key missing ingredient: leadership.