Putting the LAX people mover drama into perspective

Hot Take

By Paul Thornton

The world is riddled with airport projects in big cities gone wrong. A faulty baggage system at Denver International delayed the airport’s opening for 16 months in the 1990s. In Berlin, there was talk of tearing down the German capital’s gleaming new airport before it even opened because of serious construction defects.

So perhaps Angelenos can take some comfort in knowing that the long-delayed LAX people mover isn’t the measure of municipal incompetence some are making it out to be. While the news that the train’s operation will be delayed yet again doesn’t look good for a city and a state derided as no longer being able to build things, it reflects the reality that massive and costly airport projects are prone to delays and cost overruns.

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Earlier this month, the contractor building the 2.25-mile automated train linking Los Angeles International Airport’s terminals to a new Metro station, long-term parking structure and rental car center said it would miss its Oct. 8 deadline and finish in January at the earliest. This came after previous delays kept the people mover out of service for the 2026 World Cup and ballooned its budget from $1.9 billion to at least $3.34 billion.

A report in the Los Angeles Times said the reasons for the latest delay are “murky.” Maddeningly, the project has been stuck at about 99% finished since at least April because of interruptions in the system’s reliability testing and a dispute with the contractor over electrical equipment.

The cost overruns and delays might make the people mover look like a failure. But it’s really part of a herculean attempt to rebuild the international hub for the 21st century without shutting down operations. The overhaul of a traffic-choked airport designed in the 1950s is the city’s most expensive public works project, and other parts of it (new and rebuilt terminals, for example) have gone pretty well.

The people mover is a critical piece to solving LAX’s traffic puzzle. Inconvenient and embarrassing as these delays might be, they’ll probably fall far into the rearview mirror once the train finally liberates passengers from the dreaded “horseshoe.”

Noted, With Comment

By Mariel Garza and Paul Thornton

The nose knows: Data analyst Moses Huerta, who runs a community air-quality monitoring program in Maywood, says people living near industrial sites can sniff out dangerous pollution well before sensors tell the government something’s wrong. He writes in CALÓ News that a 2024 federal rule ordering ethylene oxide-polluting plants to monitor and cut emissions – which the Trump administration rolled back in 2025 – recognized this reality.

Where’s Becerra? Xavier Becerra is scheduled to participate in a televised gubernatorial debate on CNN this evening. But the Democrat has been a virtual no-show on the public stage since shortly after taking first place in the June 2 primary. San Francisco Chronicle columnist Jack Ohman writes that Democrats better hope he has been using that time alone to hone his message to voters. You can find a non-paywalled version on Ohman’s Substack.

Condo over castle: Writer Elisa Johnston explains in the California Post, which usually complains about California chasing people away, why she prefers to stay in her San Diego condo rather than uproot her family of six to a Midwest mansion or European estate. “Those willing to transplant outside California must be brave,” she says. “For even when we know what our money could buy elsewhere, most of us stay. Uprooting the homes — jobs, children, communities and lifestyles — we’ve built in California carries its own cost.”

Told you so: Nick Patsaouras, a civic leader and former L.A. Department of Water and Power commissioner, warned for years that without proper oversight of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, homelessness would continue to worsen. Did anyone listen? No, and here we are with a defunct city-county program but a “‘Homeless-Industrial-Complex' that profited from the crisis” alive and well, he writes in CityWatchLA.

Election Endorsement Scorecard

Dog pile on Props. 41 and 42: Golden State isn’t the only news organization to see these two propositions on the Nov. 3 ballot as red herrings intending to nullify Proposition 40. The Sacramento Bee previously endorsed Proposition 40 and doesn’t appreciate the effort by its opponents to sneakily undermine it with Proposition 41.

The San Francisco Chronicle editorial board faults Propositions 41 and 42 as billionaire-funded wealth tax “poison pills” with counterproductive ballot-box budgeting provisions to boot.

The conservative-leaning, anti-tax Southern California News Group editorial board doesn’t care who’s behind the measures or why. It thinks Proposition 41’s provisions on tax audits and the Gann Limit and Proposition 42’s ban on new wealth taxes are good policies.

Prop. 40 pro-con: After the L.A. Times ran its mysterious editorial opposing Proposition 40, the Opinion section has dug a little more into the billionaire tax. On Tuesday, it published side-by-side op-eds: one from a former California Department of Health Care Services director warning of the measure’s structural flaws, and another from a former White House economist who calls Proposition 40 an imperfect but “groundbreaking” initiative.

Prop. 40’s best friends: That’d be the billionaires waging an “utterly unhinged campaign” against it, writes independent journalist Josh Gohlke at his Substack Laughing Leads to Crying. “All in all, these modern-day robber barons have made a better case for this little ballot measure than any lunatic lefty possibly could,” he says.

DIY ballot endorsements: Don’t care for other people’s ballot recommendations? The L.A. Public Press is here for you. It has a primer for those who want to research the election like a reporter, including links to county election information sources, court record databases, campaign finance databases and much more.

GS in the wild

Mariel Garza will participate in a live webinar panel hosted by Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) on the shortcomings of efforts to insulate journalists at CBS and CNN from inappropriate outside influence following the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger. It’s called, “A paper tiger for the press: Why ‘independent’ editorial boards can’t protect journalism,” and it’s at 10 a.m. PDT on Oct. 5. Register here