I. Aviation

Airport System Recommendations

CommunityLink 21 includes a range of forecast demand for passengers from 148 to 170 million annual passengers as shown in Figure 1. It will also contain an allocation of these ranges to individual airports (see Table 11).

One major limitation in these allocations is that capacity can not be estimated at two important facilities (LAX and El Toro) due to lack of air traffic simulation modeling ability. Consequently, these two airports are unconstrained in the passenger allocations, and must await definitive capacity modeling analysis from their respective master plans presently underway.

The capacity of the existing airport system is approximately 100 million air passengers, so the system will experience a passenger capacity shortfall of one-third by 2020. Over the same period of time, air cargo is expected to grow from 3.0 million tons in 1995 to 8.9 million tons in 2020. As additional airports are added to the system through military conversions and as airports are expanded, they need to consider the impact on population growth and job expansion in the region so that regional trip-making is reduced and community impacts are minimized. Additionally, as ground access systems are developed, such as high speed rail, the effect that they have on airport utilization needs to be further assessed.

ACTION - Support expansion of capacity at major regional airports to handle anticipated increases in both passenger and freight volume.

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Ground Access

Freight and passengers for regional airports are expected to increase dramatically through 2020. Ground access for passenger and freight movement is a key issue to be addressed when considering airport expansion. airport traffic impacts are

primarily concentrated near airports but airport access is also affected by the same background congestion that affects everyone. Each airport usually considers access improvements but there is often issues between airports and surrounding communities as to the extent of improvements and how they are paid for. Other airports, especially military air base conversions, are under development planning and additional ground access improvements and funding needs to be identified.

ACTION - Construct improvements on arterials, highway and rail lines to accommodate added freight and passenger movements to and from airports.

ACTION - Support subregions in obtaining funding for ground access studies.

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