While crawling through LAX this week while dropping off or picking up family for a holiday trip, you have to wonder…when the Automated People Mover will be up and running. You can see the tracks and the new stations, too. So, when will it open?
The goal is for Metro to finish its LAX connector station late next year and, according to Dae Levine with L.A. World Airports, the automated people mover should be rolling at around the same time.
Levine told KNX News reporter Jon Baird, "I think it's well within the realm of possibility. Our hope is that we're going to be delivering the train about a year from now."
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Once completed, travelers should be able to take a Metro train to LAX, and ride the gleaming new people mover right to their airline terminal.
According to Levine, it is the second largest concrete structure in the United States, second only to the Pentagon, and it provides riders with views that immediately bring the sense that they are in Los Angeles.
She said, "From the top, where you arrive on the train [to LAX], you can see the Hollywood sign, you can see downtown, you can see the mountains in the distance," so bring your camera.
Levine said, "They always say that the seven most feared words in the English language to an Angeleno is 'Can you pick me up at LAX?'" and the goal of the people mover is to remove the stress and anger that seems to invariably come with a trip to arrivals and departures at LAX.
"We're so excited. Right now, we are testing the trains. The tracks are fully electrified, but we're testing them at the maintenance and storage yard," said Levine.
Both Metro and LAX officials are confident that a lot of people will leave their cars at home and climb aboard.
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