I was at LAX recently, waiting for the shuttle bus to take me to my parking lot, waiting and waiting and waiting, watching other shuttles pass me by until mine finally came. The one thing that jumped out at me was that virtually all of those other shuttles were empty. What a waste of gasoline, not to mention adding to the traffic problem and hurting the environment. There’s got to be a better way.
It took a while of thinking, but I’ve come up with a plan that is actually pretty simple and could easily work. Here’s what would happen: There would be official airport shuttle buses that pick up everybody. These buses would then deposit passengers at a central parking lot where the shuttle buses from individual parking garages and car rental places would be waiting to take people to their final destinations.
And that’s pretty much it. There would be far fewer shuttles circling the airport, and those that are there would be filled. That would ease traffic and waste less gas.
For passengers,wait and travel times would likely be the same, except they would be split up between the airport and the parking lot. Taking two buses might be a bit annoying, but I think the benefits outweigh the inconveniences.
As far as the trip to the airport, it would be the same thing — take a shuttle to the central lot, then the official shuttle to the airport. I thought about allowing shuttles to drop off passengers at the airport, and perhaps having them pick up passengers and bring them to the central lot on the way out. But it’s probably better just to keep them out of the airport entirely.
So that’s it. Comments?