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RAND Corp Tells Hahn: "Re-LAX"
The RAND Corporation has produced a new study of Mayor James Hahn's proposal to expand and realign LAX, and they have concluded that the $9 billion plan will do little to enhance the security of the airport.
Besides spelling out several chilling terrorist attack scenarios, the study finds that the most effective method of preventing a devasting attack on the airport is to limit the concentration of passengers in any one place.
However, creating a bottleneck of passengers is exactly what the Hahn plan will do by moving check-in operations to a consolidated off-site location. Such a collection of soft targets (ie, passengers) is sure to draw the interests of terrorists, who were narrowly prevented from blowing up the airport during the run-up to the Millennium celebration.
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Mayor Hahn is taking a huge chance by putting all his eggs in one basket. As a public servant he should place the public welfare over political considerations, even if his plan needs to go back to the drawing board for major changes. A successful strike on the passenger collection area would have devastating consequences, in both human and economic losses.
We should not take that chance.
As Editor-in-Chief of our newsroom, I’m extremely proud of the work our top-notch journalists are doing here at LAist. We’re doing more hard-hitting watchdog journalism than ever before — powerful reporting on the economy, elections, climate and the homelessness crisis that is making a difference in your lives. At the same time, it’s never been more difficult to maintain a paywall-free, independent news source that informs, inspires, and engages everyone.
Simply put, we cannot do this essential work without your help. Federal funding for public media has been clawed back by Congress and that means LAist has lost $3.4 million in federal funding over the next two years. So we’re asking for your help. LAist has been there for you and we’re asking you to be here for us.
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