Welcome to new LAX south
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Posted Date: 01/03/2008
Issue: Airside International March 2008
Publication: Airside International
If there were ever a good reason for reconfiguring an airfield, runway safety has to be top of the list. “We had a problem on the south airfield with runway incursions and we believed it was primarily attributable to the layout of the airfield. This is because we had high speed taxiways that led off the primary arrival runway that crossed our primary departure runway,” explains Jake Adams, Los Angeles World Airports Program Manager on the South Airfield Improvement Program (SAIP). “The intention of this project was to eliminate those high speed taxiways to help mitigate the runway incursions.”
First Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA) had to demolish, relocate and reconstruct existing Runway 25L/7R 55ft south of its former location. The new runway duplicates the existing runway’s length (11,090ft) and width (200ft). Upon completion of the new runway, a new centre taxiway between the two runways on the south airfield is being constructed. The new taxiway will allow aircraft landing on Runway 25L/7R to taxi and hold position out of the path of aircraft using the inner runway – Runway 25R/7L – until federal air traffic controllers authorise pilots to cross the inner runway and continue to their assigned gates at the terminal.
“These are two separate projects,” states Adams. “We started runway construction in March 2006 and we opened the runway in April 2007, at which point we started working immediately on the centre taxiway. The centre taxiway should open in June 2008.”
The SAIP is the first project of the LAX Master Plan; the rest of the projects are currently going through their planning and environmental study phases. The midfield concourse plan – next on the agenda – is slated for completion in the next four to five years and the consolidated rental automobile facility is also scheduled for urgent attention.
Airfield surprises
Despite extensive studies and plans, when excavation started, Adams and his team found a 1940s runway to the west of the Sepulveda Tunnel that they did not know about. “That put an immediate stop to the construction in September 2006,” remembers Adams. So how come no one knew about it? “Trust me … our board members have asked us that question too!” he responds. “There was a set of plans that showed the complete removal of the 1940s runway when the runway was reconstructed in the late 1960s. There were no record drawings showing the old runway because it had supposedly been removed.”
Calling on Murphy’s Law for an explanation, Adams explains that early in the design stage, Adams and his team bored holes to validate the drawings. “We dug a core along the runway every 2,000ft. Of course that 1,200ft just happened to fall between the two cores.”
Prior to any thoughts turning to excavation, the SAIP team undertook a massive records search using a geographic information system. “We did a general survey of substructures that could be in our way. We looked at geo-technical conditions and then we had a huge effort to locate electrical and communications lines. A full team went out with the as-built drawings to verify all of the items shown on those drawings. Then we had a follow up team go out looking specifically for those items that did not show up on the as-built drawings. Even with all that effort, we still hit a few problems,” comments Adams.
Taxiway next
The central taxiway is a more complex project than the runway given that Adams’ team is undertaking the challenge of building it in sections between two active runways.
“We have just opened the fifth phase of a total of 16 phases of the centre taxiway,” he says, adding that the runways either side of the new taxiway remain fully operational despite the work. “We do have to close Runway 25R/7L over the weekends to make the connections from the taxiway to that runway but we can only afford to close it for a very limited time period.” Independent of the Master Plan, there are a number of projects afoot that will help to address the arrival of the A380, the 747-800 and other new large aircraft at LAX. “Adams explains: “We have strengthened the Sepulveda Tunnel so that it can handle the weight of the A380 in the future. We have a plan in place for the runways it will use as well as the airfield intersection improvements that will help facilitate the movement of the A380 from the runways.”
“We have a host of other safety projects coming online – mostly electrical in nature. We are implementing a runway status light project and then we have the inevitable capital projects for the ageing infrastructure. We are also studying the options for improving our north airfield.”
For the SAIP there is a budget of $333 million and Adams is confident that he is operating well within that budget. “Much of that money came through grants from the FAA through its Airport Improvement Program. To date we have received about $100 million from the FAA. We are lobbying for more FAA funding and, typically, we would make up any difference through our revenue sources.
Good practice
“This was our first construction project that had a tremendous amount of environmental due diligence attached to it. We have focused heavily on noise because of the adjacent communities,” comments Adams. “The contractor was required to develop a noise control plan to concentrate noisy activities on certain hours of the day. We also had a compliance control officer who monitored the noise in the community by measuring it at certain pre-established points. To date we have not exceeded any of the noise levels that we established in our environmental document.” A noise hotline that was staffed 24 hours per day was set up to take complaints, specifically in relation to construction noise, and a noise website has been developed. A broad public outreach project took place in the beginning of this programme. Several meetings after construction started also took place in order to monitor the response from the community and keep it abreast of the proceedings.
In terms of minimising the impact of construction traffic on the community, Adams’ team restricted employee reporting time and delivery times to avoid the LA traffic peaks. “We also required the contractor to park his employees off site and utilise a shuttle bus system to bring them into the work site,” he adds. Air quality is a perennial issue around airports, let alone those undergoing airfield reconfiguration. “We required the contractor to use ultra-low sulphur diesel for all of his equipment. Where possible we required him to install diesel particulate filters and we have a number of fugitive dust inspectors on board. We have additional water trucks and sweepers to try to mitigate dust; there is also a 24 hour dust complaint hotline,” explains Adams.
Dealing with debris has had an environmental flavour too. “We were able to recycle 100% of the concrete from the demolished runway and reuse it in the new runway and the new taxiway. A lot of the steel was sent out for recycling and we tried to reuse much of our airfield electrical equipment. We also recycled a lot of aggregate that was used as base courses for the new runway,” comments Adams. While the new runway configuration has at its root the future minimisation of runway incursions, there are some environmental benefits to the new layout. For example, Adams and his team have been able to revamp the storm water system on the south side and put in filtration cells to replenish the ground water. “We are installing storm water treatment systems because most of our storm water runs direct into the ocean and so we are doing our best to clean it up,” he comments further.
Models and modelling
When moving runways nothing can be left to chance. “We undertook a huge effort in the planning phase in which we actually used Future Flight Central administered by NASA in northern California to put together a full scale model of how the airport would run under the new configuration. We had air traffic controllers and pilots involved to be sure the design would work,” Adams explains. “Now that we are actually implementing the design, we’ve had a tremendous amount of coordination with the FAA, our local controllers and our chief pilots who represent the airlines that serve LAX, to keep them abreast of the proceedings as different portions of the south airfield open up.”
In terms of signing off the work, Adams works with a team of 12 construction inspectors. “Those construction inspectors are my eyes and ears in the field and they are required to sign off the work when it achieves compliance with the plans and specifications. The plans are obviously approved by the FAA but we went above and beyond the FAA requirements in many areas.” The demolition, relocation and reconstruction of Runway 25L/7R 55ft south of its former location and the building of a new centre taxiway between the two runways on the south airfield is a project with safety at its heart. Nevertheless, as Adams puts it: “This is a huge effort.”
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