Welcome to Los Angeles! Welcome to Los Angeles! The promised land, the wild west of cinema glamour, the beaches of Santa Monica and the Hollywood sign. Welcome, have you arrived at the airport? Well prepare for chaos. Because, for starters, it's going to be hard to get out of LAX, the county's main airfield. And, when you do, you will live your first immersive experience of the city. Getting around the second largest city in the United States is an impossible mission. The buses (which move 70% of users) are few and slow, always stuck in impossible traffic; The subway, with tracks also limited by use by other trains, is scarce in its frequencies and routes and is not always pleasant or safe. The city is going to invest a stratospheric 120 billion dollars (raised with a specific tax) in its public transportation system over the next 40 years, until 2056. But it seems little for mobility in a place with more than 10 million citizens that Without a car, they are lost. The city itself recognizes this in its strategic transportation plan, whose objective is 2028, when the Olympic Games will come to the city for the third time (before, in 2026, a part of the Men's Soccer World Cup will arrive). “Our current transportation system is highly congested because road space is used inefficiently,” they say, noting that “the most disadvantaged members” have “limited options” for getting around. What is sought are “high-quality mobility options” 10 minutes from any point, with less waiting times (maximum 15 minutes), better speed and a practical and trustworthy option for the user. But the The entrance door, as in every city, is the airport, and there you have to step foot and doubts and chaos arrive. As an example and to begin with, the exit after baggage collection in the international terminal is a curved upward ramp. The most difficult yet. The narrow exit doors of the terminals do not allow two people to pass through. Then, more complications. There is no subway. Public buses, one, that takes you to Union Station—a transportation hub and financial center, where hardly anyone lives or stays—in about 40 minutes for 10 dollars. Where do the 66 million annual travelers go, which reached 88 before the pandemic? In cars, specifically, in the 32 million that pass through LAX each year. Something that implies terrible traffic throughout the airfield. So much so that taxis and VTC are no longer allowed: you have to look for a limping bus labeled LAX-it (play on words with Exit) that takes you to another terminal, a kind of wasteland where, yes, you ask for a car via app. When applications like Uber and Lyft appeared a decade ago—cheaper and very popular—the cost of the rides was negligible, especially considering the high prices in California. So much so that they practically put an end to taxis. Now there are hardly any taxis. And the rates for vehicles with drivers have skyrocketed. The future lies in the subway and the city consortium knows it. LAX has invested 15 billion to modernize its eight terminals and link them by small air trains; some are starting to work. A low-cost car park has also been created, far away, of course: you have to arrive later by another bus. But the subway resists. The C line, far from the most touristic centers of the city (more in the south-central, without connection to Downtown, Hollywood or Santa Monica), reaches a stop in the middle of nowhere called Aviation/LAX. From there a connection is being built with another more popular although still half-way line, the K, which has the glamorous West Hollywood in the works and which, one day, since it is running late, will end up in Aviation. And from there an ambitious 900 million dollar project will start: a node with buses from all over the city, a drop-off area for travelers from cars, bicycle parking, shops… and where a stop will take travelers by semi-automatic trains to the airport. “Everyone arriving or departing from LAX should have access to modern, reliable public transportation that takes them to their destination on time,” declared the then mayor of Los Angeles, Eric Garcetti, when he inaugurated the project in June 2021. and when he said that the initial intention is for that last step to the airport to be ready by the end of 2024. But, for now, there is only concrete, steel and helmets. And it is more than seven kilometers from the terminals. Call the next taxi. Follow all the information from Economy and Business on Facebook and Twitteror in our weekly newsletter