LAX’s Intricate Dance of Pedestrians and Vehicles

A blue sedan suddenly struck Ericka Tadeo in a crosswalk at Los Angeles International Airport recently as she was walking to work at Ruby’s restaurant in Terminal 6.

The impact threw her 20 feet and left her tennis shoes on the busy lower-level roadway. Tadeo, who routinely used the crosswalk in front of the terminal to get to and from work, remains in fair condition after 11 days at UCLA Medical Center.

Vehicles traversing LAX’s crowded, horseshoe-shaped roadways hit dozens of pedestrians each year.

It’s no wonder: About 70,000 vehicles and 250,000 pedestrians perform an intricate dance every day on the chaotic airport roads. Half of these vehicles are shuttles, vans or buses.

Buses and shuttles often swerve wildly in and out of traffic--narrowly avoiding slow-moving cars and trucks whose drivers are scanning the curb for waiting passengers. Drivers gab on cell phones, switching lanes without notice. And pedestrians take chances, sometimes stepping off the curb without looking.

Nonetheless, officials agree that the number of times vehicles get tangled up with pedestrians at LAX is remarkably low given the heavy daily use of the airport’s compact central terminal area.

“The bottom line to me is: For the number of cars and the number of people, there just aren’t that many incidents out there,” said Michael DiGirolamo, the airport’s deputy director of operations.

“That’s attributable to high-profile crosswalks with warning lights, commercial vehicle drivers knowing what they’re doing, and the general public being aware of what’s going on.”

Even so, Tadeo’s accident is a cautionary reminder that the world’s third-busiest airport can be an unpredictable place for drivers and pedestrians.

Vehicles passing through LAX hit 30 pedestrians last year, up 25% from a year earlier, according to the Los Angeles Police Department’s West Traffic Division, which investigates the accidents. Eight incidents have occurred so far this year, LAPD records show.

An analysis of the statistics highlights hot spots for vehicles and pedestrians at LAX.

Three out of four of the 84 accidents involving vehicles and pedestrians at LAX in the past 3 1/2 years took place at or near busy intersections on the facility’s lower level. Most pedestrians at LAX use this level to pick up passengers and to go to jobs at the airport.

The most dangerous spots are where World Way bisects East Way and West Way on both the north and south sides of the horseshoe. Other trouble areas are where Center Way hits World Way in front of the Tom Bradley International Terminal and where Sky Way flows into World Way near Terminal 1.

World Way is the name of both the upper- and lower-level circular roadways at LAX. East Way cuts across the central terminal area near its eastern edge between parking structure No. 1 and the Encounter Restaurant. West Way is a shortcut on the western side flanked by parking structures No. 2 and No. 5 on one side and No. 3 and No. 4 on the other.

About two-thirds of the vehicle-pedestrian accidents at LAX since 1999 have been caused by drivers, according to LAPD statistics. Drivers often failed to yield to pedestrians in crosswalks, or didn’t see them because they were traveling faster than the 25-mph speed limit in the central terminal area.

Pedestrians, on the other hand, jaywalked, suddenly stepped off the curb into a crosswalk or crossed against the “Don’t Walk” signal or a red light.

Most pedestrians involved in accidents at LAX escaped serious injury. About 66% of those struck by vehicles since 1999 have complained of pain, while 25% or so have suffered minor cuts and bruises. The remainder have had serious injuries, such as broken limbs, that required hospitalization, according to an analysis of LAPD records.

The number of vehicle-pedestrian accidents at LAX is small compared with similar figures for a wider swath of the city.

A total of 821 such incidents were documented by the LAPD’s West Traffic Division last year, up slightly from a year earlier. The unit encompasses the department’s Hollywood, Pacific, West Los Angeles and Wilshire divisions.

LAX does have more such incidents than other major airports, however.

San Francisco International reported three vehicle-pedestrian accidents in 2001, down from 12 in 2000 and 13 in 1999. At Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, officials logged two such incidents in 2001 and three in 2000.

But other airports don’t have the complex layout of LAX, with its double-deck roadway and 19 crosswalks bisecting traffic in front of nine terminals on the lower level. San Francisco International serves far fewer passengers than LAX, cutting down on its pedestrian traffic. And Dallas-Fort Worth has many more passengers catching connecting flights than LAX does, leaving it with fewer pedestrians outside terminals.

Many pedestrian advocates agree that airports can be confusing places for vehicles and people. But these groups and even federal agencies charged with tracking pedestrian safety have yet to focus on the tricky navigation required at these facilities.

“There are definitely a lot of safety issues to be looked at at the airport,” said Deborah Murphy, founder of the advocacy group Los Angeles Walks and head of the city’s Pedestrian Advisory Committee. “But in general, because people tend to focus more on commenting about public streets, we’re not as involved in discussions about things like the airport.”

Airport officials offer several tips for drivers and pedestrians who frequent LAX.

Motorists should pay attention to signs at the airport and research where they’re going beforehand in the Thomas Guide or on the airport’s Web site--www.lawa.org/ lax/laxframe.html--suggests Bernard J. Wilson, the chief of airport police.

To eliminate the need to cross the airport’s busy roads, pedestrians should take elevators to overhead walkways that extend from each parking structure into the terminals, he said, adding that they also should pay more attention to their surroundings.

“People sometimes focus on themselves going someplace and don’t realize that they’re towing luggage behind them,” he said. “When they do this, their profile gets bigger,” hindering their progress in the crosswalk or leading them to knock people off the bus aisle into traffic.