New LAX Rideshare Policy Goes Into Effect Tuesday
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) — A new rideshare policy at Los Angeles International Airport that prevents travelers from being picked up outside of their terminal took effect early Tuesday morning.
LAX now bans Uber, Lyft and taxi drivers from picking up passengers directly from their terminals.
Passengers instead have to ride a shuttle or walk to a designated pick up area, east of Terminal 1, to catch their ride.
On the first day of the new program, passengers reported long waits, frustrating surge prices and inconvenient pick ups.
The area, called "LAX-it," is only for pick-ups, as ride app and taxi drivers will continue to drop off passengers at the terminal curbs on the Upper/Departures Level.
LAX-it will be equipped with bathrooms and phone charging stations.
The change has some passengers divided.
"I prefer not doing that," said passenger Pia Rotman. "I prefer taking an Uber or Lyft from the airport...After taking a long flight in, I would prefer to just jump in an Uber or Lyft."
Rideshare driver Larry Wascovich weighed-in on the issue saying, "Whatever works best for the airport...and make it easier on everybody."
Uber previously publicly criticized the airport after it announced the major changes.
LAX released a statement saying:
"We have requested that Uber share with us any detailed data that differs from out modeling results and substantiates the concerns in their letter, but they have not provided this data to us to date."
On Oct. 19, LAX gave the new experiment a three-hour trial run.
The green-colored shuttles will transfer arriving passengers to the pick-up area near the airport's entrance.
The plan is for the shuttles to run about every 3-5 minutes to keep arriving passengers' wait times to a minimum.
The new pickup area comes just as construction within the CTA on the Automated People Mover, terminal redevelopment, and other projects reach a critical phase.