Upcoming improvements at LAX and the Long Beach Airport — which will receive multimillion-dollar grants from the Bipartisan Infrastructure law — will help upgrade both facilities, create local jobs and solidify America as a leader in modern infrastructure, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said on Thursday, July 7.
Buttigieg, President Joe Biden’s secretary overseeing the U.S. Department of Transportation, visited Los Angeles International Airport on Thursday afternoon to discuss a $1 billion national program funding 85 airports nationwide, of which LAX will receive $50 and the Long Beach Airport will get $10.6 million. The grants will help pay for ongoing and new infrastructure projects at both airports over the next five years.
No other airports in the region received funding this time around.
The White House announced the grants Thursday morning, just hours before Buttigieg arrived at LAX as part of a two-day trip to the region.
“Americans ought to have the best airports in the world — and now we have a chance to move toward that with these funds,” Buttigieg said atop LAX’s Theme Building observation deck. “These grants are going to help expand and improve terminals, make them more energy efficient and make them more accessible for travelers with disabilities.”
Both travel hubs will receive the funding via the federal government’s Airport Terminal Program — one of three aviation initiatives housed within Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
The grants announced nationwide on Thursday represents 20% of the total $5 billion the Airport Terminal Program will disperse to qualifying airports over the next five years.
LAX’s $50 million grant will be used to reconstruct and modernize about 40,000 feet of its terminal roadway system — and to reconfigure the airport’s Central Terminal Area entrance. Long Beach Airport will receive $10.6 million to reconstruct terminal roadways, realign the terminal loop and establish ADA accessibility.
Both LAX and Long Beach have undertaken modernization and renovation efforts in recent years — and that work remains ongoing.
In LA, the stakes are high as the city continues its $15 billion, multi-phase modernization program with an eye toward the 2026 FIFA World Cup and the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
“When an athlete walks off the plane in 2028 and she comes to the Paralympic or the Olympic Games for the first time,” said Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, who also visited the airport on Thursday, “LAX will be that iconic place that continues to make dreams and continues to mark dreams.”
Other officials — including U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Los Angeles, and Chris Hannan, the executive secretary of the LA/Orange County Building Trades union — stressed that infrastructure upgrades and the jobs created along with those projects will better support Los Angeles residents and the communities directly surrounding LAX.
“Not just our members today, but generations of new apprentices will come into our unions, just as I did years before,” Hannan said, “and enjoy careers building their community through our apprenticeships.”
Through the LA/Orange County Building Trades career programs, which has partnered with LAX and Los Angeles Southwest College, thousands of locals — who may have historically lacked access to union jobs — will have opportunities to join the construction business, Hannan said.
HireLAX, a labor agreement that provides local residents access to construction apprenticeship preparation programs, has already trained 250 people — many of whom are women, people of color and local residents, Buttigieg said.
Too many times, Buttigieg added, locals have been excluded from benefiting from infrastructure investments in their communities.
“So as we continue implementing the President’s infrastructure bill,” he said, “we’re going to make sure that a fair share of jobs and contracts go to the communities where the projects are actually happening.”
Buttigieg, as part of his LA tour, will also attend a ribbon cutting ceremony on Friday, July 8, to celebrate the expansion of the Metro’s E Line.
The E Line, formerly known as the Expo/Crenshaw Metro Line, has merged with the C Line, formerly the Green Line, at the Aviation/LAX station, creating an easier route to the airport for residents in the Crenshaw Corridor, Inglewood and El Segundo.