LAWA and OIAA on the web

If the acronyms in the title of this post confuse you, LAWA stands for Los Angeles World Airports, the organization that oversees several airports, including Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) and Ontario International Airport (ONT). OIAA stands for the Ontario International Airport Authority, the organization that will eventually oversee Ontario International Airport.

I thought of LAWA when I recently read a piece in Airport Technology. It turns out that TBIT (this acronym stands for Tom Bradley International Terminal) isn't the only terminal that has been "modernized":

The second busiest international terminal at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), Terminal 2, is undergoing a major improvement to enhance the airport's level of service and its appearance.

It turns out that this is the same type of "modernization" that was carried out at TBIT - putting all sorts of dining and other services on the other side of the security checkpoint.

But this statement in the Airport Technology article puzzled me:

The terminal improvement programme is part of an $8.5bn modernisation project initiated by airport operator Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA) to upgrade all the five terminals at LAX.

Uh, Airport Technology, LAX has seven numbered terminals (1-7) plus TBIT, which adds up to 8 when I last checked. And I doubt that LAX is going to close three terminals any time soon.

Oh, and in case you missed the paragraph that I quoted above, a callout repeated the incorrect statistic later in the article.

It's easy to check such things, since LAWA has a website that presents the correct information.

But what if a future Airport Technology article has the wrong information about Ontario Airport? Where will people go to get authoritative OIAA information?

Sadly, we don't know yet. As of today, OIAA does not have an official website. To get OIAA information, you have to go to Set ONTario Free and to a page on the City of Ontario's website.

Presumably when Kelly J. Fredericks starts his new job as head hONTcho with the OIAA on March 7 (see PDF of 2/1 OIAA agenda), one of his action items will be to establish a true web presence for OIAA, in anticipation of the expected approval of the transfer of ONT from LAWA to OIAA.

But the new website had better be established quickly, before someone writes about a visit to ONT Terminal 3.

IE, we have our own Geddon! (Or is it a Gate?)

It used to be that "-gate" was the most popular suffix on record. Every scandal after Watergate ended up getting a name that also ended in "gate."

Well, there's a new suffix in town.

It started over on the West Side, when a multi-day closure of Interstate 405 was announced. Adapting the word "Armageddon," this closure was popularly referred to as "Carmageddon."

So now that we in the IE are getting our own weekend closure, the popular name that has emerged for the Corona closure is...Coronageddon.

And its effects will be felt well beyond Corona, because there will be no good way to get from Yorba Linda (and the eastern part of Orange County) to Corona (and the western part of Riverside County). For example, my home city of Ontario may feel the effects of people coming all the way north to State Route 60 to get from place to place.

But back to the name.

You know what this means. Now every Southern California freeway closure will be referred to as a Geddon. Maybe we'll have a Ramgeddon when the Inglewood stadium is built. In my case, a Diamondgeddon would be extremely disastrous.

And then the suffix, like our gangs, will spread out of southern California and infect the whole country. Arlington, Virginia - is a Shirleygeddon in your future?

But that's not the worst of it. One day, one of these freeway closures will result in some sort of scandal.

And you know what that means.

Geddongate!

P.S. For the latest news on Coronageddon - whoops, the "91 Steer Clear" - visit http://www.sr91project.info/.