This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Kids & Family

Transportation Center Breaks Ground at Bob Hope Airport

U.S. Representative Brad Sherman was on hand for Friday's event, as the new transportation center will incorporate a bus station and car rental service.

The authority that oversees Bob Hope Airport in Burbank today broke ground on a $112.6 million transportation center that will include a new bus station and consolidated car rental center.

The so-called Regional Intermodal Transportation Center will be located on the southeast corner of the airport. It will include an elevated moving walkway to the airport terminal building and a new five-level parking structure to replace about 1,050 parking spaces that will be displaced by the new transportation center.

Officials with the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority, U.S. Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Sherman Oaks and Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich were on hand for the event.

Find out what's happening in Sherman Oakswith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The RITC will be located on the northwest corner of West Empire Avenue and North Hollywood Way, directly across from a Metrolink and Amtrak train stop.

The project grew, in part, out of a Federal Aviation Administration mandate to decommission the existing rental car parking lot by 2015 because it is too close to an airport runway, spokesman Victor Gill said.

Find out what's happening in Sherman Oakswith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Gill said the transportation center will significantly improve access to the airport by means other than a car. The opening of the Metro Orange Line extension to the Metrolink and Amtrak station in Chatsworth last week will make Bob Hope Airport accessible by bus or train to much more of the west San Fernando Valley.

The new transportation center is scheduled to open in the summer of 2014.

The airport authority also began a two-year study of how a dedicated bus lane might connect the airport directly to the North Hollywood Metro Red Line station and how to improve transit from the airport to Glendale and Pasadena.

Travel at Bob Hope Airport was down to 4.3 million passengers in 2011 from its peak year in 2007, when 5.9 million travelers used the airport.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?