Welcome to the second part of the northside taxiway construction story. We pick up in February, 2024. Once we made it out of the 2023 holiday season, the project expanded to include work on rebuilding Taxiway E with the intersections for the western exits (V and W). This stage of the project required the closure of the affected portion of Taxiway E, seen in the following photos:
Not really mentioned so far has been the opening of the extended portion of Taxiway D, which now runs all the way west to Taxiway AA. The fresh concrete visible in the second and third photos is the new Taxiway D extension. This gives us another parallel taxiway on the north side all the way to the west end of the airport. Therefore, even with the Taxiway E closure, it is still possible for aircraft to arrive on the 24s and taxi to their gates at Terminals 1, 2, and 3 -- with some exceptions. During the Taxiway E closure, there are restrictions on the size of aircraft that may use the new portion of Taxiway D to protect wingtips and the construction site. As such, B767s and smaller aircraft may use taxiway D adjacent to the construction zone; larger aircraft such as the B747 in the third photo have to taxi over to the south side to get around the restriction.
By the end of February, the Runway 24R/06L phase of the project was completed and the runway reopened. The new taxiways now needed to be continued on across Runway 24L/06R and tied into Taxiway E. In March, Runway 24L/06R closed for both the taxiway construction and runway centerline rehabilitation. The red on this diagram illustrates what was closed at this point:
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With RY24L closed, we're now using RY24R for arrivals and departures
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Early March progress on the intersection of Taxiway S and RY24L/06R
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At the same time, Taxiway U isn't quite so far along
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The RY24L centerline rehabilitation project started with the removal of the existing concrete with a really large jackhammer. About to touch down on RY24R is an Air Premia B787-9 Dreamliner arriving from Seoul, South Korea
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Another view of the Taxiway E closure after we had some rain
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Late March progress on Taxiway S
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Pouring concrete for Taxiway S; notice how thick the slabs are!
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Progress on Taxiway U at the end of March
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New concrete for Taxiway E
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The next three photos show the progress on Taxiway S over a week's time in early April:
This is how things looked by the end of April:
thank you!
ReplyDeleteI see you captured the MSC south construction in the first shot. I am very curious how they plan to move the completed pieces. LAWA tell the controlers yet? Attention all aircraft avoid taxiway AA for moving building?
ReplyDeleteYes, and you can also see a bit of it in the last photo. The plan is to close the north complex over night for a couple of weeks in October to enable the prefab sections to be moved across the runways and down to the south end of the MSC. It sounds pretty ambitious, and I'm looking forward to seeing how they make it happen. As I write this in mid-July, the MSC site still has a lot of bare dirt, although there is definitely work being done in preparation.
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