An Inside Look at the Innovative Guideway Design for LAX’s Automated People Mover Project

The new Automated People Mover at Los Angeles International Airport will enhance the travel experience and provide a long-awaited connection to greater Los Angeles regional transportation systems. But designing and constructing more than 2 miles of elevated guideway at the world’s fifth-busiest airport brings some complex challenges.

HDR is the lead designer for the fixed facilities on the massive project, and two of HDR’s engineering experts — Chester Werts and Rob Richardson — wrote about the project for Aspire magazine. Werts is a senior design principal and is the engineer of record on the project. Richardson is HDR’s West region bridge lead and led the guideway design. The two shared insights into design choices, explained how a segmental cantilever construction approach kept traffic moving and described how the guideway was designed to comply with strict seismic requirements.

“As the APM approaches final completion, LAX travelers are becoming familiar with the gentle sweeping curves and clean uniform look of the concrete guideway,” the authors wrote.

An accompanying aesthetics commentary by noted bridge architect Frederick Gottemoeller praised the guideway design, pointing out the many facets of the project. “Too often, such projects are addressed by optimizing the individual solutions for each group of challenges and then mashing together the whole agglomeration of solutions and living with the whatever the final assembly looks like,” Gottemoeller wrote. “The Automated People Mover visually unifies the whole LAX terminal area. Wherever you are among the terminals, the system adds functionality and attractiveness to its immediate surroundings.”

Read the whole article, "Finding Creative Concrete Solutions at LAX," in the Fall 2023 issue of Aspire.