Van Nuys Airport to Double Shuttle Parking : Travel: The Flyaway bus service to LAX has become so popular that an overflow of passengers’ cars is left on residential streets.

The Flyaway bus service linking Van Nuys Airport to Los Angeles International Airport has grown so popular that airport officials are planning to more than double the 2,000 parking spaces available to keep users from leaving their cars on neighborhood streets.

A parking lot across Woodley Avenue from the terminal will open in June with an additional 500 spaces, said Richard Davison, assistant Van Nuys Airport manager. Construction will begin in 1994 on a two- or three-story parking structure on the present parking lot that will add another 2,000 spaces, he said. Design work on the structure has begun, he said.

Davison said the Flyaway terminal’s present overflow lots--one with 100 spaces and another with 110--both fill up during peak travel periods such as Christmas and Thanksgiving, forcing patrons to park on neighborhood streets.

“The new lot will add more for the public and help handle our overflow problem,” he said.

Word that additional parking will be added was welcomed by the bus terminal’s neighbors.

“I think it’s great,” said Virginia Sosa, 14, who has lived with her family on Collett Avenue for eight years. “People from Flyaway come and park in our spaces in the holidays. People in the neighborhood were talking about doing something about it.”

“It really does get full at Christmas and New Year’s and any holiday when people fly off to visit relatives,” said Tim Karkoska, 40, who has lived for four years on Collett Avenue, across the street from the Flyaway lot.

Karkoska said he keeps several orange traffic cones on hand to block motorists from parking on the street in front of his house. Other neighbors said they have used construction barricades, logs and sawhorses to keep Flyaway patrons from taking up parking spots close to their homes. Several residents said they park RVs and motorboats in front of their homes to keep Flyaway patrons away.

Residents have acknowledged in the past that they have no legal right to block off spaces on public streets.

Motorists usually don’t remove the barricades, Karkoska said. Generally, they drive to another block and park.

Lyn Silverman, a seven-year resident of Collett Avenue, said cars have been left parked in front of her house for as long as two weeks. “I’d like to see something done,” she said.

The parking crisis at Flyaway has worsened as the popularity of the low-cost service has increased. Patronage increased by 11%, from 607,343 riders in 1990 to 676,062 in 1991, according to airport officials.

Parking costs $1 a day and round-trip bus service to LAX is $6. In contrast, parking at the central terminal lot at LAX costs $16 per day. Parking at LAX’s remote lots ranges from $5 to $7 per day.

The additional 500-space parking lot across from the Flyaway terminal will be on city-owned land leased to Hughes Aircraft Corp., Davison said. Because Hughes is reducing the number of workers at its Van Nuys plant, the company has agreed to open the lot to Flyaway patrons in exchange for credit against its lease payments to the city, he said.

To free up spaces for travelers using the bus service, city officials plan to reserve the new lot for airline and airport employees who use the Flyaway to commute to work at LAX, Davison said. An estimated 200 to 300 people who work at the airport use the service daily, he said.