Monday, October 15, 2012
Honolulu Transit Megaprojects Compared
A Train Has the Capacity of Five Buses. So What?
Thursday, October 4, 2012
B, C, E, 3, 9, 11, 20, 43, 53, 73, 81, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 96, 97, 98A, 101, 102, 103, 201, 202
These are all the bus routes that will be eliminated or terminated to the nearest rail station. See Final EIS appendix D.
We all know how the public reacted to the relatively manini changes to TheBus last summer. Wait until two dozen routes are drastically changed.
Several of these routes are express providing a competitive service. Many of them are heavily used.
In addition several new and confusing "feeder" routes will be added. So basically the No.1 transit bus in the nation will be dismantled and reconfigured to provide life support for the rail.
Rail's ridership would be much closer to zero than the projected 90,000-some riders per day in the opening year, without dismantling and rearranging the majority of TheBus as we know it today, given that (1) nobody lives at the stations and (2) the whole rail line will have only four park-and-ride lots.
The total bus ridership that will be forced to transfer each day is found on page 46: 69,480 rail riders daily will come from the bus. That's round trip.
So, over 30,000 bus riders daily will be forced to get out of their bus and transfer to rail going to their destination. They may also need to catch a bus at the other end to get to their final destination (i.e., from Ala Moana Center to UH, Waikiki, and from other stations to all the ridges and valleys that the rail does not serve.) Coming home they will have the reverse transfers from bus to rail to bus. There will be chaos.
What is the logic of providing such a disservice to the loyal transit riders of TheBus?
In conclusion then, B, C, E, 3, 9, 11, 20, 43, 53, 73, 81, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 96, 97, 98A, 101, 102, 103, 201, 202 is the code for transit failure by design in Honolulu.
Fixing the Basics on Rail for Hawaii's Pro-rail Politicians
If Hawaii's pro-rail politicians are really interested in improving transit in the county of Honolulu, they may begin their education on the history of elevated rail in sunshine cities by simply reading about Miami's Metrorail, and San Juan’s Tren Urbano. Here are a few highlights for Metrorail and Tren Urbano.
Miami’s Elevated Heavy Rail: They got 80% Federal funds but still they run out of money due to cost overruns. (Honolulu gets only 30%). Ridership forecast was about 200,000 riders (Honolulu's is about 120,000 riders). When the first segment of the single line opened ridership was only 10,000. In 1990, six years after opening, it reached only 25% of its forecast ridership or about 50,000! They too ordered trains from Ansaldo and there were allegations of conflicts in the procurement.
San Juan, Elevated Heavy Rail: They got 50% Federal funds but still there was a 74% escalation of construction costs (+74% over budget!) There was a huge escalation of combined bus and rail operation and maintenance cost after the line was opened. Combined costs shot up by +250%! There was a downgrade of Puerto Rico’s bond ratings and new taxes were enacted to pay the debt. There was a dramatic decline of total transit ridership (bus and rail) because the train dismantled their bus. It is now more than six years since its opening in 2006 and the train has not reached 50% of its opening year forecast ridership!
Bottom line is that trains are like wind mills. Their theoretical capacity is high and the promises for power and ridership are full of hype. Once installed reality kicks in and they prove to be only ~25% productive...
Monday, September 24, 2012
Less Traffic Thanks to Telecommuting and Young Adults
This is The Economists' introduction of an article on urban transportation and the evolving trend of less car travel: "The road less travelled: Car use is peaking in the rich world. Governments should take advantage of that." Less travel? Can this be right? See Figure 1 below.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0hydyXRspvCDQ7-XgQdxnFtn5PhMS7hsbfC1WHnQsS6Ja9Un_H9MvPlz3KcUmhPpbuCBSkDJ_F_1NP29S4dcogZ8B5-D1FKEgMrhmU1_OpZTox8LMNxlm1Ck7-1MANq7IVreTpqDoti5B/s320/young_people.jpg)
A few more quotes from the full article "The future of driving -- Seeing the back of the car -- In the rich world, people seem to be driving less than they used to" are as follows:
- Modern life is unimaginable without the car. The automobile has powered the growth of cities and steered their sprawl. Its manufacture has created millions of jobs and eased the development of many millions more.
- Cars are integral to modern life. They account for 70% of all trips not made on foot in the OECD, which includes most developed countries.
- In the European Union more than 12 million people work in manufacturing and services related to cars and other vehicles, around 6% of the total employed population.
- The equivalent figure for America is 4.5% of private-sector employment, or 8 million jobs.
An interesting revelation of the research reported in The Economist is that current and future young people tend to travel less. There are several reasons for this:
- Young people tend to socialize more via digital media and meet less often.
- Car use has become more expensive for young people's parents to afford a car for them or for the young people to afford the sky-high insurance fees.
- At least some of young people's college or professional education can be via distance learning.
- Job opportunities for young people are less and lower rewarded in the stagnant economy of the EU and of several debt-laden states in the US.
- Young people are getting their licenses later than they used to (see Figure 2 above.)
More and safer bikeways, subsidized vanpooling, supported telecommuting and, in some cases, clean and reliable mass transit chip away at the dominance of the car. See for example below the gains in vanpooling and telecommuting in Washington State.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaitOuKrihFD2ooraYTLI6nxk2VIvDw-JL6axsxth95cc41Q7unvm2iP12GU7PsVx6R-Gl5r6kQ26w4919-_8mcMgacJuwxd8z97i6VVqSu-2EWBy60A2ggR06e4UcnENG4f9hJD2PTIH7/s320/telework_WSDOT.jpg)
Recall that Honolulu rail will increase transit share roughly from 6% of TheBus today to 7% for combined bus and rail. It would be much easier to obtain this 1% with more vanpools and telework! There is a real world example for this: Portland, the poster child for light rail. From 1980 to 2011, working at home (mostly telecommuting) increased by 55,000. This is more than three times the growth in rail transit commuting (17,500). During the last decade, working at home passed transit as a work access mode in Portland, and with virtually no public expenditures as opposed to the billions spent on rail lines.
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Friday, September 14, 2012
Island Heavy Rail Calamity: San Juan Repeats in Honolulu
- Both are heavy rail systems with a very high cost per mile of rail line.
- Both are systems on similar tourist/agriculture/military island communities.
- Both are under Federal Transit Administration oversight.
- Both received US federal funds.
- Both have the same lead planner, Parsons Brinkerhoff.
- The Delusion and Deception in Rail Forecasts.
- Honolulu Rail Forecast 2 to 4 Times Higher than Actual Systems.
- Edinburgh Light Rail Halted. The Usual Suspects. The Usual Results.
- Huge escalation of construction costs (+74%).
- Huge escalation of combined bus and rail operation and maintenance cost after the line was opened (+250%).
- Downgrade of Puerto Rico’s bond ratings.
- Dramatic decline of total transit ridership (bus and rail) because the Tren cannibalized their bus. This is happening to TheBus now.
- It is now more than five years since its opening and Tren has not reached 50% of its opening year forecast ridership! (See link above where I provide comparisons that show HART ridership estimates are 2 to 4 times too high.)
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKyszSEZ1WZFj6hFGTwPoFVu30TqskaWH1XlHgJssT-D-6T_CcP0oQr-c__hSgkxf8Izm7iBb6QMJrh8wprdH1tzOY7guc5XQ78vSk3UwTL5_HJX1ctbhMQgKdhVhPDf0XfJoFgUUnO74w/s400/San_Juan_Honolulu.jpg)
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Enough with The Chinese Straddle Bus!
Here's my take on it. It's a cool concept, but in reality, it is impractical and difficult as a retrofit. However, it can be adopted in new cities in China, India and other new, highly populated urban areas.
2. How do we manage a crash of such a huge vehicle on the street? How do we tow it or lift it if it becomes sufficiently incapacitated?
3. We do not know how "the common distracted driver" will react when a “tunnel” drives over him or her. Driver startling and related crashes will be an issue. This is why I proposed that the straddle bus runs as an Express Bus over existing BRT lines.
4. The concept requires elevated stations which adds significantly to the cost because all elevated stations need to be ADA compliant. Obviously this will be an express service with stops at intervals of 1 km or longer.
5. Overpasses, cross wires, sign and signal gantries, and trees will present significant challenges.
6. Trucks, buses and other large vehicles have to be regulated out of the two lanes that go under the Straddling Bus. Writing the ordinance is easy. Enforcing it is not, and one unfamiliar trucker will block the Straddling Bus for a while.
7. Receiving U.S. DOT certification to operate it on US city streets won’t be trivial.
As of mid-2012 not a single prototype exists. So let China build it, and then we can copy it. That'll be a first!
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Old Tires into New Roads: Save Cost and Cut Noise
Enough tires are recycled in America each year to produce 20,000 lane-miles of road pavement mix, enough to re-pave about 0.5% of America's roads, according to Liberty Tire Recycling, a Pittsburgh firm that handles around a third of America's recycled tires.(1)
It is now possible to make rubberized asphalt less expensively than the traditional sort because rubber can partially replace bitumen, the binding agent used to hold the crushed stones together in ordinary asphalt. Bitumen is derived from oil, which means its price has risen over the past decade alongside that of crude oil. (1)
Discarded tires are cheap and are likely to get cheaper. In rich countries, around one tire is thrown away per person per year. (1)
In Hawaii we burn tires at the AES coal plant. This is much better than dumping them in a landfill or wasting fuel to send them out of state. But we should be making new roads with them.
(1) The Economist, When the rubber hits the road, June 2012.
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
Honolulu Rail Forecast 2 to 4 Times Higher than Actual Systems
While TheRail is actually a fully elevated, steel-wheel-on-steel-rail heavy rail system, it is designed to fail by combining two poor choices:
(1) It is fully elevated which means it costs well over 5 times the typical light rail system.
(2) It does not use large, heavy rail style, high capacity trains, but smallish light rail trains.
These two choices make it a high cost and low capacity system.
Because of its low capacity, it is comparable to existing light rail systems. The table below includes all US light rail systems that (a) may be characterized as "modern" by having been developed after 1980, and (b) are over 8 miles of length. This comes to 11 comparable systems with route miles ranging from approximately 10 to 42 miles.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLHeOVYYu2TvOYw1szaLkgC-J1dKgbeNBNBk-MaAeXMliAiEp5cQwdz3RVriwe59Nsi0ZNJaJSrAsWDMZ4eXgfB4HO-6jkm1mj7mkGnjyfIgwrUm2s7WWaVjg8Hj7N2OB2_wnTR1J11vlG/s400/lr_1500.jpg)
When one looks at statistics, it is advisable to remove the highest and lowest values and re-check the averages. By doing so for daily boardings and route miles, systems 3, 6 and 9 drop out. The resulting average daily boardings of the eight systems is 37,822 and the average route miles is 27. This yields 1,528 daily boardings per mile. This again rounds to 1,500 so this estimate is quite robust.
Using this estimate of 1,500 times the 20 miles of TheRail yields 30,000 daily boardings. Now let's give a huge break to Honolulu because of the H-1/H-2 congestion, the high cost of living and the higher average density (although high density does not apply west of Middle Street): Let's double this estimate to 60,000 boardings. This will be the likely maximum boardings of TheRail.
What's the City's estimate that FTA approved? 116,000 daily boardings, which is laughable.
Both Parsons Brinkerhoff and FTA received dozens of eggs on their face for the island heavy rail Tren Urbano in San Juan, Puerto Rico where they estimated 80,000 boardings on the opening year and they got 25,000 in 2006.
There is no lesson for PB, FTA and HART to learn. There is no accountability or penalties. They are all dedicated promoters of TheRail. Honolulu's ridership estimates simply prove that history (and unabashed deception) simply repeats itself.
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Honolulu Rail Cost Escalation
In 2005 Mayor Mufi Hanneman and his supporters went to the Legislature and asked for a temporary (20 year) 1% tack on to Hawaii's 4% general excise tax in order to develop a large rail system for an approximate cost of $2.7 Billion. The Legislature approved a 0.5% tack on to the GET in hopes that Federal Transit Administration and other taxes will cover the total. Here is the letter to The Honolulu Advertiser by Mayor Mufi Hannemann promising that the 20 mile system will cost $3 Billion.
In 2008 General Elections there was a City Charter Amendment asking the city to install a steel on steel fixed guideway system. The cost of the 20 mile system had grown to $4.6 billion and almost $1 Billion was the contingency funds. TheBus funds were not touched in 2008.
In 2010 outgoing governor Lingle procured a financial analysis report for the rail that she had supported, in light of the escalating costs of rail and the 2008-2009 fiscal crisis. IDG, a reputable financial and risk analysis consultant based in Washington, D.C., estimated that the 20 mile cost will be more likely $7.2 Billion.
Despite these facts, Governor Abercrombie signed off on the State EIS and Mayor Carlisle dismissed the financial report as "an anti-rail tirade."
In summer 2012 the City submitted its final application to the FTA for a Full Funding Agreement. In it, the cost of the 20 mile line has grown further to $5.17 Billion but contingencies have been reduced to about $600 Million and another $150 Million is "borrowed" from TheBus fleet funds. In other words, the 2012 cost estimate would be $5.7 Billion if they did not fudge the amounts and kept them at the 2008 level.
In May 2012 Councilmember Kobayashi asked HART to estimate the cost of the full 34 mile system from West Kapolei to the UH and Waikiki. HART's response was $9.03 Billion.
If we apply IDG's cost escalation of the 20 mile system to the 34 mile system we get $12.6 Billion. Hanneman's rail has ballooned from $3.6 Billion to $12.6 Billion!
Rail was a bad idea at a cost of $3 Billion. Now that the likely cost is three times higher, the choice is clear. People have made their choice quite clear by handing both mayors Hannemann and Carlisle their walking papers.
Monday, August 27, 2012
Friday, August 24, 2012
Honolulu Rail on Trial
Congratulations to Paulette Kaleikini and her native Hawaiian hui for scoring this legal victory: Rail Construction Shouldn’t Have Started, Hawaii Supreme Court Rules. In other words, Mayor Carlisle and HART clearly broke the law.
Ninth Circuit Court Judge Teshima heard the Federal Lawsuit against Honolulu rail. Listen to the YouTube above where I indicate how the attorney for FACE clearly lied to the judge. Professor Roth expects that this lawsuit will also be successful. Decision expected in a couple months.
Thursday, August 23, 2012
TECHNOLOGY and INNOVATION Survey -- The Economist and Hawaii Results
TECHNOLOGY Results (click to take the survey, part 1, and technology survey part 2.)
The results are summarized in the Table and discussed below.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHMqZBC-ZLzk7-xEqQVJwvKb0IKcoG52sppvnBsE9NxDsup-Paar7P4oGXxl_Czn5Pni7Gc1I9Wwob7oJGustUgLoerIbl8RppC8cj954s1FpExso4qPUkogxkPfGMEvJXNbtHkVneEVBn/s400/technology+survey.jpg)
The original debate questions in The Economist address various issues relating to technology. Ten questions were selected and International and Hawaii responses are compared.
For the first four issues, both The Economist and Hawaii respondents agree. For the next two issues either International or Hawaii responses are neutral, and for the last four issues the opinions are clearly opposite.
Both Hawaii (80%) and international response (62%) disagrees with the position that genetically modified crops and sustainable agriculture are complementary. Both agree that the Internet is making journalism better and that we are now in a new tech bubble. More international respondents (61%) than Hawaii respondents (56%) agreed that social networking technologies will bring positive changes to education.
Economist respondents want NASA to send astronauts to the moon but Hawaii is clearly ambivalent on this. Hawaii respondents believe that innovation works best when government does least but The Economist habitual government subsidy readers overwhelmingly place government at the center of innovation (84%). It does not take a genius to know who's right. Just think about the last time that a PC, smartphone or search engine was invented in Europe...
Hawaii respondents clearly agree (81%) that if the promise of technology is to simplify our lives it is failing, but The Economist respondents mildly (53%) believe that technology has simplified our lives. Technology has simplified my life. As an engineer and researcher, the Internet and digital scholar tools have cut down by annual time spent at the university library from 1 to 2 weeks a year in the late 1980s to less than two hours per year after 2000.
Exact opposite responses to the argument that the continuing introduction of new technologies and new media adds little to the quality of education: 56% of international respondents disagree and 57% of Hawaii respondents agree. In other words, Hawaii respondents believe that technology doesn't do much for education. Maybe that's a generic response because public education in Hawaii produces poor outcomes. Or, perhaps in Hawaii we buy a lot of technology for schools but don't use it in an effective and exciting manner. (However, that's not the case at Liholiho Elementary that my 5th grader attends since kindergarten.)
Underutilized technology is certainly the case with intelligent transportation systems (ITS) on our highways. Hawaii has spent upwards of $500 million on ITS and signal infrastructure since 2000. Yet traffic signals still operate mostly like Christmas lights and, like Chicago in the 1970s, we get our traffic conditions from ... Jason Josuda on FM radio. In 1994 I bought a Saab 900 with a Radio Data System. The car could show on the dash messages about road conditions. It was disabled for the US and if I still had it, it could be useless in Hawaii in 2012.
Hawaii respondents got the next one right: 65% agree that we're on a post-PC era, and that smartphones and tablets will soon dominate. No question that this will be so by 2020 in most of the US. Only 28% of international respondents agreed to this. Much lower disposable income (due to lower incomes and higher taxes) do not allow Europeans to change technology items frequently.
Finally from President Obama, to Linda Lingle and many luminaries in the between, math and science education is the best way to stimulate future innovation. Correctly, 74% of international respondents agreed but only 33% of Hawaii respondents agree. Sun, surf and R&R does not jibe with STEM (science, technology, engineering and math!)
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Innovations We Can't Live Without: US and Hawaii
Earlier this year Consumer Reports published a small survey in a sidebar answering this question: Which of these innovations of the past few decades would be hardest to live without?
I used my AIKEA FOR HONOLULU newsletter and Facebook page to invite people to respond to an identical survey and make two choices among these innovations: Bank ATM – Broadband (fast) Internet service – Cable or satellite TV – Cell phone – Digital camera – GPS – Home computer – Microwave oven – Smart phone. The survey is still live; feel free to take it if you haven't done so.
The results are summarized below. They are listed from high to low according to their Hawaii share. For six out of nine innovations, the USA and Hawaii results are very similar, i.e., within two percentage points (green cells.) However, the other three reveal a different pattern:
- USA folks are more focused on food and ready-to-eat meals. They chose the microwave oven as their top innovation!
- Hawaii folks are more focused on technology with personal computers and fast Internet connections being their top two choices.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBXhkbCmpWQzHSTrIi_rPaEXjbUbxWNjIjN7zi82hDmg2mFnvYP9o6FXmCJsFkwpk4dDvcZj1MZgG6TXp7mkkEuCezqPK-ooopB9Y0R3UGyxC0ZlCN0ad5mqopip-2S8rLwKywfZ_IM6O6/s400/consumer+reports.jpg)
Sunday, August 12, 2012
Faith-based Transportation Policy
- In faith-based transportation policy, rail worshipers think people will park their cars in Tampa and then rent cars in Orlando.
- California Governor Brown’s reverence for his rail bauble is fanaticism.
How will people in Honolulu
- go to their second job ...
- manage their school and job ...
- take kids to school ...
- go surfing ...
- go eating ...
- go to their doctor, hospital, blood test lab, dialysis location ...
- do their groceries and run other errands ...
- have a diverse and fulfilling life ...
... without the independent transportation on roads with cars and buses that serve all neighborhoods?
Railigion is the affliction or belief that most "other people" will be able to use the rail regularly to make the trips that take them to the activities above. This is faith, affliction or outright stupidity. Whatever you call it, professional and responsible transportation planning is not.
Thursday, August 9, 2012
HOT Lanes and Tunnels are Hot and Free to the Taxpayer
Steps Toward DC-Region Express Toll Network. On August 1st, Virginia DOT and the Fluor/Transurban joint venture that is nearing completion of the Capital Beltway (I-495) Express Lanes, reached commercial and financial close on the $940 million I-95 project. It will convert the existing two reversible HOV lanes to three reversible Express Toll lanes along 28 miles of I-95. Across the river in Maryland, the Maryland State Highway Administration is studying potential express toll lanes for the I-270 corridor, which heads northwest from the Beltway.
Largest Infrastructure Fund Exceeds $7 Billion. Infrastructure Investor reported on July 31st that the world's largest infrastructure investment fund, Global Infrastructure Partners II, has amassed $7.02 billion in capital, towards its target of $8 billion. Overall, such funds have raised an estimated $200 billion over the past decade.
Port of Miami Tunnel at Half-Way Mark. The massive tunnel boring machine that is creating the tunnel between the Miami area's expressway system and the Port of Miami on Watson Island has completed the first of two 4,200-foot tunnels under Government Cut. The next step is for the TBM to be turned around to dig the parallel tube over a six-month period. The $607 million tunnel is being procured under a 30-year concession.
Dutch Pension Fund Buys Stake in Texas Managed Lanes. Pension fund APG from the Netherlands has invested $300 million to acquire a 12.3% equity stake in the North Tarrant Express and a 13.3% stake in the LBJ managed lanes project. Both are being developed by a Cintra/Meridiam concession company. Both concessions are for 52 years.
Source of the summaries: Robert Poole, the Reason Foundation.
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
Take the Rail to Watch a Rainbow Warriors Game?
The Rainbow Warriors of the University of Hawaii are having their homecoming game. Two families of four, one from Makiki and another from Kapolei are getting ready to attend the game. Both of them will go by rail.
How much will each family pay in fares? Thirty four dollars for eight adult tickets at $4.25 each. Not a bargain. (The $4.25 is based on city estimates. Actual fare will likely be higher. For example today’s adult fare on the BART from the Fruitvale TOD to Embarcadero is $3.55.)
The rail does not go to Makiki or Kapolei as it does not go to over 90% of places and neighborhoods on Oahu.
Walking to the nearest station is too far and they are thinking that by the time they’re back it'll be too late to wait for a bus. Both decide to drive to the nearest station. So both families spend 10 to 15 minutes and gas to get to the station by car.
The Makiki family cheated and parked at Ala Moana Center, but the lots were quite full so it took them a while to find a spot. The shopping center is working on a plan to curb rail freeloaders. The Kapolei family drove to the park-and-ride facility but the lot was full so, like many others, they parked on the grass and hoped to avoid a ticket.
It's Saturday and instead of the weekend schedule the City is paying heavy overtime to run trains at a fast schedule to accommodate the Aloha Stadium ridership. The Rainbow Express and other bus routes to the stadium have been cut. All transit users have to take a feeder bus to a rail station. The glory days of TheBus are over. It’s been “restructured.”
Trains run every 5 minutes. Trains run full with 300 passengers and half of them are standings all the way. In two hours, full trains manage to get 12,000 people to Aloha Stadium. But this fills only 24% of Aloha Stadium’s seats. The other three quarters must arrive by car, taxi, limo or bus.
So far the two families spent about 45 minutes to reach the crowded Aloha Stadium rail station. After a long walk and a couple road crossings they are at their seats.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF5GF6Nxm5KBUi0WSLGIWORy4F_OMo-roEVo0fW9rXnSe6NWsjwCDW0R3k6Ermf1OqjxFRd6foz2qDXCNsYFi04BxdTh1r2fpt8F6gjlmDFZRE-WSfYKRNxbw9xLTVjjx4GL26vXJiP7qY/s400/aloha_stadium.jpg)
Now 12,000 people start walking to the station. They are tired and would like to go home. Many have an early church service or other early to dos on Sunday. (They'll need a car for those activities.)
The trains are running like mad. People pack in like sardines. Each train picks up 300 people at a time…. 300 eastbound and 300 westbound. But there are 12,000 people who need to go home.
How long do they have to wait? The very first 600 people got lucky and had no wait. The very last 600 had to wait for 76 minutes!
The average waiting time to board a train for all the folks who went to Aloha Stadium by rail was 38 minutes.
Tempers flare, BO and beer smells. Pushes, shoves. Some groping and pickpocketing too. The Kapolei and Makiki families are tired, frustrated and very late.
Thirty four bucks for this? Never again!
Rail wins? We lose!
It's a lose-lose. Here is why:
If rail is a success and people use it in large numbers, then it'll be overcrowded, smelly, and expensive. Most people will travel as standees and a lot of time will be wasted in waiting and transferring. Why is this better than using a bus or being in bumper to bumper traffic? Why did the average family of four have to pay $20,000 to build this rail?
If rail is a failure and only ex-bus riders, carpool passengers and a few others use it (these are the usual riders of modern rail systems) then why did we spend six billion dollars for an underutilized system that did nothing to relieve traffic congestion?
If we install a 19th century "solution" for our 21st century problem of traffic congestion, then there’s no win.
Today’s population has a complex and diverse demand for mobility that stems from our independent, multi-purpose life-style. Only unscrupulous transit professionals and misinformed politicians would claim that a single line of rail with 20 stations is a mobility and congestion solution for our island.
Friday, August 3, 2012
Free Bus?
The Transportation Research Board, a unit of the National Academy of Engineering has just released a report titled Implementation and Outcomes of Fare-Free Transit Systems.
The quotes below help us conclude that tiny systems like the one on the Big Island are better of being free because it costs more to collect money than the money that will be actually collected. Large systems like Honolulu's can't be run for free. They will run out of funds quickly and they'll likely become movable homeless shelters. Recall that TheBus is cutting routes because it cannot afford its fuel bill. Actual ridership of free bus systems also showed that free bus does not translate into less traffic congestion because even at zero cost, too few motorists switch to the bus.
Here are the main findings of the report:
- No public transit system in the United States with more than 100 buses currently offers fare-free service. (Honolulu TheBus has over 550 buses.)
- The largest jurisdictions currently providing fare-free service are Indian River County, Florida, and the island of Hawaii, both with populations of approximately 175,000. (The free bus on the Big Island basically transports workers from Hilo to resorts in Kailua-Kona.)
- Fare-free public transit makes the most internal business sense for systems in which the percentage of farebox revenue to operating expenses is quite low. In such cases, the cost associated with collecting and accounting for fares and producing fare media is often close to, or exceeds, the amount of revenue that would be collected from passengers.
- Providing fare-free public transit service is virtually certain to result in significant ridership increases no matter where it is implemented. Ridership will usually increase from 20% to 60% in a matter of just a few months. (Note: It's worth exploring a low cost bus fare between the Waianae coast communities and the Kapolei transit center.)
- Some public transit systems that have experimented with or implemented a fare-free policy have been overwhelmed by the number of new passengers or been challenged by the presence of disruptive passengers, including loud teenagers and vagrants.
- Systems offering fare-free service in areas of higher potential demand for public transit need to be aware that increased ridership might also result in the need for additional maintenance, security, and possibly additional equipment to provide sufficient capacity and/or maintain schedules.
- A relatively small percentage of the additional trips (from 5% to 30%) were made by people switching from other motorized modes. Most new trips were made by people who would have otherwise walked or used a bicycle, or would not have made the trip if there was a fare to pay.
Thursday, August 2, 2012
New Lane on EB H-1 Freeway!
Before the EB Vineyard Boulevard on-ramp the freeway has its the typical 3-lane configuration, like so:
The new lane is the continuation of the fourth lane that comes from the Vineyard Boulevard on-ramp like so:
The Ward Avenue on-ramp adds a fifth lane but this lane merges onto the fourth lane. Now next to the Piikoi Street on-ramp the freeway is 4 lanes wide!
This location was a perennial midday bottleneck. Now outside the peak hours, flow should be much smoother on both directions. Recall that the west-bound direction was modified from 3 to 4 lanes a couple weeks earlier, as presented here.
Monday, July 30, 2012
BUS RAPID TRANSIT: Projects Improve Transit Service and Can Contribute to Economic Development
U.S. bus rapid transit (BRT) projects we reviewed include features that distinguished BRT from standard bus service and improved riders’ experience. However, few of the projects (5 of 20) used dedicated or semi-dedicated lanes— a feature commonly associated with BRT and included in international systems to reduce travel time and attract riders. Project sponsors and planners explained that decisions on which features to incorporate into BRT projects were influenced by costs, community needs, and the ability to phase in additional features. For example, one project sponsor explained that well-lighted shelters with security cameras and real-time information displays were included to increase passengers’ sense of safety in the evening. Project sponsors told us they plan to incorporate additional features such as off-board fare collection over time.
The BRT projects we reviewed generally increased ridership and improved service over the previous transit service. Specifically, 13 of the 15 project sponsors that provided ridership data reported increases in ridership after 1 year of service and reduced average travel times of 10 to 35% over previous bus services. However, even with increases in ridership, U.S. BRT projects usually carry fewer total riders than rail transit projects and international BRT systems. Project sponsors and other stakeholders attribute this to higher population densities internationally and riders who prefer rail transit. However, some projects—such as the M15 BRT line in New York City—carry more than 55,000 riders per day.
Capital costs for BRT projects were generally lower than for rail transit projects and accounted for a small percent of the Federal Transit Administration’s (FTA) New, Small, and Very Small Starts’ funding although they accounted for over 50% of projects with grant agreements since fiscal year 2005. Project sponsors also told us that BRT projects can provide rail-like benefits at lower capital costs. However, differences in capital costs are due in part to elements needed for rail transit that are not required for BRT and can be considered in context of total riders, costs for operations, and other long-term costs such as vehicle replacement.
We found that although many factors contribute to economic development, most local officials we visited believe that BRT projects are contributing to localized economic development. For instance, officials in Cleveland told us that between $4 and $5 billion was invested near the Healthline BRT project—associated with major hospitals and universities in the corridor. Project sponsors in other cities told us that there is potential for development near BRT projects; however, development to date has been limited by broader economic conditions—most notably the recent recession.
While most local officials believe that rail transit has a greater economic development potential than BRT, they agreed that certain factors can enhance BRT’s ability to contribute to economic development, including physical BRT features that relay a sense of permanence to developers; key employment and activity centers located along the corridor; and local policies and incentives that encourage transit-oriented development. Our analysis of land value changes near BRT lends support to these themes. In addition to economic development, BRT project sponsors highlighted other community benefits including quick construction and implementation and operational flexibility.
Thursday, July 26, 2012
New Lane on WB H-1 Freeway!
The new lane starts as an extension to the existing auxiliary freeway lane between the Punahou Street on-ramp and the Lunalilo Street off-ramp like so:
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7j0usA7SFGQSHERvCi_IoZTC69SJsyWyg1gnKFkzTak025K81NCqZ8O3IFRbPFB4_Y-5961T1fW-t5Zpwc1qoTsRtJuwWe-h96862Ii9-pY8Pq0s8LKi70-p1YUvhTAJZOmyHCpDMOXs0/s400/1.luna.jpg)
The added lane continues onto the viaduct than now has four instead of three lanes! This is a whopping 25% to 30% capacity addition. Numerically it is a 33.3% gain but when a lane addition is effected by narrowing lanes and shoulders, some capacity loss does occur. As you see in these pictures, vehicles fit well on the narrower lanes and after multiple passes, I did not notice any slow downs because of the tighter lanes.
Now the critical Lunalilo Street on-ramp and Vineyard Boulevard off-ramp has five lanes instead of four, like so:
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrybsFjZ08MHkjVyoRub1Jiv5-jneYDZt9Qoq3H6V0W-fciog1e0GjW6kUFgGNfJOlMWk4LTqiSfykeZvqPThGFe3cnC7HB8mawOD4eeSmFoGEpp_rsRVXVIjVdZWn3g9ruad74Gjiq9nL/s400/2.vine.jpg)
This lane addition is the result of many months of work at my University of Hawaii Traffic and Transportation Lab, the R. M. Towill Corporation, the Planning, Traffic and Design section of HDOT and others.
Cudos to HDOT for doing it! I look forward to the similar lane addition on the east-bound side.
Monday, July 23, 2012
Congress: Now Honolulu Can Switch from Rail to BRT
1) ... the bill modifies the definition of Bus Rapid Transit projects to broaden the use of the program. BRT projects will now be classified and funded as ... Fixed Guideway
2) ... the bill allows three Fixed Guideway BRT projects to receive at least 80 percent federal funding share each fiscal year. These provisions provide a significant opportunity for communities seeking to invest in BRT
Source: Inside MAP-21: New Starts Transit Grants.
Significantly, part of the rail's guideway can be retained as express flyovers for buses. Based on the letter of the law, these flyovers can be used off-peak for other operations such as emergency, city services and other transportation services. The unsightly stations can be replaced with on/off ramps. Like the Harris BRT, there will be no need for an elevated guideway in the city core.
Now there shouldn't be any question as to what the right course of action for Honolulu is.
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Honolulu BRT: The College Express
I modified one of the routes proposed ten years into The College Express in a proposal to past Governor and current candidate for mayor Ben Cayetano. The "constant motion" circuit route connects the University of Hawaii at Manoa, Hawaii Pacific University and Honolulu Community College with a bus every 15 minutes off-peak and every 6 minutes in the peak periods.
In addition to connecting three college campuses, this route also provides service to important transit-dependent markets in-town such as:
- Hospitals: Straub, Kapiolani, Honolulu Medical Group, Holistic Medical, many doctors' offices
- SuperMarkets: Times, Safeway, Foodland
- Banks: BOH, FHB, CPB
- Government buildings
- City Center/Downtown
- Chinatown and Iwilei
This route may begin operations immediately as a regular bus route. Once an environmental assessment has been approved and funding is secured for parking relocations (if needed) and minor lane improvements as well as traffic signal improvements, the route will convert into a faster College Express BRT service. Depending on demand, high technology, high capacity double decker buses may be utilized, as the sample shown below. (This is similar to the Las Vegas public transit bus.)
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisV5twUG3qJZHO2CBFW4YBW4s7-V4y-NyVkcV8TU3kEzVo2cZwPMD1g0v_u6aiF5F1NDTvQ5fZFAVSaxNac6il8r8k6kai39ACjd7pehvyHnNWE850yd1Tclc7V0liDDF0381MABMKfCh6/s400/double_decker_TheBus.jpg)
Monday, July 9, 2012
Godfather of Global Warming Is Less Alarmed Now
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic7cXFN_pa4Xbdd9GUkZgV4jEzuOPVHVzkk7eE76BYjmHWFwu85JPiW1SIf2RW_PVT0W9SeTkiQdI7fyB5On2XHLiduEMg1kWeP5cEcBv-vtRaG4xAIeYNni4JGMWYVHKneyfYS5PmqBre/s400/1297277246254_ORIGINAL.jpg)
In recent interviews Lovelock has made these rather starling declarations:
- He had been unduly “alarmist” about climate change.
- He's been a long-time supporter of nuclear power as a way to lower greenhouse gas emissions.
- He is in favor of natural gas fracking extraction because natural gas is a low-polluting alternative to coal.
- He believes that ‘sustainable development’ is meaningless drivel.
- He "can’t stand windmills at any price."
- He "blasted greens for treating global warming like a religion."
I am truly humbled to be in agreement with him, 5 for 5, with first five arguments: climate change, nuclear power, fracking, sustainable development and windmills. I have not yet written an article blasting greens (although I often refer to them as pseudo-greens) because I've been rather busy countering the railigious.
Sources
- Green ‘drivel’ exposed: The godfather of global warming lowers the boom on climate change hysteria
- 'Gaia' scientist James Lovelock: I was 'alarmist' about climate change
- James Lovelock: The UK should be going mad for fracking
Monday, July 2, 2012
Is Honolulu Really No. 1 in Traffic Jams?
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Electric Vehicles: Another Government Bet, Another Taxpayer Loss
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Several years ago in this newsletter (prior to the debut of the Chevy Volt), I celebrated the vision of a future of zero-tailpipe emission cars, powered by breakthrough battery technology. Articles on advanced batteries were appearing in respectable places like MIT's Technology Review, and Silicon Valley venture capitalists were ramping up funding of electric vehicle (EV) and advanced-battery startups. With the coming of practical, zero-emission vehicles, I hoped, a lot of the anti-car, anti-highway ideas that I disagree with could be dismissed as irrelevant.
Alas, several years later, things don't look so bright for EVs. Canadian columnist Margaret Wente, writing in The Globe and Mail last fall, summed it up as follows: "As Dennis DesRosiers, a leading auto consultant points out, consumers simply won't pay a $20,000 premium for a vehicle that doesn't go very far, isn't very convenient, and runs out of juice as soon as you turn on the air conditioner." And that, I think, neatly explains why:
- sales of the highly touted Chevy Volt totaled just 7,671 last year, and
- the Nissan Leaf did only marginally better at 9,674.
- The Daily Mail in London reported that only 2,149 EVs have been sold in Britain since 2006.
For EVs like the Volt, Leaf, and Ford's Focus, the battery pack costs $12-15,000, about one-third the cost of the vehicle. And that is despite $1.26 billion in federal subsidies to battery producers over the last several years. There may be some future battery technology that will represent a breakthrough in energy storage, but lithium-ion clearly is not it.But that has not stopped the government's multi-front program of jump-starting an EV industry based on flawed technology.
Besides grants and loans to battery companies, the Department of Energy and the Administration's stimulus program have put some $9 billion for EV production into major auto companies like GM and Nissan as well as a whole raft of start-ups such as Tesla, Fisker, Bright Automotive, Think, and even truck-maker Navistar, which got $2.4 billion to jump-start production of an electric truck called eStar that has found few buyers. (A number of the smaller start-ups have already filed for bankruptcy.) In addition, of course, buyers of EVs get a $7,500 tax credit (which the Administration's current budget proposal would increase to $10,000). That credit applies not just to the low-end Leaf and Volt but also to the $100,000 Fisker Karma and Tesla roadster.
The average household income of Volt buyers is around $170,000, and I'm sure those who have put down deposits for Fisker and Tesla EVs are in far higher brackets. What kind of public policy sense does it make to subsidize playthings for the rich?
The whole federal push to jump-start an EV industry is misguided. As former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers has said, "The government is a crappy venture capitalist." In a field where true breakthroughs are needed if a practical, cost-effective EV is ever to emerge, government funding of basic research and development might be justified. But the attempt to shape and micro-manage the development of an industry is a recipe for massive wasting of resources. As former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers Michael Boskin put it in a Wall Street Journal op-ed in February, "Industrial policy failed in the 1970s and 1980s. Letting governments, rather than marketplace competition, pick winners and losers is just as bad an idea today.
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I should add that while in South Korea last month I read "China's dream of electric car leadership elusive" and I quote:
In 2009, [China] announced bold plans to cash in on demand for clean vehicles by making China a global power in electric car manufacturing. They pledged billions of dollars for research and called for annual sales of 500,000 cars by 2015. Today, Beijing is scaling back its ambitions, chastened by technological hurdles and lack of buyer interest. Developers have yet to achieve breakthroughs and will be lucky to sell 2,000 cars this year, mostly taxis.
Monday, June 11, 2012
Transit Oriented Development Is Such BS
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCmytcnyTDs_kMzJFX0QRlkRVqXw-E1Eoy_Gwc3oMkbIQ2V9rjYY-4x_uE5WgZvBrpwwmujx5vgnIcE_q9vy5bsu6qYBkq5t2uVx26iP3Hwq5DpmSmcOGt2teD3KZGilz8rIe6kBWyzw8i/s400/rail_shop.jpg)
Lesson: Soul-full neighborhoods like Kalihi and Manoa can weather severe, prolonged crises, but artificial ones like Kapolei and Hoopili will likely wither or vanish. And you don't want to be walking there in the dark coming up or down the stairs of a transit station like a perfect target...
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Underpasses Explained
Honolulu would greatly benefit from at least three express underpasses. One from Nimitz to Alakea and Halekawila, another on Kapiolani Boulevard at the Kapiolani/Date/Kamoku intersection by Iolani School, and a third by having a lane of Kalakaua Avenue go under Kapiolani Boulevard.
Here is a video of our traffic simulation that explains the one lane express underpass from Nimitz to Alakea and Halekauwila. Observe that the left turns that take a long time to receive green and spill over and block lanes on Nimitz Highway flow non-stop to both Alakea St. and Halekauwila St. Also the westbound (Ewa) flow has green light all the time except when there are pedestrian crossing requests.
The simulation screen-shots below show the before/after situation on Kapiolani Boulevard at its intersection with Date and Kamoku streets. The one lane per direction underpass visibly reduces congestion on Kapiolani Boulevard and allows for more green time to be allocated to the other sides of this complex intersection. This reduces their congestion and shortens the waiting time for the pedestrian crossings.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJGEbU-NIf-GJXw-KsJFfCU6IxLqNV5rLjg6t6W5tvpI9ToDUhWtmBJDwcGkrgjTjxpw2hrNSJrUL_PiNTXAUekRCSlYTbTVztczs-krrRFlUPRS7xA1UMNncj-7VO05gsZLT5WfBC5bdx/s400/Kap_Kam_Date_UP.bmp)
Because almost 50% of peak hour traffic on Kapiolani Boulevard and nearly 100% of its off peak traffic will use the underpass, the risk of collisions and pedestrian accidents also reduces substantially.
At least two of the existing surface lanes are maintained because these are "low clearance" underpasses which are easy to fit in a crowded urban setting. London, Paris, Seoul and Singapore have many such underpasses. Any vehicle such as a standard transit bus and lower will be able to use them. Taller vehicles (amounting to about 2% to 4% of traffic) must use the regular lanes. Also when the subject street has green, most of its traffic will opt to use the surface lanes.The underpasses will be equipped with sumps and pumps to remove storm waters.
Castle junction on the windward side of Oahu is an exception because for that location a flyover rather than an underpass would be shorter, safer and much cheaper to implement. The one lane flyover would replace the very busy Kaneohe-bound twin left turns that on some occasions cause queues to grow near the tunnels and block the lanes to Kailua. In the peak periods the intersection will improve from Level of Service F in AM and PM peaks now, to D in the morning and B in the afternoon peak periods.
More on our analyses of underpasses in these professional articles:
Dehnert, G. and P. D. Prevedouros, Underpasses at Urban Intersections: Investigation and Case Study. ITE Journal, Vol. 74, No. 3: 36-47, March 2004. Received 2005 Institute of Transportation Engineers Van Wagoner Award.
Prevedouros, P. D., J. K. Tokishi and K. Chongue. Simulation of Urban Underpasses for Traffic Congestion Relief. 10th International Conference on Applications of Advanced Technologies in Transportation, ASCE, Athens, May 2008.
Yu, A. and P. D. Prevedouros. Left Turn Prohibition and Partial Grade Separation for Signalized Intersections: Planning Level Assessment. ASCE Journal of Transportation Engineering. In review, 2012.
Friday, May 25, 2012
The Ho'opili TIAR is Unacceptable
Let me quickly dispense the argument that my review of the Ho'opili TIAR may have been biased by the fact that Ho'opili contains two rail stations and is being billed as an exemplary Transit Oriented Development (TOD) of the proposed rail which I oppose.
The TIAR shows that Ho’opili’s transit trips are modest. If 50% of transit trips are made by rail, this results in 166 riders in the AM peak hour -- two bus loads and that’s it:
• Ho’opili does not work for rail proponents because it generates manini ridership.
• Ho’opili does not work for rail opponents because deleting it does affect the projected rail ridership substantially.
The first phase of Ho'opili barely justifies a basic bus service and the full development may benefit from limited express bus service. But as a ridership generator for rail, it is worthless, as all suburban TODs are. Suburban development and rail never go together.
Now back to the TIAR and why LUC should reject the petition on the basis of an inadequate TIAR alone.
“The planned year 2020 level of development is expected to occupy approximately one third of the total Ho’opili project site” stated on page E-2 is a hugely important statement. This means that all outcomes presented in the TIAR are only 1/3 of the whole. This is a “salami tactic” to get Ho’opili going without any disclosure of its total effects. A whopping 67% of the Ho’opili’s total effects are nowhere to be found. Therefore, this report should be deemed UNACCEPTABLE without at least an illustrative (approximate) full build-out scenario along with mitigations and final impacts. These numbers are simply “cheating” both decision makers and the community as they omit 67% of the potential impacts.
In the study’s Methodology for Freeway and Junction Analysis, the “… operating conditions were evaluated using the HCM 2000 methodology.” The current version is HCM 2010, but that’s a minor problem. HCM is not an appropriate tool for this application. The Federal Highway Administration (which has H-1 Freeway oversight) does not recommend such simple models for complex corridor and freeway analysis because they ignore congestion effects. The freeway operations in the Ho’opili area are dominated by the H-1/H-2 merge and other secondary bottlenecks. The TIAR’s segment by segment freeway and ramp analysis is entirely inappropriate. Also the H-1/H-2 merge is totally absent, therefore the presented results are UNACCEPTABLE.
The TIAR preparer assumed that Ho’opili will adopt a Traffic Demand Management composed of nine (9) major actions such as extensive biking, carpooling, tele-work, etc. Absolutely no other place in Hawaii has any four of these nine TDM actions occurring at the same time so at best this is a pie-in-the-sky assumption that artificially reduced the traffic impact of Ho’opili.
The TIAR preparer claimed that the Oahu MPO planning model allows them to take an up to 30% trip reduction due to the integrated character of the Ho’opili community. However, there is no proof that this is a valid or prudent assumption. I cannot think of a more integrated community on Oahui than Kalilhi. Arguing that Kalihi folks make 30% fewer trips is baseless and likely wrong. These multiple traffic reductions make the assessment of Ho’opili’s traffic impacts.
The freeway mitigations shown in the study are localized band aids and none of them address the merge of the H-1 and H-2 freeways. Worse yet, I note that the furthest downstream section of their mitigations is always a 3-lane “choker” so all these actions actually force more traffic flow onto bottleneck sections. The proposed freeway mitigations are UNACCEPTABLE.
The LUC Docket A06-771 “2020 TIAR” that I reviewed includes over 300 pages of computer traffic analysis output. All of it with simple Equation Type models, which are inappropriate for congested freeway corridors, as mentioned above. What I found surprising is that the memo for freeway analysis relating to Ho’opili agreed upon by State DOT, and two consultants of B. R. Horton is dated October 9, 2009 but nearly all of the computer outputs were dated August 20, 2009. So: (1) Freeway and ramp analysis was done before the State/Developer MOU, and (2) This TIAR is stamped “April 2011 update” but the traffic analyses are from summer 2009.
The TIAR states that “neither the City and County of Honolulu nor the State of Hawaii have guidelines for identifying the transportation impacts caused by the project.” This is a sad statement for our city and state and it is true. Solid technical criteria for the judgment of properly quantified traffic impacts are absent. Therefore, developers hire consultants to present a picture of the impacts and then government and top level decision makers arrive at an ad hoc determination about what’s wrong with the picture, if anything. This simply perpetuates arbitrary, capricious and favoritism-prone decision making.
Regardless of the lack of City and State criteria, the outputs of this analysis are by and large worthless. The report describes the 2020 plan with only one third of Ho’opili developed. The partial and biased TIAR of questionable methodology should be found UNACCEPTABLE for permitting the conversion of prime agricultural land to any other land use that obliterates the current active agricultural use of the land.
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Energy Challenge: Options for Power Generation and Hawaii’s Path Forward
Hawaii has several special and severe problems:
- Extreme electric power price gauging which international oil markets and proposed EPA regulations for oil and coal burning power plants will make increasingly intolerable.
- U.S. mainland solutions such as natural gas and nuclear are less promising for Hawaii.
- The Jones Act governing US marine transportation restricts Hawaii’s fuel supply.
- Absence of a plan for fuel shortages and local fuel production.
- Utopian views and policies about clean energy in which cost effectiveness is not even a factor.
- Land and development plans intertwined with energy solutions.
- Extreme political influence on what is fundamentally a technical problem.
- One power monopoly with Gordian tentacles.
- Regulators with questionable expertise and motivation.
- Hawaii’s extreme NIMBYism due to its natural beauty, cultural resources and strict environmental laws.
What does the future hold for Hawaii? Hawaii with its mandates and high feed-in tariffs is moving in the direction of scarce and expensive energy by incentivizing increasingly larger deployments of costly, intermittent and ineffective power plants which are also too wimpy to affect the oil-based monopoly.
Friday, May 18, 2012
Star Advertiser Reduces Anti-rail Letter from 527 to 167 Words!
Attorney Bradley Coates' letter was reduced from 527 words to 167 words. Below is the full edition.
Ben Cayetano is not only the guy with the smartest grasp of the rail issue, he also represents the last best hope Honolulu has of overturning our city’s entrenched “old boy” network consisting of big business, developers, labor unions and embedded political interests.
Nothing demonstrates this more clearly than the insulting “Be Nice Ben” smear campaign which was immediately implemented (and undoubtedly funded by) that exact same unholy alliance which supports both Carlisle and Caldwell. The very fact that those two mayoral rivals could suddenly join together so quickly in alignment with the ultimate king(maker) of establishment Hawaii politics Senator Inouye, shows just how scared that whole cabal is of losing their grip on
power.
As was brilliantly pointed out in Richard Borreca’s 5/6 Star Advertiser column, the Democratic power brokers have now somewhat ironically become the party pushing all the pro-growth agendas seeking absurd exemptions from long established zoning and environmental laws in order to push for unrestricted development. As poorly thought out monster-sprawl mega projects like Koa Ridge and Ho’opili attest, the developers and their “puppet politicians” now seem perfectly willing to sacrifice the mana of Hawaii in exchange for money and power. With about 12% population growth in just this last decade alone, our island may well have reached its “carrying capacity.” We should be preserving our islands’ unique beauty, our open spaces and especially our agricultural lands. We should be slowing growth rather than encouraging it. . .but unfortunately sustainability has become an afterthought.
Nor is Cayetano just a single issue candidate on rail alone. As a former governor who ran a far bigger administration than either of his two rivals, Ben has the most experience on all the aspects which will govern Honolulu’s shaky budget and finances. It is noteworthy that former Gov. Lingle, who along with Ben has the most experience running large government budgets, has also turned negative on rail. Even Governor Abercrombie now seems to be hedging. The recent GSA scandal as well as numerous other episodes have clearly shown the greed, waste and corruption which has begun to pervade Big Government. With $7 billion up for grabs (assuming we ever actually even get that “promised” funding), we can anticipate that greedy contractors and developers will push the edge of every possible envelope and, along with inept government and embedded and inflexible unions, will almost certainly turn the rail project into a total travesty. Let’s be realistic, despite all its expensive (and taxpayer funded) PR campaigns to the contrary, rail is the cabal ’s pet project, not the people's project. This could potentially bankrupt the city-not to mention turning into a horrible unaesthetic eyesore which will permanently scar our beautiful island.
Ben has already held the highest office in the state and is a reluctant candidate at best. He has absolutely nothing left to prove or gain personally. Instead, he is obviously embarking on this idealistic campaign (which has now come down to going toe to toe with almost all of Hawaii’s entire entrenched political “establishment”) strictly because he wants to do the right thing for Honolulu. He deserves our respect and our votes.
BRADLEY A. COATES
COATES & FREY ATTORNEYS AT LAW, LLLC
Thursday, May 17, 2012
BBC: Is it Cheaper to Put Greek Train Passengers in Taxis?
The claim that it would be cheaper for Greece to send every rail passenger to their destination by taxi was first made by Stefanos Manos, the former Greek finance minister, in 1992. Manos used the railway system to illustrate what he saw as gross public sector waste.
Mr Manos is correct if there are more than two passengers in each taxi.
But either way, the Greek railways are in a pretty awful mess, and while train journeys may cost less than cab journeys, they are more expensive than travel on other forms of public transport, including air.
"Over $13bn has been pumped in, in the last 15 or 16 years. In terms of passengers, long-distance rail has 2.7% of the share and in terms of freight it's truly a joke because it's 0.08% of the freight so the costs are staggering," says Prof Prevedouros.
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Can We Solve Honolulu’s Pervasive Traffic Congestion Problem?
There are several specific projects that mitigate congestion that if one could magically install half of them overnight, Honolulu’s congestion level would be so low that traffic congestion would be removed from people’s list of worries. That would be a great thing for quality of life on Oahu and a booster to our tourism and the overall local economy.
Part 1 gives some background on congestion (did you know that some congestion is a good thing?) and presents low cost and shorter term traffic congestion solutions. Part 2 presents longer term, high cost traffic congestion solutions.
Honolulu Traffic Congestion – Part 1: From Bumper-to-bumper to Zoom-zoom by Removing One Third of Honolulu's Traffic Congestion for Less Than $500 Million
Honolulu Traffic Congestion – Part 2: Up-shift to Overdrive by Removing another One Third of Honolulu's Traffic Congestion for Less Than $5 Billion
These two white papers illustrate the dozens of doable, affordable, all-local-labor and effective projects for mitigating one of our largest problems on Oahu, traffic congestion.
Traffic congestion mitigation in Honolulu is in the hands of government and politicians. They may actually be the main causes of our traffic congestion.
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
10 Requirements for Infrastructure Mega-Project Success
The article features analysis and a spectacular picture of Gefyra which is a 9,500 ft. long cable-stayed bridge connecting Rio and Antirio. (I was born and raised in the city of Patras which is just five miles from Rio.) The Rio-Antirio Bridge received the 2005 Outstanding Civil Engineering Achievement (OCEA) by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).
Hawaii and Greece are half a globe apart, but they have several things in common:
- Both are temperate places dominated by coastline and a marine lifestyle.
- Both have been historically invaded and taken advantage of by various colonialists.
- Both are relatively powerless in regional and world politics.
- Both have agriculture and fisheries, but they are relatively poor in natural resources.
- In both places tourism, education and military are a big part of the economy. And,
- Both places have insider-dominated politics.