Time Out for a Few Words on Credibility

This blog’s description (top of left column) has been amended to note my consultancy with the City. Rail critics who aren’t satisfied with several mentions of that fact since June 30th in this blog think this revelation will destroy my credibility.

They’re welcome to that view; others will see it differently. But this mini-controversy does pose an interesting question: Does credibility end the moment you're paid to state your views – the same views you've publicized for years without compensation or personal attacks?

Here’s one of those expressions, a letter published on January 8, 2004 in the Honolulu Advertiser:

Find your niche on transportation

A prediction for 2004 that surely will come true is that The Advertiser's letters page will carry dozens of contributions on how to "solve" Honolulu's traffic problem.

As a public service, I offer the following method to evaluate the letters. The method relies on the past as a predictor of the future and places the suggestions in three major categories.

Category 1 is called the 20th Century Solution. In essence, it honors the private automobile as the technology king of the 20th century and includes ways to continue the car's reign far into the future. New reversible highways, toll roads and double-decking schemes can be placed here.

The most visible proponent of the 20th Century Solution is Cliff Slater, The Advertiser's frequent Second Opinion columnist. I predict Mr. Slater will produce exactly 7.5 columns in 2004 in which continued reliance on the private automobile will be the essential factor.

Humorist Garrison Keillor inspired Category 2, the Lake Woebegone Solution, named for the idyllic place where "all the men are handsome, all the women are strong and all the children are above average."

In Lake Woebegone, nearly all the men and women cooperate in carpools, walk or ride bicycles to work. Some use water-borne transit involving sailboats, motorboats and water skis to move commuters from one side of the lake to the other.

This is where readers can pigeonhole the "feel good" transit suggestions in these pages, such as reliance on carpools and ferries to move commuters into downtown Honolulu from the leeward end of the island. They work well in Lake Woebegone, but as solutions for a modern, world-class city, they're quaint. (Note: Subsequent events have shown that some of these options do have merit.)

Category 3 is where you'll find the forward-thinking, visionary suggestions for Honolulu's 21st-century transportation system. The Light Rail Solution is the category that supports the proposed light-rail transit system as the only big-impact alternative to the private automobile, the zipper-laned buses and carpools and all other forms of transportation that rely on streets and highways.

Those who draft letters to The Advertiser in 2004 would do well to ask themselves which category their letter will enter — the old car-oriented solution, the feel-good but unrealistic Lake Woebegone solution or the light-rail solution, the only one that will move large numbers of commuters to and from work in a timely manner.

Doug Carlson

Honolulu

I could have written that yesterday, not four years ago. Acceptable then, but not now?