Editorial: Elevated Rail Best Deal for Taxpayers; Also Commuters, Drivers and Property Owners

The string of editorials supporting the City’s plan to build an elevated rail system remains intact with today’s Honolulu Advertiser offering. While the headline focuses on cost, the editorial goes far beyond that single issue. It pretty much blasts every argument the local chapter of the American Institute of Architects uses in its dubious promotional campaign for an at-grade system.

For instance, imagine as the editorial does what putting at-grade rail would be like on a six-lane street like Kapiolani Boulevard, the AIA’s New Jersey-based consultant's idea that the local architects apparently have endorsed. A minimum of two lanes would have tracks laid on them in their scheme – presumably the outside lanes for discussion’s sake. Would drivers then be denied use of those lanes? To keep the trains moving, you’d have to assume so, which means six lanes of traffic would be reduced to four. (The map shows the proposed at-grade route in red, the City's elevated line in blue. Guess which one would move commuters more efficiently and quickly through town.)

Then imagine how drivers would make turns right and left from Kapiolani onto intersecting streets such as Ward Avenue, Pensacola, Piikoi and Cooke. They’d have to cross over the tracks and through the pathway of the at-grade trains – a maneuver that has resulted in dozens of vehicle-train crashes in the first year of Phoenix’s new at-grade system.

Also for the sake of discussion, let’s say the double tracks are in the center lanes, which would require passengers to wait for a “walk” signal (or go against the light) to cross the outside two lanes to go to and from the at-grade system’s “stations.” That hardly seems conducive to building ridership.

And if six lanes were to be retained for traffic while adding two tracks of rail, Kapiolani would have to be widened. Do you see any way that could happen without taking dozens of properties along Kapiolani Boulevard alone?

The editorial also dismantles the AIA’s arguments on expense and timing, issues covered in our two most recent posts here on Thursday and Friday – the summaries of the City’s response to the AIA’s hearing in a news conference. The editorial’s final sentence wraps up the issues nicely:

“If we’re going to spend billions of dollars on a rail system to handle Oahu’s long-term transit needs, we should at least buy one that’s going to work.”