Editorial Urges Early Work on Transit Authority

It was yesterday’s editorial, but Sunday’s major rainstorm set a new 24-hour downpour record (5.3 inches) and was just about all we could concentrate on. That’s a deceptive total, though; official readings are taken at Honolulu International Airport on Oahu’s lee side. We’re pretty sure we’ve had at least that much rain on our roof at times.

But the editorial is worth mentioning a day late. It cautions rail proponents against losing focus in the aftermath of Governor Abercrombie’s acceptance of rail’s FEIS.

Other hurdles remain, including establishment of the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation, which Oahu voters approved last month. (We hope it doesn’t take another city charter amendment to shorten that name; replacing “Transportation” with “Transit" would lose no meaning and make headline writers happy.)

Landslide Approval

“Making the transit authority a priority concern would be one way to gain public trust,” the editorial concludes after noting that the project has been “endorsed by a slim majority of voters.” The writer apparently was referring to the 2008 election when voters approved the steel-on-steel rail concept with 53 percent of the votes cast on the measure.

Whether that was a “slim majority” depends on your perspective; it was Barack Obama’s national winning percentage, and nobody’s calling that “slim.” More telling we think is the 63.6 percent approval the transit authority charter amendment received.

That’s a landslide in anybody’s book.