Dallas Columnist Recalls Honolulu of 1971, Says Honolulu Doesn’t Need Its Modern Rail System

Honolulu -- 1971
(Be sure to check out the Comments below today's post. Also, see link at the end to the Dallas writer's follow-up column with a response from Honolulu's rail project.)

nos•tal•gia [no-stal-juh, -jee-uh, nuh-] noun

– a wistful desire to return in thought or in fact to a former time in one’s life, to one’s home or homeland, or to one’s family and friends; a sentimental yearning for the happiness of a former place or time: a nostalgia for when he lived in Honolulu as a child.

Honolulu residents take pride in their hometown when it’s portrayed positively across America and gets nice headlines. Hawaii 5-O is the best current example, but there’ve been many others -- American Idol, stories about our outstanding beaches and resorts, Lost and other productions here, and much more.

But a headline like this is something else:
Just what Honolulu needs: 20 miles of elevated train track

It tops an opinion column by Mike Hashimoto of the Dallas Morning News, a venerable newspaper that's hanging on by adjusting with the times, such as creating a streamlined online presence – dallasnews.com. Mr. Hashimoto’s July 11th column looked askance at Honolulu’s transportation plans after he did a little bit of research. The one reference is a NewGeography.com commentary by Honolulu’s own Panos D. Prevedouros; the site is maintained by the National Center for Policy Analysis, a conservative think tank in Dallas. It figures that Mr. Hashimoto would be attracted to that website; he describes himself at dallasnews.com as “the only right-wing nut in the room.” (Joel Kotkin, who runs the Center, can be found with some frequency at dallasnews.com.)

We’ve already commented on Dr. Prevedouros’s anti-rail opinion piece, which clearly is out of step with the majority support rail enjoys among Oahu residents as found in a recent opinion poll administered by QMark of Honolulu using best-practice principles. Mr. Hashimoto says his column drew on personal experience, too:

“As a side note, I have some experience with mass transit in Honolulu,” he wrote. “I spent some of my formative years living there (third through seventh grade) and found I could get just about anywhere in town, including school, on the city’s bus system. I don’t recall longing for a train…. This was a place so concerned about preserving its natural beauty that it didn’t even allow billboards.”

We still don’t allow billboards, so that hasn’t changed, but residents have added quite a few other issues to their list of local concerns since Mr. Hashimoto last lived here in 1971.

By the Numbers

According to the U.S. Census and other sources that you, too, can find, Oahu’s population in 1970 was 630,528. The 2010 Census located 953,207 people living here, a growth of 51.2 percent over four decades.

In 2009, the registered vehicle count on Oahu was 718,263, more than 20 percent above 1995. Hawaii’s visitor numbers passed 7 million in 2010, with the majority of them driving and bussing around Oahu. We didn’t find information on the vehicle and visitor counts in 1970, but the growth pattern is obvious from what we do know.

When all’s said and done, Honolulu isn’t the same town Mr. Hashimoto recalls with nostalgia. Traffic congestion, vehicle hours of delay, population growth, high-rise buildings that wall off the ocean and dwarf Aloha Tower, a spiraling cost of living, the highest electricity rates and gas prices in the country (oil/barrel in 1971, $3.60 vs 2011, $118), time lost sitting in traffic on H-1 and other roads – they all describe a city that doesn't resemble what Mr. Hashimoto remembers from his hanabata days four decades ago.

A lot of 1971 Honolulu is just a memory now – except for the no-billboards law, of course. Even TheBus system is different – better than in 1971 but inadequate to meet the mobility challenges of today’s 21st century world-class city.

We searched the ‘net for a 1971-era photograph to make our point about the passage of time in the 40 years since Mr. Hashimoto left. We think we found a good one, a photograph that also evokes Honolulu’s pride for one of its own – a young “Barry” Obama and his dad at Honolulu International Airport, Christmas 1971.

It’s worth about a bazzillion words.

July 27 Update: The Dallas paper today carries columnist Hashimoto's follow-up, which includes a letter from Toru Hamayasu, interim executive director of the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation. Our response to Mr. Hashimoto's final word: "In this case, it does."