Rail Enjoys New Push for a Final Resolution, and the Only Sane Path Is Completing the Project as Originally Envisioned

                                                                                  Dillingham Boulevard          Civil Beat Photo
 

Civil Beat reports on the “Mauka Shift” – the proposal to move the elevated rail alignment from the center of Dillingham Boulevard to the mauka side of the thoroughfare.

The shift presumably would reduce the complications of relocating miles of utility infrastructure beneath and alongside Dillingham. It’s become a Gordian knot-like problem for HART.

 

According to legend, Alexander the Great tried but failed to untie the fabled knot. His solution was to atop the untying and start the cutting. He sliced the knot in two with his sword. “It makes no difference how they are loosed,” he said of the rope tangle.

 

The Mauka Shift appears to be HART’s solution to untangling the utility infrastructure. Just move the alignment.

 

“Get Rail Done!”

 

You get the feeling the logjam is about to break, and the timing couldn’t be better. The new President is pushing for a $2 Trillion infrastructure improvement and rebuilding plan. HART is vowing to cut the Dillingham Knot, and the public engagement process is picking up.

 

PBS Hawaii’s “Insights” program has scheduled another rail program for April 29 at 8 p.m.: “Honolulu’s Rail System – Where Are We Now?”

 

Let’s hope Thursday’s rail discussion is enlightened and not bogged down by unproductive suggestions to kill the project, and what – leave 15 miles of guideway and support structures as a perpetual reminder of failure?

 

No, rail needs to be built at least into downtown to satisfy rail's original goals, including restoration of mobility along the southern corridor. 

 

Here’s my comment today below Civil Beat’s rail story:

 

“I propose taking one option off the table regarding rail. For the sake of clarity, stop any consideration to end this project before it is built out at least to downtown Honolulu. Use the Mauka Shift if that becomes a necessity, but build rail to a useful conclusion. Traffic is worsening by the day, let alone in future decades. Grade-separated transit is the only alternative to being stuck in that traffic. Rail won’t “solve” traffic; short of draconian policies, nothing will ever solve traffic. But rail will be the option to avoid traffic for those who choose to ride it. 

Great Britain untied itself from Europe behind the simple “Get Brexit Done” slogan. That disengagement was far more complicated than building four miles of elevated guideway along Dillingham Boulevard. 

So HART, simplify and just.....

 

“Get Rail Done!”