Say Yes to the Honolulu Rail System

Question Answered: No, Mayoral Candidate Does Not Understand a Basic Issue re Honolulu Rail – Why Construction Is Starting on Line’s West End

2012-01-26T07:34:00.001-10:00

Our Monday headline asked the question, and the new edition of MidWeek answered it. The weekly quotes new mayoral candidate Ben Cayetano as follows:

“They want to start (building rail) in Kapolei and go to Waipahu. Usually you would start from the city and go outward. That way, if you run out of money, you can still run the transit from the city and continue from there.”

HawaiiReporter.com added additional remarks from the “fiery former governor” (HR’s description) about the west end of the project:

“Cayetano also noted the project ‘doesn’t make sense’ because it starts in an empty field in Kapolei and in three years, would extend to Waipahu, a town nearby. He questioned who will ride a train from an empty field in Kapolei, to Waipahu, a town several miles from Downtown Honolulu, except politicians who voted for the project.”

MSF Basics

We’ve discussed this with audiences all over Oahu, and it looks like rail construction basics need a permanent home here at Yes2Rail, a place candidates for public office can visit to brush up on the facts.

Think it through: Wherever Honolulu rail’s first segment is built, a maintenance and storage facility (MSF) must be built nearby. It makes sense because it’s common sense; you have to park and maintain train cars each night, and the facility therefore must be connected to wherever the first segment is built.

This means that starting in town and building outward toward Kapolei would require finding room in town for the 44-acre MSF. Imagine 44 football fields laid out in one big clump, each 300 feet long and 160 feet wide. Scrunch them all together, and that’s about how much space the MSF will fill.

Since just about everything between Ala Moana Center and Middle Street – the first segment that would be built if the candidate were planning rail's construction – existing buildings, businesses, homes and infrastructure would have to be cleared away to make room for the MSF. The cost in both dollars and social impact would be unacceptably extreme.

As Mr. Cayetano himself said, there’s a lot of unoccupied space (for now) on the west end between Kapolei and Waipahu – two communities that will be connected by segment one. The MSF will be located near Leeward Community College to service that segment; work on it began in October.

That’s why rail will be built west to east – sensibly so.

As for the concept that this city would begin building a multi-billion dollar rail project without having the necessary funding in place and could run out of money before it’s completed – that’s a remarkable way to look at it.

Honolulu rail is on a different track.

LTE Forum: Traffic Reduction Is Greatest when UH Isn’t in Session, so Here’s a Surprise: Rail’s Effect On Reducing H-1 Congestion Will Be Even Greater; Also, Majority Has Voted To Help Leeward Side

2012-01-25T09:13:00.007-10:00

You hear this factoid all the time: Freeway driving is never so good as when the University of Hawaii at Manoa is out of session. Summertime highway travel is sublime compared to the rest of the year, and UH’s neighbors can find parking in front of their homes again.

Today’s LTE Forum uses a letter to the editor in the morning paper (subscription required) to make a crucial point about rail’s effect on congestion.

Rail won’t work without UH stop (Star-Advertiser, 1/25)

“…If you’ve sat in stop-and-go traffic from Central and West Oahu, you know like I do that the only time there ever seems to be any decrease in town-bound traffic is when the University of Hawai`i is not in session. Therefore, it is the students who need to be encouraged to utilize rail, but a route that does not reach UH will not do that. This project will not have the desired effect on traffic everyone is hoping for….”

This may come as shock to the writer and others: There will be a much greater reduction in traffic congestion because of rail than what the writer says happens when students aren’t commuting to school.

The “out-of-session” effect currently is a reduction in congestion of about 11 percent. With tens of thousands of commuters switching from driving to riding the train by 2030, the reduction in vehicle hours of delay in the urban core will be about 18 percent. In other words, rail’s effect on traffic will be 64 percent greater than the “out-of-session” effect that the writer appreciates so much.

Let’s be clear about why rail is being built. The system will provide a travel option every day of the year to those who don't want to fight congestion and sit in traffic jams. The line will be an attractive and convenient way to and from work that will completely avoid street and highway congestion.

But let’s not forget future students’ advantages in using rail even when the last leg of the trip to Manoa will be on a bus from the end of the rail line at Ala Moana Center. Taking the train and then TheBus will be quicker than driving on a traffic-clogged freeway, and it also will be extraordinarily less expensive than relying on high-priced gasoline to get to school.

More from LTE Forum

Voters showed they want rail (Star-Advertiser, 1/25)

“…How many times do Oahu residents have to tell the politicians we want the rail. Didn’t they vote on it? Why is (Ben) Cayetano so intent on going against the people’s will?... A vast majority of us, young and hard-working, needs the rail desperately.”

Rail will Help Leeward folks (Star-Advertiser, 1/25)

“Please let the rail transit project roll on its track. More buses will create more traffic. If the Leeward side had three highways to go to work and go home each day, like the Windward side, the Leeward side wouldn’t need rail. Come on, Windward and East side people – help the Leeward side ease traffic by having the rail built…”

If you’re counting, that’s two for rail and one against, and maybe even the Mililani resident who wrote that negative letter would change his tune if he were aware of the information we’ve provided today.

Get Ready for the Anti-Transit Invasion: ‘Hired Guns’ Will Be Here Soon, so It’s Time To Examine Rail’s Blending of Efficiency and ‘Experience’

2012-01-24T07:30:00.010-10:00

It’s not too soon to start anticipating what we’ll hear from the four late-February visitors who’ll tell us why Honolulu shouldn’t build its rail transit system.

We know that’s what they’ll say in their two public appearances in late February because (1) they’ve been invited here by our local anti-rail minority, and (2) anti-transit advocacy is how they’ve been making a living for years.

One of the four will be Randal O’Toole, a senior fellow with the Cato Institute, which describes itself as “a public policy research organization — a think tank — dedicated to the principles of individual liberty, limited government, free markets and peace.”

Mr. O’Toole believes rail transit systems are failures if they don’t cover their costs, and since no transit system in the United States makes a profit, he thinks they’re all failures. Transit systems also have to pass his “Cable Car Test,” and as you might surmise, they don’t. He authored a study headlined Defining Success, the Case Against Rail Transit. Rail proponents might want to scan it to be prepared.

Academics such as Mr. O’Toole whose research is supported by the libertarian-leaning free-market Cato Institute and others churn out studies like his Defining Success analysis using all sorts of metrics to make their case. Of course, other researchers guided by different philosophies and principles view transit systems far differently than Mr. O’Toole and the other highway advocates.

The ‘Human Transit’ View

Jarrett Walker, a Portland-based transit consultant, has a perspective that was highlighted in a Slate.com piece last week headlined What’s the Best Way To Get Users To Embrace Mass Transit – Make it pleasant or make it efficient? (The Economist posted a column yesterday with reflections on this article.)

Walker hosts the Human Transit blog, which has favorably mentioned Honolulu’s future rail project several times (search for “Honolulu” at the site). The Slate article by Tom Vanderbilt contrasts Walker’s view that a system’s efficiency is critically important with that of Darrin Nordahl, who argues that the “ride experience” itself may be more important in convincing drivers to become riders.

Says Nordahl in his 2009 book, My Kind of Transit, “…the ride itself must offer an experience to passengers that they cannot get within the solitude of their cars.” Walker’s new book, Human Transit — How Clearer Thinking about Public Transit Can Enrich Our Communities and Our Lives, emphasizes other aspects of the transit experience that contribute to a system’s success.

“In most debates about proposed rapid transit lines,” he writes, “the speed of the proposed service gets more political attention than how frequently it runs, even though frequency, which determines waiting time, often matters more than speed in determining how long your trip will take.”

Best of Both Worlds?

One conclusion to be drawn from the Slate article is that Honolulu’s future rail system could very well satisfy both Nordahl and Walker. Passengers riding 30-plus feet above surface streets certainly will experience travel in ways that will be completely foreign to drivers down there on the roads. Views in every direction will be extraordinary, and it’s likely sight-seeing visitors to the islands will be heavy users during the mid-day hours between the morning and afternoon peak commuting periods.

As for convenience, Honolulu’s trains will arrive every 3 minutes during those peak hours, a frequency that will virtually eliminate a sense of “having just missed” one’s ride. Another will be along in 3 minutes or less, so the Honolulu system’s efficiency also will be extraordinary.

Rail opponents locally are counting on their late-February “hired gun” imports to create a cloud of doubt around the Honolulu project. The rest of us need to keep their views in perspective as the opinions of consultants who oppose big government spending programs unless the spending somehow supports highway travel.

For every one of their ilk who believes America would be better off without rail transit, you’ll find millions of rail commuters around the country who can’t imagine a more preposterous idea.

Does Mayoral Candidate Understand Rail's Goals? So Far, He’s Only Channeling Cliff Slater, Who Deliberately Misleads Public on Rail’s Purpose -- To Help Commuters Avoid Traffic, NOT END IT!

2012-01-23T08:53:00.009-10:00

As noted last week, Yes2Rail is not a political blog; it’s all about the Honolulu rail project. It’s also about calling attention to the weakness of anti-rail arguments no matter who’s doing the arguing, including candidates for mayor.

Ben Cayetano appears to not understand the rail project’s goals. What he does understand and use is Cliff Slater’s anti-rail spin that we’ve highlighted and criticized repeatedly since July 12, 2010, when Civil Beat posted its interview with the anti-railer-in-chief.

Yes2Rail devoted the first few posts of 2011 to Honolulu rail’s goals, since it was obvious even then that Mr. Slater was misstating those goals as a favored tactic. From January 6, 2011:

“The significant and obvious benefit of grade-separated transit – elevated rail in Honolulu—is that it’s completely immune to traffic congestion on highways and local streets.”

That’s the Honolulu rail project’s key attribute that will restore mobility and transportation reliability to the public. Take the train and forget about traffic; ride it and arrive at your station along the route reliabily when you want to get there – as opposed to never knowing whether an accident, stall or just Oahu’s ever-increasing traffic will slow or stop your progress.

The logic of building elevated rail in our space-restricted, cramped island environment is so strong that Mr. Slater apparently knew he couldn’t succeed in fighting the project straight up. His campaign would have to attract attention by twisting facts to suggest a plausible anti-rail argument.

Slater’s Misleading Message

Ironically, Mr. Slater uses an obvious truth about traffic – that congestion increases as the population increases – but twists that truth to create an impression that rail shouldn’t be built. Here’s his exact quote from the Civil Beat interview:

“In talking to groups about rail, I tell them that there’s really two things you need to know about it. Number one, it’s gonna cost five and one-half billion dollars before cost overruns, and the second thing is that traffic congestion with rail in the future will be worse than it is today. And then I ask them if they have any questions, and that kinda sums up the whole argument.”

He ties the cost of building rail to the inevitable result of families having babies, and just like that, he plants the notion that rail isn’t worth the expense if traffic is going to increase. Mr. Slater simply ignores rail’s traffic-avoiding attribute, and he resists talking about rail’s true goals.

Only reluctantly did he admit before the City Council in July 2010: “We don’t disagree at all that rail will have an effect on reducing traffic congestion from what it might be if we did nothing at all.” He doesn’t disagree, but he also doesn’t admit it unless cornered.

Cayetano Channels Slater

Though he insists it’s not the case, former governor Ben Cayetano has entered the mayoral race because of one issue – his opposition to rail. That’s what the political writers and blogs are saying, and that view is supported by Mr. Cayetano’s role as one of the Gang of Four plaintiffs who followed Mr. Slater’s lead in filing the federal lawsuit that wants to kill the project.

The Star-Advertiser’s subhead in its page-one story today (subscription) says, “If the former governor wins and refuses to fund rail transit, money and jobs may disappear.” Killing rail would have huge consequences for Honolulu and Oahu residents; ask trade union members who are counting on thousands of construction jobs, and ask west-end residents who look forward to taking the train and avoiding congestion that steals away their time each day they commute to and from town.

With stakes this high, you should expect candidates to know truth from fiction, logic from spin. Mr. Cayetano’s statements suggest he’s content to use the same spin tactic that Cliff Slater has perfected over several years.

Here’s Mr. Cayetano’s campaign website’s statement on traffic and rail: “…according to the City’s own EIS (rail) will not reduce current traffic congestion. In other words, traffic congestion in the future will be worse than today – even with rail.” It's the same message he had for the talk show host two days before his announcement.

There it is – Cliff Slater’s misleading, dumbed-down, cleverly-constructed anti-rail spin, and now it's been elevated to even greater prominence by candidate Cayetano.

We’ve banged away at Mr. Slater’s tactic for 18 months now, and others also have found flaws in the Gang’s anti-rail rhetoric. Of the seven statements in their August op-ed piece, only two were judged to be TRUE in Civil Beat’s Fact Check. Two were FALSE and three HALF FALSE .

Coming Clean

Civil Beat says it’s now conducting a Fact Check on Mr. Cyetano’s anti-rail statements made last week when he officially announced his candidacy. We hope Civil Beat and other media don’t stop there. They also could examine the Slater/Cayetano “rail won’t reduce traffic” message, too, since it already is being used to attack the project.

It goes without saying that it would be helpful at the outset of this mayoral race if candidates would start playing straight with the public on the rail issue. By suggesting rail would be a failure if congestion is worse decades from now than it is today, Mr. Cayetano is not leading a sensible discussion on rail; he’s following Cliff Slater’s decades-long spin.

What’s missing in Mr. Cayetano’s campaign are the details about how he intends to address Oahu’s congestion problem and give commuters relief. So far he’s mentioned trolleys and buses without giving any specifics. Without the details, we don’t know what Mr. Cayetano is for – just what he’s against.

This post has been added to our "aggregation" site under the Mr. Cliff Slater (and Friends) heading.

Living with Elevated Rail Will Be Stretch for Some, But Grade Separation Is How To Avoid Traffic; Plus: Columnist Watch, LTE Forum End the Week

2012-01-21T09:03:00.010-10:00

The view from Punchbowl's National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific overlook.

We continue our pro-rail postings today by repeating the most important 32 words in yesterday’s post:

“Ben Cayetano officially entered the mayoral race (Thursday) with a press conference that shed absolutely no light on what he’d build to get the job done at least as well as rail.”

The media haven’t reported any new information about Mr. Cayetano’s traffic-avoidance scheme since then, so today is Day Two in the wait for details on his plans.

That much of yesterday’s Yes2Rail post merits repetition, because without knowing exactly what Mr. Cayetano has in mind to address Oahu’s increasingly intolerable traffic congestion issues, citizens are in danger of buying the proverbial pig in a poke.

Reporters didn’t press him for his plan at Thursday's press conference, and he wasn’t offering. We’re not even sure there is a plan – maybe just his yearning for something that’s better looking and allegedly less expensive than the Honolulu elevated rail project.

This Much We Get

We understand when Mr. Cayetano describes his concerns about elevated rail’s impacts on view planes – some places greater than others, some places less. Up close, the elevated guideway certainly will be visible, including a short stretch next to Honolulu Harbor and Hawaiian Electric Company’s attractive power plant.

But compared to the H-1 viaduct above Nimitz Highway near the airport or above Waialae Avenue in Kahala, it will be slim. (Civil Beat has a Fact Check underway on Mr. Cayetano’s description of elevated rail’s impact near the harbor.)

For the “lesser extent” view, drive mauka on Ward Avenue up to Prospect Street at the foot of Punchbowl – or better yet, drive into the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Punchbowl. Park your car near the memorial and walk up to the overlook.

The view’s great, and down there around the 30-foot elevation level beyond Kapiolani Boulevard and most of the high-rise buildings you see is where the elevated guideway will run. From a distance (and a lot closer than Punchbowl), elevated rail will be impossible to see nestled within a forest of high-rises. Another two dozen or more are planned for Kakaako alone in the next few years.

The project’s environmental impact statement acknowledges the visual impacts of elevated rail; all identifiable impacts are detailed in the EIS, and so are the proposed mitigations. The issue therefore becomes whether the city’s plan to build the elevated guideway as its response to the massive traffic congestion that makes commuting hell for a large segment of our growing population is worth the impacts it will cause.

Ineffectively Cheap?

One of Mr. Cayetano’s predecessors used the “Quiet but Effective” slogan to successfully win the governorship. Honolulu’s latest mayoral candidate apparently believes “effective” can be paired with “cheap.”

We’re still guessing about what Mr. Cayetano has in mind in place of the elevated rail project, but “cheaper” is one of his key considerations. Virtually all options to confront the congestion issue were evaluated years ago in the Alternatives Analysis, and elevated rail was the option selected as the most effective in doing what any project must do – give commuters an alternative to sitting in traffic. Mr. Cayetano and the rest of the Gang of Four who’ve filed a lawsuit to kill rail say the study of those alternatives was inadequate, and we’ll learn later this year what the court says.

In the meantime, it’s appropriate for citizens and reporters to inquire about the details of Mr. Cayetano’s allegedly cheaper alternative. So far he’s mentioned trolleys and buses in passing but has provided nothing more. With cost reduction one of his goals, we need to know what a allegedly cheaper system or systems would deliver in actual benefits.

All major projects impose impacts, so Mr. Cayetano’s scheme would impose them, too, and some aren’t so obvious. As noted here yesterday, at-grade trolley lines would require trenching for their entire length that would certainly encounter cultural artifacts that elevated rail mostly will avoid. And unless Mr. Cayetano intends to simply replace vehicle lanes with trolley tracks (robbing Peter to pay Paul), streets along the route would have to be widened to accommodate the tracks, with businesses and homes “taken” by the project.

Then there’s the safety record of at-grade transit. It can’t be ignored, as Mr. Cayetano’s campaign is doing so far in the race. Honolulu’s reportorial watchdogs might well study up on the incidence of accidents involving at-grade transit vehicles and pedestrians, cyclists and vehicles. The candidate has expressed interest in San Diego’s trolley system, so three days ago Yes2Rail highlighted several fatalities linked to that system in the past two years.

We’ll keep track of the number of days that go by before Mr. Cayetano discloses exactly what he has in mind to make commuting a much less stressful daily chore for scores of thousands of Oahu residents.

Editorial, LTE Forum

Today’s Star-Advertiser editorial (subcription) calls for all candidates for mayor to broaden their campaigns to encompass more than the rail issue. It concludes: “Regardless of an individual candidate’s position on rail, each needs to articulare a vision on how transportation can be developed to serve the needs of Oahu residents, one that meshes well with a concept of urban growth, density and land use.” Funny – that’s pretty much what the rail project’s goals do already, which may be why the newspaper has supported rail for years.

Today's letter to the editor is yet another reaction to Wendell Cox’s appearance in Honolulu last week on behalf of the anti-rail effort:

Transit consultant was not impartial (Star-Advertiser, 1/21)

“Cox is no impartial transportation expert, but someone who earns his income fighting rail projects and public mass transit across the country. He promotes building more highways and double-decking and widening existing freeways. Cox has been paid by the highway lobby to support his research, which is uniformly critical of passenger rail….”

Yes2Rail had much the same to say a week ago about this “hired gun.”

And since none of the Star-Advertiser’s three prominent columnists had anything good to say about the Honolulu rail project this week, our prediction is holding true in Week 3 that the trend will continue throughout 2012.

He Says He’s Not a One-Issue Mayoral Candidate, But He Wouldn’t Be in the Race if It Weren’t for Rail; Citizens Need To Know if Trolley/Bus Idea Would Be as Fast, Frequent, Reliable, Safe as Rail

2012-01-20T08:44:00.010-10:00

That should be the minimum price for admission into this race, shouldn’t it? If a candidate decides to run for mayor primarily because of one issue and one issue alone (forget disclaimers to the contrary), he or she should be prepared to immediately discuss that issue every which way and why doing it differently is a better way – or so it seems to us.

Maybe that’s our naiveté coming through, because someone writing a political blog (which this isn’t) or who’s a political science professor at the university might see it differently. Their advice might be, “Don’t discuss the details, because the devil is in the details! Stay clear of details; they can only trip you up.”

But this is a one-issue blog – Honolulu rail – and we’re sticking to our naïve notion that if a candidate wants to kill the rail project, which has been planned and vetted for at least six years at the local and national level with a clear set of goals and designs down to the last girder and bolt, the candidate owes the electorate something more than saying it costs too much and is ugly.

Ben Cayetano officially entered the mayoral race yesterday with a press conference that shed absolutely no light on what he’d build to get the job done at least as well as rail.

We weren’t there, so we don’t know how far or even if reporters pressed him for details on his “concept of an express bus or trolley system using dedicated freeway lanes,” which is how the Star-Advertiser reporter described it (subscription required).

And that’s as far as the coverage of Mr. Cayetano’s transportation plan goes. You can search through all the available reports on websites belonging to the TV stations, Civil Beat, Pacific Business News and even HawaiiReporter, and the only reference to the candidate’s trolley/bus plan is what you’ve already read above. How can that possibly be?

Silence of the Lambs

We suspect reporters simply didn’t ask about the candidate’s plans to address the near-gridlock traffic congestion problem on Honolulu’s east-west thoroughfares. If you were living here during the heyday of Bob Sevey’s Channel 9 Newsroom, can you imagine our former colleagues – Bob Jones, Bart Fredo and Bambi Weil among them – leaving the press conference without demanding details of why the candidate’s trolley and bus "plan" would be better than the current rail project?

When the candidate said, as described in the Star-Advertiser, “he would release details next week of his plans for the city’s sewage and secondary treatment plant upgrades, road repairs and other city projects,” they would have said, “And when will you release similar details about your trolley and bus scheme?”

Local journalism isn’t what it used to be, so we’re still in the dark about the one issue that will be front-and-center throughout the next several months – giving commuters relief from intolerable traffic congestion.

Questions that Need Asking

If he wants to replace rail with its detailed set of goals, Mr. Cayetano must tell the electorate what his goals are. He favors an alternative that he says will be much less expensive than building elevated rail, so a cheaper system would seem to be a primary goal.

The only other goal we can discern is his desire to preserve view planes, which he says will be destroyed by rail’s elevated guideway. In the absence of any details, his two goals seem to be a cheaper system built at ground level.

How do those goals compare to an elevated system’s goals and attributes? Would an at-grade trolley/bus system that shares freeway lanes serve the community properly? The freeway is nowhere near the business, education, shopping and community centers that will be served along Honolulu rail’s route.

Would the system have on- and off-ramps every mile or so, or would it simply be a super-Zipper lane connecting the ends of the system, leaving commuters along the route with no way to access it?

If one or more trolley lines were built, continuous trenching would be required several feet deep throughout the route, thereby endangering the cultural artifacts and remains much more than the elevated system to which Mr. Cayetano objects.

Buses and trolleys require humans at the controls, which means greater distances between trolleys and therefore less frequent service. Rail’s trains will arrive every 3 minutes during peak periods. How would his trolley's frequency compare to rail's? If not as good, his system would be less attractive to potential riders.

As we have said repeatedly here at Yes2Rail, at-grade systems have much worse safety records than grade-separated transit because of their interaction with other surface traffic, including pedestrians. Search it out for yourself on the Internet and at our "aggregation" site beneath the Elevated vs At-Grade heading, or simply go to our post earlier this week on the San Diego trolley’s alarming fatalities. Mr. Cayetano has expressed a preference for such a system.

So far, we know next to nothing about Mr. Cayetano’s transit plan, and we’re likely to read what he thinks about sewers, water fees and potholes before he chooses to provide those devilish details. If the elephant-in-the-living room description ever applied to anything, Mr. Cayetano’s missing transit plan is the perfect fit.

Details Missing in Candidate’s Pre-Announcement Interview: ‘Something' that’s ‘Less Expensive’ ??

2012-01-19T12:11:00.012-10:00

Former governor Ben Cayetano scheduled a late-morning press conference today to announce his candidacy for mayor. The print and broadcast media will have extensive coverage later this afternoon, and we’ll add that coverage to our post.

Mr. Cayetano previewed his announcement on the KHVH morning talk show. He discussed why he’s running (mostly because of city finances and the incumbent’s performance as mayor), but he said nothing about what kind of transit system he prefers, if any, in place of elevated rail.

As we noted yesterday, this isn’t a political blog, and we don’t take sides, but we do discuss the candidates’ views on transportation issues and specifically the Honolulu rail project, this blog’s focus.

Here are a couple excerpts from his interview; the transportation-related quotes are accurate and have been cleaned up with pauses removed. We’ll drop in commentary as appropriate:

“,,,it kinda boggles my mind that the city would propose a 5.3 billion dollar rail project that the city itself in its EIS admits will not reduce traffic congestion below current levels. In other words, in the future, with or without rail, traffic congestion will be worse.”

Close observers of Honolulu rail will recognize this as anti-railer-in-chief Cliff Slater’s key message that he’s been using in interviews and speeches for years. It’s objectionable for several reasons.

One, it’s deceptive – because it misleads audiences into believing rail isn’t worth building if it can’t reduce (eliminate?) congestion below current levels. That’s not what rail transit does anywhere in the world where it’s built; in Honolulu as elsewhere, rail will be a travel option that will restore mobility to our community (see the project’s goals).

Two, it’s doesn’t give the audience much credit for smarts. Do Messrs. Cayetano and Slater really believe their audiences will buy their line that a single component of the transportation infrastructure will reduce traffic below today's levels in 2030, 2040, 2050 and beyond? Have they forgotten that an additional 200,000 people will be living on Oahu by 2030? Do they not think the tens of thousands of new vehicles here in 2030 will add to traffic congestion?

Three, while they’re comfortable in repeatedly floating this rather specious argument, they’re much less willing to tell the public what they prefer instead of rail. Here’s as close as Mr. Cayetano got to it in his radio interview:

“…if I were elected, (I would) appeal to the Federal Transit Administration that we’re going to go into some other mode of transportation, something that’s less expensive and can do the job.”

What, exactly, is Mr. Cayetano’s “something” that would do the same (or better) job than grade-separated rail? Whatever he has in mind but hasn’t yet shared, it has to have the key attributes of the Honolulu rail project – fast, frequent, reliable and safe. That’s a good description of the project that’s been planned and thoroughly evaluated here and in Washington for the past six years.

As yesterday’s post and many others here at Yes2Rail (see dozens of posts under the Mr. Cliff Slater (and Friends) heading at our “aggregation” site), at-grade transit can’t approach elevated rail’s safety record. Mr. Cayetano’s off-hand remark to Pacific Business News about the San Diego trolley system may have a backlash attached to it. Too many pedestrians and others have died because that system is built at ground level.

Maybe the media managed to extract some specifics from Mr. Cayetano this morning. We can’t wait to find out.

Questions for the Newest Mayoral Candidate: Would His Preferred Trolley System Achieve Results Needed To Address Our Road Congestion Issues? Are Views More Important than Safety?

2012-01-18T12:35:00.016-10:00

Another San Diego trolley crash -- a scene repeated all too often.

Oh, for Pete’s sake! The new entrant in the mayoral race wants to build a trolley!

That’s the inference from Ben Cayetano’s interview yesterday with Pacific Business News, which posted this: “Cayetano admitted a public transit system may be needed but said there are cheaper alternatives to the rail system from Kapolei to Ala Moana Center. He pointed to San Diego’s use of a trolley system with that city’s bus lines.”

Before proceeding to examine Mr. Cayetano’s trolley preference, we need to make something clear: This is not a political blog, and we don’t take sides in political races. All we do is talk transit, particularly the rationale for building Honolulu rail as planned – elevated and therefore completely removed from and unaffected by surface congestion.

But when a candidate expresses a preference for something other than what the project has become after years of alternatives analysis, we publicize that preference and comment on its deficiencies.

Ben Cayetano’s trolley wouldn’t work in meeting Oahu’s commuting crisis for all the reasons we’ve repeatedly discussed here over the past three and one-half years. It especially wouldn’t work because it would be built at ground level.

Does He Have Answers?

Mr. Cayetano’s preference for anything other than the current plan appears to be based on his overriding concern about Honolulu rail’s elevated configuration. He thinks it would ruin Honolulu: “You ruin the beauty of the city and the character of the city when you design a system that has no respect for the culture of Hawaii.”

Why he thinks a rail system 30 feet in the air disrespects Hawaii’s culture more than a forest of 350-foot-tall skyscrapers isn’t made clear in PBN’s story. More importantly, clarity about his transit intentions is missing, too, so here are a few questions reporters could ask Mr. Cayetano at his official announcement tomorrow:

* Do you believe an at-grade trolley system is capable of delivering what the city says elevated rail will give commuters – fast, frequent, reliable and safe travel through the city?

• Have you studied trolley systems, which must share space with surface traffic and people? What comparisons have you made between at-grade and elevated rail operational characteristics?

• What in your opinion are a trolley system’s attributes that would make it superior to elevated rail?

• Cities with at-grade rail systems typically experience numerous accidents each year, some of them fatal to pedestrians and vehicle occupants. Is it your view that concerns about view planes outweigh safety considerations? Put differently, is it more important to preserve views, most of which already are blocked by tall buildings, than to provide Oahu citizens with a way to travel safely and reliably through the city?

You can see where the discussion would run if Honolulu’s current crop of reporters had enough gumption to ask the tough questions. Somehow, we think it’s only a hope that’s not going to be realized. But at a minimum, reporters should be expected to brush up on the rail project’s goals before attending Mr. Cayetano’s press conference. Knowing what the goals are would inform their questions to the only candidate for mayor vowing to kill rail.

Our “aggregation” site has a section devoted to Elevated vs At-Grade, and you’re invited to read about the issues posted there, particularly the safety issue. Honolulu’s demographics tilt toward the elder end of the age scale, so safety is supremely important.

Safety in San Diego

That’s what we’re closing today’s post with – the San Diego trolley’s recent safety record as gathered by a simple Google search for “San Diego trolley accident.” We’re posting some of the headlines we found and have linked from them to the incidents' details:

• Downtown San Diego Trolley Accident Kills Pedestrian – 7/15/09
• Little girl dies in trolley accident – 7/27/09
• Bicyclist killed in trolley crash – 11/24/09
• No deaths in downtown trolley accident in San Diego – 2/4/10
• Cyclist injured in crash with trolley – 9/1/10
• Caltrans worker killed in San Diego Trolley Accident – 5/5/11
• Man Killed by trolley in La Mesa – 7/4/11
• Man killed at El Cajon trolley stop identified – 9/29/11
• Dangerous San Diego Trolley (YouTube) – 11/11/11
• Woman chasing dog struck by trolley – 12/8/11

Unfortunately, the headlines go on and on – not only in San Diego but in Houston, Phoenix, Denver, Salt Lake City, East Coast, West Coast and everywhere cities opted to build the “cheaper” alternative Mr. Cayetano prefers.

Most definitely, the former governor needs to be asked about safety.

This post has been added to our "aggregation" site under the Elevated vs At-Grade heading.

Anti-Railers Just Won’t Take ’Yes’ for an Answer; When Critics Start Believing Own Press Releases, They Fool Themselves about the Majority’s Views

2012-01-17T11:32:00.007-10:00

If the top line above looks familiar, you must have read yesterday’s post. The theme continues today because it fits current events so well.

Friday’s and yesterday’s Yes2Rail posts reviewed the major indicators of what the public thinks about the Honolulu project – landslide majorities for pro-rail politicians since 2008 and similar support to authorize creation of the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation.

Rail opponent Jay Fidell of Think Tech Hawaii attempted to give aid and comfort to the anti-rail minority with his column in yesterday’s Star-Advertiser (subscription) under the headline The tide may be rising on rail. The headline’s speculation isn’t supported by anything he wrote other than former Governor Ben Cayetano’s itchiness to reenter politics after nearly a decade away.

Mr. Cayetano says he’s considering running for mayor on an anti-rail plank. It’s not a platform yet as he’s had little else to say about what he wants to accomplish other than kill rail, which he’s attempting to do as a plaintiff in the Gang of Four’s federal lawsuit.

Where’s the Evidence?

Mr. Fidell’s column asks: “Do you feel it? People who were on the fence are turning against rail. The silent majority waiting in the wings seems to be more engaged now and many of them are moving to anti-rail….”

No, we don't feel it. Mr. Fidell's feeling likely reflects what he's hearing in the closed loop he's in as he talks to people with similar persuasions on the issues. (We also don't feel a rising tide of enthusiasm for the industrial-scale wind farms on the neighbor islands that Mr. Fidell backs so strongly.)

Like the visiting Wall Street Journal columnist who last week was moved around in an anti-rail bubble pumped up by the usual suspects, Mr. Fidell seems to be living in his own bubble and blind to the pro-rail majorities at the polls.

Nevertheless, we’re indebted to him for giving us a heads-up on the four mainland speakers who’ll be brought here late in February to continue the anti-rail public relations campaign. At first glance, Adrian Moore, John Charles, Randal O’Toole and Wendell Cox (again) all seem to promote a Libertarian, anti-government-spending philosophy.

We’re looking forward to their suggestions on how Oahu should address our transportation issues – from their mainland perspective, of course. Maybe it's time to create a new heading at our “aggregation” site with links to what the four speakers have said about rail over the years – and more importantly, what others have said about them. The top-down, minority-supported anti-rail campaign is about to get more intense.

No ‘Margin for Error' in Isle-Wide Elections; Rail Supporters Have Won Every Time Since 2008

2012-01-16T15:51:00.005-10:00

Today’s letter to the editor in our LTE Forum is instructive for performing the neat trick of seeing something that isn’t there while being blind to what is. Here’s today’s letter in the morning paper (subscription):

City council should OK new vote on rail (Star-Advertiser, 1/16)

“Various factions crafted an unnecessarily ambiguous ballot on the issue of the rail project. That vote passed by only the slimmest of majorities, well with a percentage that would be called a margin for error in any opinion poll….

“More reasonable plans have been shoved aside…. Construction financing and, more importantly, operation financing is shaky.

“Our mayor and transportation director argue against a growing cry for reason by chanting ‘…but you voted for it, so let’s let it done.’

“Our City Council, except for a few voices, now is denying an opportunity for a new vote.”

Advocating yet another vote on Honolulu rail could become the last redoubt of the anti-rail minority, especially if the federal lawsuit to stop rail fails. That explains today’s letter and presumably many more asking for more votes that we’ll see this year.

Except for the anti-rail faction that is keeping the vote issue alive, there’s no reason to believe one is needed. The Federal Transit Administration continues to closely monitor the Honolulu project. In late December, it authorized the city to proceed with Final Design, a major step, and recommended strengthening of the financial plan, which the city is prepared to do.

The Gang of Four’s public relations plan to support the federal lawsuit continues to dredge up the same old issues without offering a viable alternative to rail. There’s no indication their efforts have swayed public opinion on the project.

Since the writer himself brought up opinion polls, you’d think he’d be impressed and convinced about the public’s support for rail in three scientific polls conducted in 2008, 2009 and 2011. Support in those surveys averaged about 58 percent (see our “aggregation” site under the Public Opinion heading).

Unambiguous Mandates

But forget the sampling of a few hundred citizens in the electorate. Look instead at the actual island-wide votes. Pro-rail issues and candidates have won each and every election since 2008, starting with Mayor Mufi Hannemann’s landslide victory in the general election that year. Of the 298,795 valid votes cast, Mr. Hannemann received 57.9 percent of the total, thoroughly trouncing an opponent who was critical of the rail plan.

That same year the steel-on-steel amendment was passed with 52.6 percent of the valid votes. The letter writer tries to diminish the results of that election by alluding to a “margin for error,” but that’s just smoke and mirrors. There is no margin for error in an island-wide election, and there was nothing “ambiguous” about that vote. If you favored transit, you voted for steel-on-steel rail. Rail opponents lost.

In 2010, the two prominent pro-rail candidates for mayor collected 73.4 percent of all votes cast – a clear mandate in favor of the project, since a third candidate who had vowed to “stop rail in its tracks” won only 18.5 percent.

Also overwhelmingly supported by the public in 2010 was a charter amendment to create the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation. Here’s the wording:

“Shall the revised City Charter be amended to create a semi-autonomous pubic transit authority responsible for the planning, construction, operation, maintenance, and expansion of the City’s fixed guideway transit system?”

Nearly 69 percent of the 246,736 valid votes cast said “yes!”

Honolulu citizens have repeatedly supported rail-related issues and candidates on the ballot. It's just that rail opponents won’t take “yes” for an answer.

This post has been added to our "aggregation" site under two headings -- Public Opinion and LTE Forum.

Anti-Railers Import ‘Hired Gun’ To Attack Project; Long Anti-Transit History Undermines Credibility

2012-01-14T09:16:00.015-10:00

The anti-rail minority’s game plan for 2012 already is in play, and this week’s Smart-Business Hawaii Conference was part of it. Here’s how they're executing the plan:

Bring in so-called “experts” from the mainland to blast rail, generate media coverage (like the 6-column story in today’s paper) and create doubt about the Honolulu rail project’s viability.

Wendell Cox, the second of two mainland imports this week, told the conference Thursday Honolulu rail’s cost estimate is too low and its ridership projection is too high. The Star-Advertiser story (subscription) has the city’s response, which noted the FTA has exerted “stringent oversight” and continues to show confidence in Honolulu’s project.

Thankfully, the Internet age provides context about Mr. Cox that’s too often missing in the daily media, including today’s story. His multi-decade anti-rail campaign is well documented. Here’s LightRailNow!’s 2001 assessment:

“One of the most notorious ‘hired guns’ for the roadway industry and anti-transit, anti-rail zealots is the nationally known, self-styled ‘consultant,’ Wendell Cox. Cox has established a reputation for himself both as a roadway industry publicist and, particularly, as a ‘professional expert’ opposing light rail transit (LRT) projects…. Cox and his ilk are nothing more than highly biased crusaders for roadways and road-based transportation industrial interests…who distort facts through misrepresentation and cleverly selective manipulation of data to mislead their audience….

“In the case of some of these anti-rail zealots, researchers have bird-dogged the money trail. Wendell Cox, for example, has been on the bankroll of the American Highway Users Alliance, a lobbying group founded in the 1930s by General Motors Corp. And, according to a June 1999 Texas Observer article, the Wendell Cox Consultancy has done a lot of work for private bus companies who bid on the very contracts which Cox promotes after rail projects are scuttled.”

And so on. There's tons more on Mr. Cox on the Internet; search engines will produce his background and decades-long opposition to rail transit, the leading transportation alternative to increasingly congested highway travel.

Other Imports

We’re just two weeks into the year and already anti-railers have rounded up entertainer Bette Midler, columnist John Fund and now “hired gun” Wendell Cox to slam Honolulu rail. Expect more of the same.

Remember, too, that all the issues visitors from the mainland are fond of advancing have been thoroughly vetted for years in the Alternatives Analysis and the Draft and Final Environmental Impact statements. They bring nothing to the table but their fears (in Ms. Midler's case) and years of campaigning against mass transit and big government programs.

How’s This for a Hoot? WSJ Columnist Weighs In On Rail, Says Public Apathy Keeps It Alive; Plus, Our Prediction about S-A Columnists Is Still Good

2012-01-13T12:48:00.007-10:00

Wall Street Journal columnist John Fund with HawaiiReporter.com's Malia Zimmerman.

HawaiiReporter.com proves the point again: If you spend all your time inside a closed information loop – e.g., listening only to the likes of Slater, Prevedouros and other opponents of Honolulu rail – you’re likely to miss what’s really going on outside.

Rail opponents were on prominent display at this week’s small business conference, sponsored by one of the plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit that wants to kill the project. One of the speakers was John Fund, Wall Street Journal columnist and Fox News contributor..

Here are some of his quotes from an interview by HR's editor (YouTube has the entire encounter):

“…The Honolulu rail system…is a train from nowhere to nowhere….I don’t see commuters taking it, I really don’t. I do see a lot of construction for the next eight years, which would tie up traffic even more. I do see government has finally admitted that this will actually, traffic will be worse and more congested after the rail system is built than before, so what are you getting….? I don’t see the average Hawaiian benefiting from this.”

Mr. Fund existed inside the closed ant-rail loop spun by Cliff Slater, Panos Prevedouros, Malia Zimmerman and other rail opponents during his short stop in our city, which explains why he repeated Cliff Slater’s major misleading talking point and why reality didn’t penetrate his consciousness about what Honolulu citizens think about rail.

Let’s review the facts for Mr. Fund – not that he’s still around to care:
• Of the 296,869 votes cast on the steel-on-steel Charter amendment in 2008 (excluding blank and over votes), 52.6 percent favored the amendment, 47.4 percent opposed the question. I.E., 15,233 more Oahu voters supported an obvious pro-rail question than opposed it.
• A scientific public opinion poll conducted in 2008 for the Business Roundtable found 59-percent support for rail.
• A QMark poll in 2009 said 60 percent of the respondents either strongly or somewhat supported the project.
• Pro-rail mayoral candidates Peter Carlisle and Kirk Caldwell in the 2010 special election to fill a mayoral vacancy received 38.8 and 34.6 percent respectively of all votes cast. Anti-rail candidate Prevedouros received 18.5 percent.
• in 2010’s general election, 68.6 percent of the 246,736 valid votes cast on the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation amendment approved its creation; only 31.4 percent were opposed.
• A 2011 scientific opinion poll by QMark found 57 percent pro-rail sentiment and 40 percent opposed. (See our “aggregation” site for links to these public opinion surveys beneath the Public Opinion heading.)

According to HR’s editor, Mr. Fund believes “the only reason the (rail) project is still alive is ‘public apathy’ – too few citizens are participating in the process." To that we’d offer this rejoinder: The vote is the most basic, important and powerful way for citizens to participate in the public process. Oahu voters were and are part of the process.

Finally, here's a reasonable response to Mr. Fund: Sir, Hawaii citizens have grown weary of outside experts who fly in and tell us what’s good for us. We have repeatedly demonstrated our strong support for rail as a critical addition to our transportation infrastructure. It’s unfortunate you were encapsulated in a closed information loop during your cup of coffee here. Had you managed to escape it, you would know what we want – and we want rail!

Columnist Prediction – Week 2

Based on their writing in last week’s paper by three Star-Advertiser columnists, we boldly predicted not one of them would have anything good to say about Honolulu rail in 2012. By that we mean they’ll not allude in any way to rail’s achievable goals that would benefit commuters here – improved mobility (i.e., traffic avoidance), improved travel reliability, support for smart growth and travel equity.

We’re going to keep track of their writing throughout 2012. We’re one week into that prediction, and so far, it’s still accurate. David Shapiro didn’t mention rail on Wednesday; Cynthia Oi is on vacation this week and Richard Borreca avoided the subject today. (Mr. Borreca writes about three columns a week, and we’ll keep an eye on all of them, not just those published on Friday.)

As we noted last week, newspaper columnists love to fire away at big government projects, but in 52 weeks of opining, you’d think they’ll eventually say something that just might hint at a neutral comment about rail, let alone a positive one. It's a reasonable expectation for a troika that paid to comment on the major issues of the day.

Portland Asks What’s Boosting Transit Ridership, Wonders whether It’s a Desire To Text and Talk; Plus, LTE Forum Refutes Gang of Four’s Latest

2012-01-12T09:09:00.004-10:00

A recent study found "curbside" bus patrons are technologically adept. Graph shows their stated intent to use a mobile device while traveling.

Yes2Rail’s LTE Forum (below) focuses on a letter to the editor that refutes the most recent Gang of Four commentary. But first, we report on the latest from a city that receives a lot of praise for its public transportation system.

TriMet, the agency that provides public transit in the Portland, OR metropolitan area, reported earlier this month on significant ridership increases in December compared to the same month in 2010. The TriMex website notes the agency’s mission and says:

“Our transportation options connect people with their community, while easing traffic congestion and reducing air pollution – making our region a better place to live.”

Note the use of “easing.” We have to wonder whether someone opposed to TriMet’s mission has ever tried to misinterpret that mission by saying Portland transit is supposed to reduce or eliminate congestion, not ease it. That’s what Cliff Slater continuously attempts to do with Honolulu rail – repeating his big fib ever chance he gets, and we’ve posted several of those chances at our “aggregation” site. Civil Beat found no merit in his accusation that the city misled the public on this point.

Mobile Freedom

TriMet is speculating on why transit ridership was up so much in December compared to a year earlier, and one possible reason is the freedom to talk and text on their mobile devices. Says TriMet spokeswoman Mary Fetsch:

“(Transit) is a safe environment where you can be texting or be on the phone or reading a book without the stress of being behind the wheel. People just may be enjoying taking transit more these days.”

Joseph Rose, writing for OregonLive.com, links to a study by DePaul University that found the ability to text and talk while riding so-called “curbside” buses is a perk “that could revolutionize public transit ridership.” Curbside systems provide inter-city bus service in competition with traditional fleet companies like Greyhound that operate out of bus stations.

Honolulu doesn’t have this kind of transportation option, of course, but our commuters are just like those in the Midwest and East who have fallen in love with their mobile communications devices. There’s every reason to believe future patrons of Honolulu raill will be as enthusiastic as their mainland cousins about hands-free travel while on the ‘net.

The study noted, “…almost 90 percent of passengers today use a portable digital communications device at some point during their trip.” And “today” is literally present-day; think of the array of new communications options we’ll have by 2019, when Honolulu rail goes into service.

LTE Forum

Honolulu rail’s deputy chief project officer has a letter in today’s Star-Advertiser (subscription) that goes beyond disagreeing with the Gang of Four’s Sunday commentary, the focus of our post yesterday. His letter doesn’t merely dispute the Gang’s op-ed piece; it refutes it, as in “proves to be false or erroneous.”

The evidence continues to pile up that the Gang's anti-rail media campaign has been producing misleading statements, accusations and innuendo starting with the August 21st commentary, “How the city misled the public.” That’s not surprising if our presumption is correct that Cliff Slater writes most if not all of the Gang’s material. Bending facts or simply ignoring them is one of his favored tactics, as today’s letter makes clear:

Rail’s financial plan was OK’d by FTA (Star-Advertiser, 1/12)

“Once again, the plaintiffs in the lawsuit to kill the rail project have misled the public…. In fact, the Federal Transit Administration approved the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation’s latest financial plan and cleared the project for its final stages of development.

“The FTA would not have moved this project forward if the plan were not acceptable. HART is now working with the FTA to strengthen its financial plan in preparation for the full funding grant agreement.

“This is typical of the process with federally funded transit projects.

“These four plaintiffs falsely stated that the project has not received any federal funds. The project has received $120 million in federal funds and is slated to receive its share of $510 million in fiscal year 2012, as reported in the Star-Advertiser.

“U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood stated Honolulu’s project has been done ‘by the book,’ and that if we continue to work together, he has no doubt the project will move forward.

“We couldn’t agree more.”

This post has been added to our "aggregation" site under the LTE Forum heading.

Reader Responds to ‘Partisan Anti-Government Wing’ of Rail Opponents Who Fight Transit Option

2012-01-11T09:46:00.008-10:00

It’s axiomatic that those who oppose projects and initiatives are usually more visible and vocal than the supporters. Protestors attract media coverage, and NIMBY-ism produces video that plays well on television.

The Comments section below rail stories in the Star-Advertiser supports this axiom. It attracts rail opponents like ants to a picnic or, judging from many of their anonymous comments, flies to a sewer.

Well-constructed, articulate letters supportive of Honolulu rail stand apart from anti-rail op-ed pieces and letters for both their civility and depth. A good contrast can be seen between a letter in today’s paper (see LTE Forum, below) and the Gang of Four’s (aka Cliff Slater’s) op-ed piece last Sunday (subscription required for both).

Here’s a summary of the Gang’s main points on 1/8:
• The piece disagrees with the newspaper’s coverage of the FTA’s December 30th authorization for the city to enter into Final Design. It says Congress hasn’t appropriated any of the $1.55 billion in federal funds for the Honolulu project. Call it quibbling. (Jan. 12th Update: Rail official refutes Gang's allegation.)
• The commentary says the FTA has “firmly rejected” several project financial plans. Call it not true; here’s what the FTA wrote: “Regarding the Financial Capacity Assessment, FTA notes that the financial plan HART submitted is sufficient to advance the project into final design (emphasis added). However, it must be further strengthened before FTA will consider awarding (a Full Final Grant Agreement).”
• The piece “doubts” HART can justify its several assumptions about future financial considerations. Call it standard anti-rail skepticism.
• The Gang cites other city financial obligations beyond rail and says paying for rail might exceed the city’s capabilities. Call it wishful thinking.
• Finally, the commentary once again scrambles facts in suggesting the city duped residents by promising rail would reduce traffic congestion below current levels. Call it dishonest – and we have in numerous posts. See our “aggregation” site below the Mr. Cliff Slater (and Friends) heading.

LTE Forum

It’s easy to see why the Gang’s commentary motivated the Kailua resident to write his letter to the editor that leads the pack in today’s paper. It’s a model pro-rail statement that presumably could be echoed by the majority of Oahu residents with the same opinion:

Oahu rail system is long overdue (Star-Advertiser, 1/11)

“Since the 1970s, Honolulu has needed, and tried to get, a rail transit system. The move into final design makes it appear as though we are finally on our way despite dealing with the same kind of irrationally emotional opposition we've always had to put up with. It's been coming from the same blindly partisan anti-government wing, from has-been politicians using the issue to make personal attacks and from incredibly ill-advised environmentalists, among others.

“The opposition has failed to offer any serious alternative transportation solutions and instead continues to push reliance on the expensive petroleum-addicted automobile for everyone. The opposition also doesn't seem to care at all that the project will help put people back to work.

“Still, thankfully, it does appear that the third time will be the charm for Honolulu rail transit, and future generations that the selfish opponents don't care about will have transportation options.”

The letter is a straight-forward, thoughtful assessment of the rail project and one reason it’s being built – as an alternative to continued reliance on cars and what fuels them and the congestion they cause. The writer sums up the opposition neatly from his perspective; he uses common sense and doesn’t quibble about the present or past, doesn’t misstate the truth and doesn’t obfuscate the issues.

And since the writer lives in Kailua on the opposite side of the mountain from the rail system, his pro-rail letter reflects an attitude that what benefits others along the route benefits everyone on the island. It’s called “community” – an appreciation missing in most anti-rail commentaries, along with their answer to the question, “If not rail, what?”

The letters column has two other rail-related letters – both reacting to Bette Midler's anti-rail letter printed on Sunday. One asks, "Does Bette Midler think that the high-rise monstrosities that line our coastline, and are now the view, are better than a 20-foot-high rail?" Our sentiments exactly.

LTE Forum: Bank Responds to ‘Payoff’ Allegation

2012-01-10T11:26:00.008-10:00

The old advice on dealing with newspapers is probably still valid: “Don’t get into a ----ing contest with someone who buys ink by the barrel.” Still, when a newspaper or someone who writes for one throws a blow that’s obviously low, counter-punching might do some good.

First Hawaiian Bank produced a one-two-three flurry on today’s Star-Advertiser letters page in response to David “Volcanic Ash” Shapiro’s “payoff” column last week (subscription required to access all S-A content). We called attention to his piece for its hint-hint, wink-wink, connect-the-dots innuendo that HART Chair Carrie Okinaga’s new position at the bank was a “payoff” – his word.

Our Friday post predicted that neither Mr. Shapiro nor his S-A columnist colleagues will write “a single paragraph of positive content about the Honolulu rail project in 2012.” We’ll see tomorrow whether our prediction still has legs and whether Mr. Shapiro has had time to find something concrete to back up his “payoff” allegation. Here’s the bank’s executive VP’s response:

Shapiro column contained errors (Star-Advertiser, 1/10)

“…Shapiro’ states that First Hawaiian Bank is a major landowner along the rail route. Only one of First Hawaiian Bank’s 35 Oahu branch properties – our Waipahu Branch, built in 1970 on leasehold property – is directly adjacent to the proposed rail route….

“Shapiro said that First Hawaiian Bank’s parent company BNP Paribas has business ties to Ansaldo…. That’s true. It also has a relationship with the two companies who lost the bid….

“Finally, Shapiro insinuated that Carrie Okinaga, who was recently hired as an attorney at the bank, got the job because of her position as chairwoman of the HART project. In fact, Okinaga was hired by the bank’s new president and CEO…for her exceptional skills, broad range of experience and strong educational background.”

The damage already has been done, of course, and Mr. Shapiro’s “payoff” column will be hanging out there in cyberspace forever more prominently than the bank’s response.

This post has been added to our “aggregation” site beneath the LTE Forum heading.

News Flash: Rail Opponent Is Human, Capable of Seeing What He Wants To See; Plus LTE Forum

2012-01-09T10:30:00.009-10:00

Can we all just agree on something? Can we agree that all anti-rail material published in the newspaper that’s allegedly written by the Gang of Four – Cliff Slater, Ben Cayetano, Randall Roth and Walter Heen – is actually the work of Mr. Slater?

Let’s take that further. Let’s agree that all commentaries, letters and analyses on rail signed by any one of the Gang is also Mr. Slater’s work. Why should we expect the other three to have written them? They have evidenced miniscule interest in transit issues compared to Mr. Slater, so what we see repeatedly is from Mr. Slater, with the other three “caboosed” onto the pieces for their name-recognition PR value.

Good. Now that that’s agreed, let’s move on to a key plank in Mr. Slater’s anti-rail campaign – that the city has lied to the public about rail’s effect on future congestion. He did it again yesterday in a Gang of Four commentary (subscription) that revealed once again Mr. Slater's tendency to see what he wants to see in the city’s statements about rail and why it should be built.

The Human Filter

Seeing and hearing what one wants to see and hear is a trait all humans probably exhibit to some degree. We filter out information that doesn’t fit our concept of reality. Mr. Slater’s reality is that the city never told the truth about the inevitability that traffic congestion will continue to increase along with the population even after rail is built. Here’s how his Sunday commentary put it:

“Elevated heavy rail was initially promoted by the city as a solution to traffic congestion. Since then, the city has quietly admitted that traffic congestion would get worse than it is today even if rail is built.”

Over and over and over again, Mr. Slater has repeated this myth about the city only reluctantly talking about future congestion. His HonoluluTraffic.com website has an extensive archive with links to other sites that Mr. Slater says support his thesis, but the quirky thing about those sites is that they do not support his claim. His personal filter lets him see only what he wants to see, what he wants to hear.

Here’s one example from an undated post at HonoluluTraffic that presumably was written in 2007. It links to a KITV video report on a “Traffic Sucks” city hall rally in 2005 that Mr. Slater’s website says “typifies the grossly misleading statements emanating from our elected officials.”

Watch the video and see if you can find anything misleading in Mayor Mufi Hannemann’s sound bite: ”I want the Governor to know very clearly. This is our last chance. Traffic sucks! We need to spend time with our families! Quality of life is important! Put your signs up, gang. Let me see it! Let me see it! Transit now! Transit now! Transit now!” Pacific Business News’s report on the rally paraphrased the Mayor in saying “the city needs a rail system to alleviate increasing traffic congestion” (emphasis added).

Ease, Not Eliminate

Elsewhere at the 2007 post, Mr. Slater calls out the Mayor’s quotes from a Honolulu Advertiser story: “He said the system will help all parts of the island, easing traffic overall because ‘there will be less cars on the road.’” Mr. Slater’s filter lets him conclude the Mayor was promising to reduce traffic congestion below current levels; that’s the implication in nearly all of his public presentations on rail (see numerous posts at our “aggregation” site below the Mr. Cliff Slater (and Friends) heading).

But that isn’t what the Mayor said. He promised exactly what rail will deliver – “easing” of traffic congestion because there will be “less cars on the road.” Those statements are irrefutable, but in Mr. Slater’s world, they support his allegation that the city has misled the public on the congestion issue. That’s what his filter tells him.

The same 2007 post has a link (no longer good) to the project’s Alternative Analysis report, which is dated November 1, 2006 – still early in the rail process. On page S-3, the AA states clearly: “Traffic congestion on key corridor facilities is expected to continue to exist under all alternatives, particularly during peak travel periods.”

The city didn’t hide its assessment of what traffic will be like in the future, with and without rail. It’s been forthcoming in “obscure” documents like the AA as well as in the spotlight in public meetings before the City Council, on the radio and on TV.

Expect Mr. Slater to continue his deliberately misleading campaign against rail. It’s what his filter demands.

LTE Forum

Kaneohe resident Tom Coffman’s letter today (subscription) – ‘Final design’ won’t assure rail funding – is a repeat of other anti-rail commentaries recently, including the Gang's Sunday piece, and isn’t worth quoting. The only other rail-related letter is worth quoting in full:

Modern cities need good transit systems (Star-Advertiser, 1/9)

“Please notice that the old men and past leaders who want to stop rail always seem to meet mid-morning or mid-afternoon at some convenient place and avoid the thousands of residents who spend hours in gridlock, commuting in bumper-to-bumper traffic every single day of the week. They seem to have no idea what a crisis traffic is. It is time for the old men like Ben and his crew from the past to sit down and let modern leaders move ahead. Honolulu needs to become a real city like Singapore or Sydney or Boston with real transportation systems. Yes, we need rail from the west side and guess what — then we will need lines to Hawaii Kai and Central Oahu and then finally windward. The old people, like them (and me), need to get out of the way and let progress happen.”

The Honolulu resident’s assessment seems pretty much on the mark to us. Attempting to kill rail, as the Gang of Four is trying to do with the federal lawsuit, would be an anti-progress step backward from achieving the modern transportation network Honolulu requires for the rest of the 21st century.

This post has been added to our "aggregation" site below two headings – Mr. Cliff Slater (and Friends) and LTE Forum.

LTE Forum: Someone Should Tell Bette Midler the Facts about Rail: It Won’t Be Built on the Beach!

2012-01-08T09:08:00.013-10:00

Today’s letters to the editor page in the morning paper (subscription) includes a missive from one of Hawaii’s most famous daughters, star of stage and screen Bette Midler, who was born in Honolulu (here's her yearbook photo).

Ms. Midler objects to Honolulu’s plan to build an elevated rail system to connect downtown Honolulu with the growing bedroom communities in the west and several communities in between. The letter shares Ms. Midler’s fear that the project will “sacrifice the most important amenity (Hawaii) has to offer the world, the beauty of its environment….”

With the expectation that her publicist will eventually find this Yes2Rail online post, today’s LTE Forum offers some perspective that may be helpful to her appreciation of what Honolulu rail will be, and what it won’t. First, some of her letter:

Rail would be blight on Hawaii’s beauty (Star-Advertiser, 1/8)

“…I have lived in New York City for many years, and can testify to the noise and ugliness these elevated trains bring to every community through which they pass. This project is 40 years too old. In the last 40 years, there have been many advances in public transportation and many new ideas about how to integrate need with environment… Why does it have to be 20 feet in the air? There were trains in Hawaii in years past, and there were electric buses, too...”

As we noted a few days ago, the beach is the attraction for visitors to Hawaii, along with our perpetual summer. We would hope Ms. Midler might come to appreciate that rail’s route will be nowhere near the beach! The vast majority of visitors to Honolulu book hotel rooms in Waikiki, and most their transportation while here is walking to and from that world-famous stretch of sand.

Should they venture by bus or rental car beyond Waikiki, they’ll find a beautiful island with mountains, valleys, gardens, world-class surfing on the North Shore and seascapes, but they’ll also experience a 21st century city with world-class traffic congestion – so much worse than what Ms. Midler remembers during her high school years (Radford HS, class of ’63) that any word picture fails to adequately describe it.

Not the ‘El’

Tourists to Hawaii escape hometowns with big-city problems, too, and although some may expect to find grass shacks and an idyllic paradise, most are savvy enough to know that Honolulu is just a better version of where they live, with temperatures in the 80s every day of the year, sunshine and showers, rainbows and palm trees – and traffic.

Also dissimilar to the 1950s is the 21st century train technology Honolulu will be building. Objections to elevated rail transit often are grounded in memories of yesteryear and the obviously inferior technologies of the era. New York City’s first elevated line went into service in 1870! The Chicago El also began operations in the 19th century.

We’d be as appalled as Ms. Midler if Honolulu were building a rail system with the look, feel and noise of the elevated line outside Jake's and Elwood's Chicago apartment in The Blues Brothers film (at right). That’s not happening here.

Elevated rail will give commuters an alternative to some of the worst traffic in the country. It will be largely built through an urban environment that may soon include two dozen more high-rise buildings 300 to 600 feet tall.

We hope Ms. Midler and her people will take a bit of time to better understand Honolulu rail and that those skyscrapers will be what tourists see from Waikiki Beach – not a rail system hidden in their shadows.

This post has been added to our "aggregation" site under the heading LTE Forum.

A Not-Very-Courageous Prediction for 2012: Newspaper Columnists Will Continue To Blast Rail

2012-01-06T11:38:00.012-10:00

The season for making predictions for the New Year ended about a week ago, but we’re offering up one anyway because it's such a sure thing:

The Star-Advertiser troika of weekly columnists will write not a single paragraph of positive content about the Honolulu rail project in 2012.

Had we made this prediction a week ago, it would still be holding true through this week’s Wednesday-Thursday-Friday cycle of columns by Wednesday’s Dave Shapiro, Thursday’s Cynthia Oi and Friday’s Richard Borreca (left to right, below).

Frankly, there isn’t much courage in this prediction, since all three columnists have made their anti-rail views known repeatedly over the years – either with a cudgel over the head or their more subtle choice of words to describe Honolulu’s elevated transit project.

Take this week’s columns (subscription required). On Wednesday, David “Volcanic Ash” Shapiro used a connect-the-dots approach to imply there may be something unsavory about Carrie Okinaga’s acceptance of a new job with First Hawaiian Bank.

Ms. Okinaga is chairwoman of the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation (HART), along with fellow board member Don Horner, who until last week was the bank’s CEO. Mr. Shapiro’s well-practiced cynicism leads him to conclude “…it seems at every turn (of the rail project) that payoffs are going to the connected few.”

“Payoff” is a loaded word that implies unethical behavior. If that was Mr. Shapiro’s intent, he undoubtedly succeeded in his ongoing campaign to erode public confidence in the rail project by painting it in the darkest colors possible.

On Thursday, Cynthia “Under the Sun” Oi added more hype to Ben Cayetano’s potential candidacy in this year’s mayoral race. The former governor wants to kill rail so bad he’s lent his name to the federal lawsuit conceived by anti-railer-in-chief Cliff Slater to block the project.

As the leading anti-rail candidate should he actually run, Mr. Cayetano would provide Ms. Oi with an abundance of material to work with in a continuation of her long-standing opposition to elevated, traffic-avoiding transit.

On Friday, Richard “On Politics” Borreca continued the discussion on Mr. Cayetano’s candicacy, saying it would be a game changer. As a columnist for several decades, Mr. Borreca knows how to turn a phrase with the best of them, but he also lets his personal views on the project slip through, intentionally or not. His column today calls rail a “huge, landscape-scarring, irreversible concrete monolith of heavy rail.”

Doing Their Job

Journalists often describe their business as comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable. As for the latter, there’s no bigger target to view with alarm than the biggest construction project in state history.

The three columnists have a total of more than 100 years working in Honolulu journalism. Ms. Oi started at the Star-Bulletin in 1976; Mr. Shapiro’s “Volcanic Ash” website says he’s spent four decades in local journalism, and Mr. Borreca was already the Bulletin’s City Hall reporter when we took over that beat for the Advertiser in 1974.

That kind of longevity is explained by a combination of talent – they’re all excellent writers – and their selection of content over the years. Afflicting local government, elected and appointed officials and their projects is what they do and have done for decades. It’s their calling, and they’ve made it work for them.

Make no mistake about it, if public confidence has been shaken about rail, the Star-Advertiser’s weekly columnists have had a significant role in doing the shaking. They wouldn’t want it any other way. It’s their job, and their editors obviously are fine with it, too.

But the bigger picture is more telling. The Honolulu Star-Advertiser has consistently supported Honolulu rail in its editorials, just like the two independent papers that existed before they were joined in 2010. That support has been unshakable throughout all the twists and turns of this major infrastructure project.

We know what the troika doesn’t like, so maybe it’s time to ask them the same question rail’s leading non-journalist opponents like to avoid: “What kind of mass transit DO you support?”

The columnists won’t be any more eager to answer that one than Mr. Slater and his Gang of Four. If they tried, they’d be sunk as soon as “at-grade transit” passed their lips – for all the reasons we’ve thoroughly covered here at Yes2Rail.

The columnists might just learn something new about Honolulu's future train by visiting our “aggregation” site and the dozen posts below the Elevated vs At-Grade heading. Today's post has been added at that site under the Project Goals, and more heading.

What Matters Most to Visitors, Beaches or Transit?

2012-01-05T07:48:00.002-10:00

Sand restoration project will add 37 feet to Waikiki Beach.
See photo below this post for same view as it now exists.

Hawaii sometimes makes news on the mainland even when the President isn’t vacationing here. Two stories that survived the cut this week caught our eye – the Waikiki Beach restoration project and a New York Times piece on Honolulu rail.

The latter included the seemingly mandatory quote from anti-railer Cliff Slater, who has secured himself a sizeable niche in cyberspace for all eternity with his decades-long opposition to mass transit projects. Need some negativity in your story? No problem; call Cliff.

Mr. Slater predictably had nothing good to say about rail in the Times story. This time he played the "what will tourists think?" card, but he mixed his message by alluding to the tremendous changes Honolulu is experiencing – a tough commute by car among them:

“(The project) starts to remind everyone that we are not all grass huts anymore. There’s this illusion as to what Hawaii is all about, and New York-style trains don’t cut it.”

Mr. Slater clearly shows more concern over what mainland visitors will think about Honolulu’s rail system (paradise lost?) than in providing new transportation infrastructure to meet local residents’ current and future needs. As the Times story says, “…the few highways here have routinely been as crammed with traffic as those in Los Angeles, a problem that seems likely to get worse.”

Catering to New Yorkers

A little common sense is needed when evaluating Mr. Slater’s alleged concern for how visitors will react to Honolulu rail. It’s part of his repertoire, of course, but it’s also not believable to think they’ll have any reaction whatsoever to Honolulu’s elevated rail line.

New Yorkers who routinely ride the city’s subway trains could give a fig about Honolulu’s future transit system, which will connect jobs in town with suburbs in west Oahu. They come for what Hawaii offers their world-weary souls – sun, sea, surf and the beach. (Photo shows yesterday’s blessing of the restoration project, which will widen Waikiki Beach 37 feet at places; see video link.)

While visitors lie on the beach in today's late-afternoon January sun, taxpaying Oahu residents of west Oahu will be commuting home and fighting their way through some of the nation’s worst traffic congestion.

Widening Waikiki Beach to accommodate more New Yorkers, Iowans and even Floridians is much more relevant to Hawaii’s visitor industry than Honolulu’s future rail system. And if visitors want to “leave the driving to us” to visit Aloha Stadium, the Arizona Memorial or other stops along the 20-mile route, Honolulu rail will be there for them, too.

Yes2Rail is enjoying a big spike in readership this week thanks to the Times story. Here’s hoping some of those readers are so taken by the pretty pictures of Waikiki Beach that they'll be lying on it soon.

The going can get a little wet at high tide these days.

Rail Project's Goals Motivate Intervener Requests; FACE Says Transit Line Supports Regional Equity

2012-01-04T10:48:00.010-10:00

We’ve called attention to the Honolulu rail project’s goals over the past year to correct their mischaracterization by rail opponents in their ongoing confusion campaign. Yesterday’s request by two local organizations to intervene in the anti-rail lawsuit provides another opportunity to accentuate the goals (see our "aggregation" site), since they have everything to do with the request.

As reported today in Civil Beat (free for occasional visitors), two organizations and an individual – Faith Action for Community Equity (FACE), Pacific Resource Partnership (PRP) and Kapolei resident Melvin Uesato – have filed requests with the court to intervene on the side of the lawsuit’s defendants.

FACE is all about equity; the concept is in its name, and Transportation Equity is one of FACE’s key ongoing issues. It’s also one of the rail project’s goals. From Chapter 1 of the Final Environmental Impact Statement:

“Equity is about the fair distribution of resources so that no group carries an unfair burden of the negative environmental, social, or economic impacts or receives an unfair share of benefits…. Improvements to transit availability and reliability would serve all transportation system users, including minority and moderate- and low-income populations.”

In an email to Yes2Rail, FACE state director Drew Astolfi noted rail’s future contribution to making life on Oahu more equitable for all:

“Oahu is slowly becoming a two-tier society, where leeward and ewa people live differently and worse than downtown, windward and East Honolulu people do because of the time they lose in traffic. In some cases it is 10 hours a week. Rail helps fix this by shortening the time of their commute. Rail is the biggest investment in infrastructure that we are likely to see in our lifetime, so it gives the city a chance to plan for affordable housing on the rail route.”

Although FACE seeks to intervene on the city’s side of the lawsuit, the organization doesn’t automatically “rubber stamp” the city’s transportation projects. FACE’s Transportation Equity page notes the group’s ongoing concerns about ensuring that bus service will not be degraded by the rail project, but it also describes FACE’s support for rail:

“The rail means the development of affordable housing along the transit stops, job growth and creation, and focused development along the urban corridor – leaving the country country.”

While job creation is important to FACE and PRP, both groups also believe intervening in the lawsuit supports the project’s long-term goal to contribute to the rational development of the ewa plain to meet the island's critical housing needs.

PRP executive director John White said PRP’s motion to intervene was filed “to ensure our members’ voices are heard. Rail transit is the clear catalyst that will get our members back to work and lays the groundwork for a 21st century Honolulu that is truly sustainable… Honolulu will only reach its fullest potential when we ensure that housing becomes affordable again, that people have alternatives to costly automobiles, and that saving our environment becomes a top priority. Rail is the only project on the horizon that moves us closer to that goal.”

The rail project’s four goals are described in detail in the FEIS, Chapter 1, paragraph 1.8 and 1.9.

Hidden Message Alert: Paying Close Attention to Anti-Railisms Can Reveal Opponents’ Motivation

2012-01-03T10:54:00.008-10:00

Honolulu rail has the ball in the 4th quarter, driving for yet another big score.

The New Year isn’t even 72 hours old, and already we’re seeing the same anti-rail arguments being recycled by leaders of the opposition.

Cliff Slater’s HonoluluTraffic.com website is topped this morning by a link to the Gang of Four’s August 21st commentary in the Star-Advertiser, which was found by Civil Beat to be shot full of factual errors.

As we noted that same day in Yes2Rail’s response, “Absolutely Nothing Is New” in that post. In relying on it to begin his 2012 anti-rail campaign, Mr. Slater is tipping us off that we can expect more of the same recycled rhetoric in the months ahead, which will be rail’s “pivotal year.”

At the always-supportive HawaiiReporter.com site, Mr. Slater yesterday continued to play defense in light of the Federal Transit Administration’s decision last week to approve the city’s entry into the Final Design phase of the rail project. It’s an unquestionably positive development, one that tests the opponents’ creativity in spinning it into a negative.

It’s About Taxes

There’s a phrase within the HR.com piece that might well reveal the anti-railer-in-chief’s true motivation in fighting so long and so consistently against mass transit projects: “You can email, tweet and/or post on your Facebook page your objections to more taxes for rail.”

Look for the thread that runs through Mr. Slater’s many years of public commentary and you’ll likely find it boiling down to “no more taxes.” Most of us have a built-in aversion to taxation; we like to keep what we’ve earned, but most of us also accept the notion that taxation pays for essential services.

As a proponent of high-occupancy toll roads, Mr. Slater presumably has no problem with taxation to support construction of highways that would cover more of Oahu’s scarce open space with concrete.

Rail and Congestion

Also active early in the New Year is University of Hawaii engineering professor Panos Prevedouros, who twice has run for mayor on an anti-rail platform and twice has been trounced at the polls. Dr. Prevedouros announced last week he will not make a third run in 2012.

Here’s the revealing phrase in his interview with a morning talk show host today (paraphrased): “Rail systems are not solutions to congestion. The corridor needs congestion solutions, not rail attributes.”

Clearly, Dr. Prevedouros believes transportation projects can only be justified by the amount of congestion that allegedly is reduced by their construction. He’s a highway expert, not a transportation expert, so improved mobility through the corridor – one of rail’s major transportation goals – doesn’t register with him.

The ironic and fatally flawed link in his reasoning chain is that building more highway lanes on Oahu would not reduce congestion because of a phenomenon called “induced traffic,” which has been observed repeatedly around the country. Build more lanes and they fill up, bringing on more of the same congestion they were meant to reduce. That’s just the way it is.

Keeping Score

As the football bowl season winds down, it’s easy to reach (stretch?) for a football analogy in our own commentary on rail at the start of 2012. The project has for years successfully followed a game plan guided by “rules” outlined in federal law and regulations. Game officials (the FTA) know the rulebook better than anyone, and the only flags they've tossed so far are for minor issues – the five-yard variety – and not for any of the major fifteen-yarders.

At the end of the third quarter, the score is Rail Project 42, Opponents 7. There’s more time on the clock, and theoretically anything could happen, but realistically, Honolulu rail has possession and is driving toward the Full Funding Grant Agreement that the feds are expected to award later this year.

The Gang of Four rail opponents will get their hands on the ball sometime during the game’s final quarter, and you can expect more Hail Mary passes like the August 21st commentary. But the city is going to win this game for the basic reason that it knows the rules, has played by them and in building Honolulu rail is being cheered on by the “home crowd” – the majority of Oahu residents who know rail will be a mobility-enhancing critical piece of infrastructure that will serve them, their children and grandchildren for decades to come.

LTE Forum: Writer Plays the ‘What If?’ Card

2012-01-02T11:09:00.004-10:00

Doomsday on December 21st looms 354 days away, according to the Mayan calendar. It’s therefore pointless to worry about anything beyond this year’s winter solstice, but some people won’t have it any other way.

Today’s contribution to the LTE Forum is a letter to the editor from a windward side resident who sees nothing but doom if this or that happens inside the Honolulu rail project.

Bankruptcy in city’s future? (Star-Advertiser, 1/2/12)

“Recently Jefferson County, Ala., declared bankruptcy, the largest municipal bankruptcy ever filed…. I can see Honolulu heading in this same direction with construction of a rail project that has very shaky funding and already many irregularities in the awarding of contracts. What happens if Congress does not provide us with the full $1.8 billion in federal funds?... What happens if (Ansaldo) defaults on its contract?...”

There’s many a slip between cup and lip, but playing “what if?” about imagined calamities can result in perpetual paralysis if that’s your game. Some rail opponents are locked into that paradigm and want everyone else to worry, too.

Fact: On December 29th, the Federal Transit Administration gave Honolulu rail permission to enter into Final Design. Fact: No contract irregularities have been found by any overseeing entity. Fact: Rail opponents will keep what-iffing about these and other imagined problems.

As a friend emailed this morning, “I woke up this morning hoping the New Year would start off differently, but so far, it’s just been the same old one-two, one-two.” (Think about it.)

The more things change, the more they remain the same, so we can expect more of the same extreme skepticism about Honolulu rail from the anti-rail minority in our community throughout TweTwe. (Think about that one, too.)

This post has been added to our "aggregation" site under the LTE Forum heading.

One-Stop Site for Major Honolulu Rail Issues

2012-01-02T09:50:00.014-10:00

JANUARY 2, 2012 UPDATE: This post has become a "library" of Yes2Rail posts that we think are particularly significant for visitors's appreciation of the issues and personalities associated the Honolulu rail project. Since 7/26/11, the day we created this post as a one-stop shop for visitors, it has grown from just a few links to dozens under some headings -- e.g., Mr. Cliff Slater (and Friends). Rather than continue adding new posts to the 2011 lists, we've begun grouping new posts under "2012" beneath each of the headings as appropriate. In addition, we duplicated the entire July 26th post in a new post on January 2, 2012 to bring it into the New Year, which will be "pivotal" for Honolulu rail.

What if there were a single post here at Yes2Rail that had links to numerous previous posts on a variety of topics? Instead of having to search through posts going back three years every time we wanted to link to what’s already been written, we could just link to this one post, an aggregation of many others.

That was the thinking that led to today’s Yes2Rail entry, so here they are – arranged by topics with earlier posts that we think help make the case for building the Honolulu rail project exactly as it’s been planned. (NOTE: To locate materials in both the Star-Bulletin and the Advertiser prior to their June 2010 "merger" that marked the end of the Tiser, go to the Star-Advertiser's website and click on Back Issues.)

Project’s Goals, and more – We began 2011 by reviewing the project’s four principal goals and continued that emphasis in the new year:
2012:
• Here We Go – Charging into Rail's 'Pivotal Year' (Former Governor Cayetano "considers" running for mayor)
• A Not-Very-Courageous Prediction for 2012: Newspaper Columnists Will Continue to Blast Rail
2011 and earlier:
• Rail’s Goals Remain the Same in the New Year
• Rail’s All-Important Goal – Improved Reliability
• Rail Goal #3 – Support for Second City’s Growth
• Transportation Equity Rounds Out Rail’s 4 Goals
• Institute's Transit-Accessibility Study Shows Why Rail Will Be Successful Here
• High-speed rail video works Honolulu rail: 'Mad Men' on Trains
• Open Letter to Outdoor Circle Members: Some of you Oppose Rail, but Have you Weighed Impacts vs Benefits? Unless Your Life Is Impacted Daily by Congestion, You Can't Appreciate Traffic's Costs

Public Opinion – Three scientific opinion polls have been conducted by local respected firms QMark and OmniTrak in the past three years to probe the public’s views on rail:
2012:
• No 'Margin for Error' in Isle-Wide Elections; Rail Supporters Have Won Every Time Since 2008
2011 and earlier:
• 2011 Opinion Survey Finds 57% Support Rail Project
• Every Council District Registered Majority Support
• Rail’s Ability to Address Growing Traffic Problem
• 57-to-40 Rail Split Isn’t Exactly ‘Razor-Thin’ Edge
• Rail’s Majority Grows When Economy Is the Issue
• Oahu Traffic Emerges as Public Enemy Number 1
• 2009 Poll: Behind the Numbers – Solid Support
• Poll Parsing: Big Majority Sees Economic Benefit
• Graphics Give Insightful Look at Opinions on Rail
• Story Criticizes Opinion Poll w/out Giving Results
• 2008: A Second Poll Shows Strong Support for Rail
• Support for Rail Soared in 3 Best-Practices Polls, so Remember It when the Media Roll Out Theirs

Elevated vs At-Grade – It keeps coming up, the view that at-grade rail would be a better option than Honolulu’s planned elevated system. We’ve taken pains to address the comparison numerous times:
2012:
• Questions for the Newest Mayor Candidate: Would His Preferred Trolley System Achieve REsults Needed To Address Our Road Congestion Issues? Are Views More Important than Safety?
2011 and earlier:
• What Every Consumer Asks When Making a Purchase: ‘Will It Do What I Need It To Do?’
• Jogging & Keeping Pace with an At-Grade Train
• Among At-Grade’s Negatives: Vehicle Lane Loss
• Among At-Grade’s Negatives, Part 2: Accidents
• When Safety Is Crucial, Think Elevated Rail
• Train Meets Van in Another At-Grade Rail Collision
• Phoenix Citizens Want to Know ‘What’s the Problem with All These Crashes?’
• Architects Are Trying To Squeeze Through the Eye of a Needle with a Claim At-Grade Rail Is as Safe as Elevated
• At-Grade’s Drawbacks Can’t Be Airbrushed Away
• Human Factor Causes another At-Grade Crash; Bus Runs Light, Smashes into Houston Train; 12 Sent to Hospitals, Rail Service Halted for Hours
• Car-Train Crash in Long Beach Illustrates Major Drawback to 'Cheaper' At-Grade Rail Transit
• Yet To Open, Norfolk's Train Has First Car Crash
• Houston Truck-Train Wreck Prompts Question #2: 'Governor, Why Do You Favor Crash-Prone Rail?'

Generation Next – Oahu’s young adults speak up for rail:
• Next Generation Tells Council ‘We Will Ride It’
• More Pro-Rail Testimony by the Next Generation
• Another Poll Post: The Next Generation Speaks
• Poster Contest Shows Gen-Next Appreciates Rail
• Hey, Generation Next: HonoluluTraffic.com Says You’re Clueless, Belittles Your Pro-Rail Opinions

Oahu's Traffic Problem – Bad and getting worse:
• H-1 Segment Is #2 among 'Highways from Hell'
• Another Reminder that Honolulu's Traffic Is Bad, But for Many, It's Worse than Institute Study Says

Mr. Cliff Slater (and Friends) – Honolulu's Anti-Railer in Chief:
2012:
• Here We Go – Charging into Rail's 'Pivotal Year' (Former Governor Cayetano "considers" running for mayor)
• News Flash: Rail Opponent Is Human, Capable of Seeing What He Wants To See; Plus LTE Forum
• Does Mayoral Candidate Understand Rail's Goals? So Far, He's Only Channeling Cliff Slater, Who Deliberately Misleads Public on Rail's Purpose -- To Help Commuters Avoid Traffic, NOT END IT!
2011 and earlier:
• 2008: Hot Seat Revisited: Dissecting Slater
• 2010: Cliff Slater’s ‘Ace Card’ Turns Out To Be a Joker
• A Closer Look at Cliff Slater’s ‘Whole Argument’
• True Confessions: Rail Opponent Concedes Transit Project Will Reduce Future Traffic Congestion
• Cliff Slater and His Magical Words about Traffic: Rail Critic continues his Obfuscation Campaign
• Sticking to His Story, No Matter How Misleading
• A Trip to Yesteryear with ‘Always-By-Car’ Slater
• Does Honolulu Want ‘Low-Height’ Underpasses?
• Critic Rolls Out Statistics
• Houston's Highway Traffic Is Nation's 4th Worst
• Rail Critic's Latest Reads Like More of the Same
• Lawsuit Backers Switch Tactics, Blast Honolulu Rail in Media Broadside Aimed at Influencing Public Opinion, but Absolutely Nothing Is New
• Question for Rail Critics: 'Where's the Beef?' Without Thoughtful Options to Traffic, Spare Us
• Fact Check Begins on Gang of 4's Anti-Rail Piece
• Civil Beat Fact Check: Slater Wrong on Stations; Gang of 4's Ridership Claim Is Ripe for a 'False'
• Going Beyond Fact Checks To Ask the Obvious
• Anti-Rail Pitch Men Work the Airwaves, Show Strong Appreciation of How To Mislead Public
• To Coin a Phrase, Garbage In, Garbate Out: Slater's Highly-Touted Poll Result Was Flawed, so Is Roth's Allegation the City Deceived Public
• Final Civil Beat Fact Check is Half True/Half False; More Fiction Found in Rail Opponents' Radio Show
• Critic Says Rail Will Fail if Traffic Won't Be Cut, but His Beloved Tampa Highway Hasn't Done That
• 10 Questions: Rail Critics' TV Gig Could Be Their 'Waterloo' if Host, Public Ask the Right Questions
• Houston Truck-Train Wreck Prompts Question #2: 'Governor, Why Do You Favor Crash-Prone Rail?'
• Question #3 Is about Traffic Levels: 'Mr. Slater, HOT Lanes Don't Reduce Congestion, Do They?'
• If Not Rail, Ex-Governor Owes Us an Explanation; Question #4 Wants To Know Why He Prefers BRT
• Question #5: 'Mr. Slater, You Know the Truth, so Why Did You Ply Your Team with Falsehoods?'
• Inquiring Minds Want Answer to Question #6: "Where's the Evidence Rail Rail Is 'On the Ropes?'"
• Questions Are For Discovering, so Question #7 on Holiday Delves into Decades-Long Rail Dissing
• Pro-Rail INSIGHTS Guest Deserves Question #8: 'Why Do You Support Building Elevated Transit?'
• Would Rotary Venue Bring Out Rail Critic's Best? Not a Chance -- which Leads Us to Question #9
ª Question #10 Is for Anti-Rail Guests on TV Tonight: 'If Not Elevated Transit, WHAT DO YOU WANT?!'
• With a State-Wide Audience and a Chance To Give Their Alternative to Rail, Two Opponents Blinked
• Does Repeating a Lie Over and Over Make It True? What Else Can Anti-Railer's Main Claim Be Called?
• Something Else Rail Critic Wants You To Believe: More Highways Reduce Traffic, but It Isn't True
• Anti-Rail Charter Amendment Fails 1st Reading; Unmistakable Sign of City Council's Rail Support
• Prediction: Anti-Railers' Illogical Messaging on Future Congestion Issue Will Be Their Undoing
• Telling It Like It Is: Cliff Slater's Campaign To Mislead Oahu Residents on Rail is Disgraceful; His 'Big Lie' Doesn't Become 'Truth' with Repetition
• Cliff Slater Won't Stop Using Same 'Non-Truth' in His Anti-Rail Campaign, but Is It Something Else?
• More from Misleader-in-Chief Slater: As Usual, His Latest Post Is Example of More Flash than Bang
• More on 'Honor System,' plus Flip-Flopping Rail Opponent Who Fought BRT Now Thinks It's Swell
• Anti-Rail, Anti-Bus Slater Now Touting Bus Rides; His Letter to FTA Is Classic Case of Obfuscation

Dr. Panos Prevedouros – The University's highway expert:
• Checking References: Prevedouros’s UH Bio Lists Research Background, but Where's Transit? (Yes2Rail’s 3rd post 7/2/08)
• Anti-Railers Help Make Case for Honolulu Rail
• More Prevedouros Analysis: What Can He Mean, Saying Rail Would Not Be of Any Use During Freeway Closures, Tsunamis and Floods?
• Doctor’s Rail Dissing Is Demonstrably Dubious; Transit Scores Favorable Marks in USA Survey
• Highway Expert Offers Another Anti-Rail Critique
• Helping Search Engines Find Dr. Prevedouros
• Rail Critic Keeps Popping Up All over the Place
• Who's Deceiving Whom? Rail Critic's Illogical Conclusions Undermine His Familiar Refrain

LTE Forum – Comments on Letters to the Editor:
2012:
• LTE Forum: Writer Plays the 'What If?' Card
• LTE Forum: Someone Should Tell Bette Midler the Facts about Rail: It Won't Be Built on the Beach!
• News Flash: Rail Opponent Is Human, Capable of Seeing What He Wants To See; Plus LTE Forum
• LTE Forum: Bank Responds to 'Payoff' Allegation
• LTE Forum Refutes Gang of Four's Latest
• No 'Margin for Error' in Isle-Wide Elections; Rail Supporters Have Won Every Time since 2008
2011 and earlier:
• Rail Court Case Will Make News Intermittently, so We Launch a New Feature on Letters to the Editor
• LTE Forum Covers Both Sides of Rail Issue, but Focusing on Opposition Seems More Productive
• Enlarging TheBus Fleet and Making Rides Free Would Do Nothing To 'Solve' Congestion Problem
• Rail Project Eyes Cost-Cutting Alternatives that Would Reduce Station Size, Improve Frequency
• LTE Forum: Will System 'Spoil' or 'Save' Island?
• Letter Reveals a Basic Misunderstanding of Rail; It Will Be Travel Option for EVERYBODY, Not 'a Few'

Please return to this space. We’ll be adding to Yes2Rail's aggregation of topical posts.

Here We Go – Charging into Rail’s ‘Pivotal Year’

2012-01-01T12:30:00.013-10:00

Expected? Automatic? However it got there, the first word in the morning paper’s first major page-one story on the first day of the year was rail. Read it here if you have a subscription – or only the first paragraph if you don’t – under the headline Pivotal year for rail, elections and public school.

A story right next to it at the top of page one says former Governor Ben Cayetano, one of the anti-rail Gang of Four, is “considering” a run for mayor to kill the project. Having given the reporter several quotes for the story, Mr. Cayetano is more than “considering” a run. He's in the race.

So although it wasn’t our intent to begin blogging this soon in the New Year's Day, here we go – with this necessary observation: Yes2Rail is not a “politics” blog; we leave commentary on what’s said by politicians inside City Hall for others to pursue. But when someone outside those walls announces his or her intent to gain the most powerful position in City government for the purpose of killing the Honolulu rail project, different rules apply.

Under the Microscope

Former Governor staked out his anti-rail position several times in 2011. He officially joined the so-called Gang of Four in May when he became a plaintiff in the lawsuit to kill the project. The other three “gang” members are anti-railer-in-chief Cliff Slater, former judge Walter Heen and UH law school professor Randall Roth.

In June, Mr. Cayetano participated in a panel discussion at the Plaza Club at which he expressed a preference for at-grade transit. Close followers of transportation issues on Oahu know by now why at-grade transit would not come close to addressing the island’s major transportation problem – highway congestion.

We won’t belabor on Day One of the year why at-grade transit is inferior to elevated rail, but what’s worth noting is that Mr.Cayetano isn’t creating quotes for close followers of transportation issues. As a mayoral candidate, he’s speaking to everybody else – the majority of residents/voters who don’t follow these issues closely and therefore may not see the gaping holes in his arguments.

Buses? Really?

From today’s Cayetano-focused story:

“(Cayetano) said he favors an enhanced bus system with dedicated lanes to speed bush traffic because buses in a dedicated lane ‘will beat the train all the time.’”

This and other of Mr. Cayetano’s expressions of support for bus travel presumably are not his own thoughts but those of Cliff Slater, the brains of the anti-rail campaign. Mr. Slater’s record of opposing all forms of mass transit (including his assessment of Mayor Harris’s bus rapid transit project) is well documented by now, but he’ll support other modes of public transit if he thinks it will help fight rail.

Mr. Slater is the chief architect of the buses-are-better theme, including in September when he was a guest on public radio’s “Town Square” program:

“…if you look at it, for example, coming in from the Kapolei transit center, trains willnot be quicker than the country C bus than it is right now. You can come in on the country C bus any time from 40 to 50 minutes, depending on the time of day. The train is going to take 51 minutes, so it’s not going to make anybody’s commute any faster.”

Later in the same radio show, “John of Makakilo” had this response:

“I think the public needs to understand that the people who are against rail don’t live out on the west side. They don’t sit in traffic. They’re not the ones commuting day to day. They don’t view this as an investment in our future. They probably don’t remember Black Tuesday when people got stuck for hours when they shut down H-1. Every time there’s an accident on H-1 is when it take you up to an hour and a half or two hours. And when Cliff was talking about the buses taking 51 minutes from Ala Moana to Kapolei, that’s if you’re lucky. If you’re not lucky, it takes you an hour and a half. I know, I’ve done it. I do it on a regular basis. So everything they keep on saying the buses, the buses…you add more buses to the congestion, you just get to sit in more traffic. (paraphrased) Congestion is gonna get worse before it gets better, we all understand that. Opponents don’t take into account $5/gallon gas.”

We can almost hear the tappety-tapping of computers in Makakilo, Kapolei and Ewa Beach as residents type their letters to the editor to refute Mr. Cayetano’s pro-bus comments.

Jobs?

Also from today’s Cayetano-as-candidate story:

“Jobs? Tell that to the 1,000 workers who lost their jobs when two hospitals went bankrupt. If we want to create jobs, (let’s) build new schools, renovate old ones, build public housing, (which will create) jobs we know will go to local constructions workers.”

Those projects presumably have some merit, especially if they result in more housing and improved health care for our citizens, but building public housing and hospitals would do absolutely nothing to help commuters improve their travel through the urban core by avoiding highway congestion.

In highlighting jobs, Mr. Cayetano appears intent on convincing the casual transportation follower that Honolulu rail is a “jobs project.” It’s not. Read the goals; they're the same at the start of this year as last. Jobs will be created in building rail, of course, and that will be an important benefit for our economy, but job creation is not a project goal.

Restoring transportation mobility is a goal. Improving travel reliability through the urban core is a goal. Providing a development rationale for Oahu throughout the 21st century is a goal. Assuring travel equity for people of all ages and financial means is a goal. Creating jobs isn’t.

If Mr.Cayetano is focused on job creation, there are many ways he could make a contribution to the community, but killing Honolulu rail – which will truly create thousands upon thousands of jobs – would be his worst possible option.

This post has been added to our "aggregation" site under two headings -- Project Goals and Mr. Cliff Slater (and Friends).

Year-End Rail Review Has Big Last-Minute News: FTA OKs Entry into Project’s Final Design Phase; Plus, Another Look at Anti-Railers’ Misinformation Efforts on What Rail Will Do and What It Won’t

2011-12-30T12:14:00.009-10:00

Some are saying it’s a late Christmas present, but we think of it as a “pay it forward” moment that will provide benefits to Oahu residents for many Christmases to come.

The Federal Transit Administration gave the city permission yesterday to begin Final Design of the Honolulu rail project. It’s a “significant” step – a word used yesterday by several times elected officials to describe it.

The approval sets the stage for and even bigger event in 2012 – FTA issuance of a Full Funding Grant Agreement as early as September for the anticipated $1.55 billion in federal funds.

As noted by both the Star-Advertiser (subscription) and Civil Beat (free for occasional visitors), the FTA’s letter said the project’s financial plan requires strengthening before the FFGA can be granted. An updated plan could include extension of the 0.5 percent GET surcharge for rail and so-called “value capture” strategies to help provide the local share of the project’s funding. The Mayor's Office distributed a release.

Anti-railer-in-chief Cliff Slater’s website chimed in to “find it a little strange that at this stage the FTA would approve the current financial plan but have so many difficulties with it.” This was to be expected, of course, as Mr. Slater has been fighting this and every other mass transit project the city has attempted over the years, including Mayor Harris’s bus rapid transit project and Mayor Fasi’s elevated rail effort one and two decades ago respectively.

That’s an appropriate segue for our year-end recall of the major 2011 developments for Honolulu rail, since so many of them involved Mr. Slater’s misinformation campaign.

Year In Review

We end 2011 where we began the year – highlighting the Honolulu rail project’s goals just as we did on January 3. It’s necessary to keep returning to this subject because of deliberate efforts by leading rail opponents to confuse the goals and thereby Oahu residents.

We’re linking to numerous earlier Yes2Rail posts to keep the year’s final entry from going on forever, but the goals issue is something that simply must stay front and center.

Cliff Slater has implied all year long that the rail project’s goal is to virtually eliminate traffic congestion on our streets and highways. As we first noted in July 2010 and throughout this year, Mr. Slater’s anti-rail stump speech to his audiences – including the Rotary Club of Honolulu in October – relies on verbal trickery:

Mr. Slater first mentions the cost of building Honolulu rail, then says traffic will be worse in the future with rail than it is today. He immediately asks for questions and/or sits down.

Dramatic Tomfoolery

Mr. Slater’s dramatic flourish is intended to fool his audiences into believing this expensive transportation project would be a failure and not worth building if traffic will be worse 10, 20, 30 or more years into the future than it is today.

Some audiences fall for it and laugh heartily, never questioning Mr. Slater’s specious reasoning. With an ever-increasing population of people and their cars, of course traffic will be worse decades from now than it is today.

Always ignored by Mr. Slater are rail’s true goals – especially the goal of restoring mobility through the urban core between Second City on the ewa plain and downtown Honolulu. He ignores these goals because their logic is unassailable. Rail will be an alternative to wasting hours each week in traffic that can sap both time and vitality out of families’ lives. A letter to the editor today eloquently makes this point in our LTE Forum, below.

Anti-Railers’ PR Campaign

The Slater-led coalition of rail opponents has worked hard all year to portray rail as a project that appeals only to a minority of Oahu residents, yet scientific survey after survey suggests just the opposite. We covered the most recent results in a June post – 57-percent support for rail as found in a QMark survey.

Elsewhere, we noted that three such surveys dating to 2008 have found support averaging around the 57-percent mark. The only polls suggesting overwhelming opposition are those conducted by outlets like HawaiiReporter.com, which uses unscientific click-in methods that can rightly be laughed away. The print and broadcast media also engage in this unscientific polling, which earlier this month we suggested should be prominently labeled “for entertainment purposes only.” For uncovering true public opinion, they’re worthless.

Having filed their lawsuit to block rail, Mr. Slater and his three prominent plantiffs (we dubbed them the Gang of Four) launched a media and public relations campaign in August with their 1500-word commentary in the Star-Advertiser. Civil Beat, which continued to fill the investigative journalism vacuum in this city, launched a Fact Check of seven major assertions in the piece and found most were FALSE . That's not much of a record for a Gang that includes a UH law professor, a former governor and a former judge. It's fair to conclude that the op-ed was written by the Gang's fourth member, Mr. Slater, who as we’ve already noted is not averse to spinning, no matter what the facts may be.

The City Fights Back

The Gang’s campaign included appearances on Hawaii Public Radio’s “Town Square” show in September; several Yes2Rail posts dissected their performance beginning the same day and continuing for several more.

After much haggling, HPR agreed to the city’s request that it be given equal time. Mayor Peter Carlisle and HART interim CEO Toru Hamayasu, along with Makakilo resident and rail supporter Maeda Timson, focused on the facts in a late October program, and as we posted the next day, countered “opponents’ earlier penchant for bombast.”

Our October 28th post discusses a 2008 radio show and has a link to it that might well be bookmarked for future reference whenever Mr. Slater in 2012 accuses the city of never telling the public traffic congestion will continue to increase even if rail is built. Mr. Slater even agrees on the show with fellow guest Wayne Yoshioka, city director of Transportation services, that congestion logically will continue to grow, yet that and his other public statements to this effect haven’t stayed his misleading comments about congestion.

Yes2Rail’s “Aggregation Site”

Many other 2011 highlights have been gathered together at our one-stop-shop July 26th post, an innovation we wish we had started earlier. The headings there include Project Goals, Public Opinion, Elevated vs At-Grade, Oahu’s traffic Problem, Mr. Cliff Slater (and Friends) and others. Serious students of Honolulu rail in search of pro-project compilations of fact and opinion might want to bookmark that post, too.

LTE Forum

We end our 2011 postings (barring major developments on New Years Eve) by mentioning two more rail-related letters in the morning paper. We’ve already dealt with the subject of one of them, the so-called ‘honor system’ of paying fares, in earlier LTE Forum posts (see the heading at the July 26th compilation), but the final one of the year couldn’t have said it better:

Rail will be our traffic savior (Star-Advertiser, 12/30)
“To all those opposed to the rail transit system: You are the very people who will be gridlocked on the freeway and not be able to move.
“You will get out of your automobiles, raise both hands to the heavens and you will profess: ‘Where is the rail?’
“The rail will be a breath of fresh air in the morning, afternoon and evening compared to a very crowded freeway.
“I do not want Honolulu to become a gridlocked city.”

The Honolulu letter-writer said in 79 words what we’ve devoted tens of thousands of words to in 2011. The year to come will demand many more of them that we'll be more than happy to provide. Some of those future automobile drivers will be our grandchildren, and it's for them – more than us – that Honolulu rail is being built.

Happy New Year!!

Letter Reveals a Basic Misunderstanding of Rail; It Will Be Travel Option for EVERYBODY, Not ‘a Few’

2011-12-29T04:48:00.005-10:00

Today’s LTE Forum highlights a phrase in a letter to the editor in today’s newspaper (subscription) that, although short, is exceptionally revealing.

The letter is more about politics than transportation, but it reflects a common misunderstanding about rail’s purpose that has led some residents to oppose the project. Here’s the relevant sentence:

Democrats putting train over hospitals (Star-Advertiser, 12/29)

“…Are we going to let these politicians dictate to us that building a rail to relief traffic congestion for a few residents is more important than saving the hospitals….”

It’s true that the percentage of island residents who will use the elevated rail system to completely avoid traffic in their daily commute will be small. That much is obvious for a rail line with 21 stations along the route between the growing communities on the ewa plain and Ala Moana Center.

But the same can be said of those who use the H-3 freeway and the Pali and Likelike highways to commute between the windward side and town. Similarly, only a small percentage of Oahu residents use Kalanianaole Highway to commute from their homes in Waimanalo and Hawaii Kai to downtown Honolulu.

When a new link is added to the island’s transportation infrastructure, it’s available for everyone's use at one time or another. Some will use it a dozen or more times a week, others much less frequently, but the fact that rail will be a traffic-avoiding option primarily those who live near the route is no reason to oppose its construction.

Often lost in the discussion is another significant point: With tens of thousands of commuters no longer driving to and from work, traffic congestion in the urban core will be reduced by 18 percent, according to the project's Environmental Impact Statement.

That means the person who never once uses the train will experience reduced traffic congestion – as seen in hours of vehicle delay – compared to what congestion would grow to if rail were not built.

Like other Honolulu residents, the letter writer presumably will enjoy that benefit more than drivers elsewhere on the island, and no one will resent him for it.

IRS Complaint Is New Wrinkle in the Rail Lawsuit; LTE Forum: Will System ‘Spoil’ or ‘Save’ Island?

2011-12-27T07:20:00.002-10:00

Civil Beat provides in-depth coverage today of the complaint filed with the IRS alleging improper use of Small Business Hawaii Entrepreneurial Education Foundation funds to support the anti-rail lawsuit.

SBH has been soliciting financial support to pay the fees of attorneys working on the case. Rail supporter Hannah Miyamoto’s complaint argues that in soliciting funds for that purpose, the Foundation has strayed from its mission.

CB asked a former IRS official whether the complaint has merit and learned that the IRS likely won’t get around to dealing with it for several months. CB’s article ends: “In the end, whether the IRS investigates or takes action might be secondary. The complaint could have a chilling effect on donors, who might be concerned that their contributions would not be tax deductible.” Time will tell.

LTE Forum

A letter in today’s Star-Advertiser (subscription) boils down to whether Honolulu’s elevated rail system will “spoil” Oahu or save it – whether the system would be visually ugly or would eliminate the ugliness of traffic congestion for tens of thousands of island residents.

A rail system will ruin island beauty (Star-Advertiser, 12/17)

“I am 94 years old and cannot imagine intelligent people would ant to spoil a small island with a train. I have traveled all over the world and never seen a beautiful train area. Even in the old days the railway was on the edge of the island. We have the best bus system in the world!”

Cities the world over have already decided that introducing transportation alternatives into the urban environment was a necessary change from the way things used to be. The collection of photographs at the metrobits.org website suggests that rail systems can be built with sensitivity and artfulness. Here are a few of those photographs:

Lille, France

Bilbao, Spain

Paris, France

Portland, Oregon

A Dickensonian Christmas Tale with a Difference: Three Ghosts of Traffic Past, Present and Future

2011-12-24T08:45:00.003-10:00

Yes2Rail’s annual Christmas Eve post, dating to 2009 with editorial updates to note the rail project’s progress.

It was the night before Christmas in Kapolei, and all three of the family’s generations were in a happy mood after watching “A Christmas Carol” on TV. Mean old Scrooge turned out to be a great guy after all, and Tiny Tim was just fine.

Everybody was happy but dad, that is. He stormed in as the show’s credits rolled up the screen from another of his last-minute Christmas shopping sprees, and his mood was as grumpy as Scrooge’s had been on the tube two hours earlier.

“Merry Christmas!” the kids shouted. “Mom was just telling us how scary the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future were when she was little.”

“I’ve been stalled on H-1 for the last hour,” dad growled, “and I know something a lot scarier than anything Charles Dickens dreamed up – the Ghost of Traffic Present!”

“Tell us more! Tell us more!” cried the kids as they egged him on. Rush-hour traffic always made dad’s face red and eyes bulge. It’s a pretty good show, and the kids were always up for it.

“Come to think of it,” dad obliged with a twinkle in his eye, “I also have a story with three ghosts -- the ghosts of Traffic Past, Traffic Present and Traffic Future.”

And so began another of dad’s “good old days” stories about driving to town in half the time it takes today. Just like Dickens’ ghost of Christmas Past, dad’s ghost of Traffic Past had fond memories – of free-and-easy driving, open highways, low-cost gasoline and reasonable parking fees.

But then the story took a turn. Traffic congestion grew along with the population, and the city tried to build an elevated transit system so commuters could ride a train and avoid traffic altogether – just like they do in cities around the world.

“We…came…THIS…close!” the kids sang along with dad. They’d heard it before, so all three held their fingers barely apart as dad recalled the City Council vote that killed those plans in 1992. “It would have been running since 2003,” dad sighed.

“But that’s the ghost of Traffic Past,” he grimaced as he warmed to the juiciest part of his tale. “Here’s where my three-ghost story departs from Dickens. His scariest vision was the Ghost of Christmas Future. Mine is the Ghost of Traffic Present!”

And off dad went on his rant – about getting up way too early to beat H-1 congestion, about arriving late for work nearly every time there’s an accident, and on and on.

“The Ghost of Traffic Present toys with us,” he said as the kids giggled in anticipation. “This ghost sometimes gives you a wide-open road when you first hit the freeway, lets you think today will be different, that maybe you’ll breeze through the merge. But nine times out of ten, it’s all wishful thinking and you crawl the rest of the way to town. When there’s a major accident, forget about it! And when you finally get off the freeway, you’re caught in street traffic!”

Mom had escaped to the kitchen by now, and the kids sat crowded around dad’s feet, because their favorite part was coming. The Ghost of Traffic Future would be the one they’ll live with for the rest of their lives.

Dad did a quick circle around the kids to stretch his legs, then settled in again to pick up the story. “The Ghost of Traffic Future is the best ghost of all, because the future is when your generation will triumph over traffic! You won’t even have to worry about it!”

The kids knew all about the plan to bypass traffic in the future. Dad read every newspaper story out loud to the family about the city’s elevated rail project. They all had tracked the project as it moved from the early planning days when the kids were in pre-school, through the City Council votes, into the environmental process, past the Final EIS and Record of Decision. And on Christmas Eve 2011, the only major obstacle was the lawsuit some perennial anti-railers had filed.

“When the city wins that lawsuit, it’ll be clear sailing for the project’s construction!” dad exclaimed as the kids clapped their hands in unison. “Your uncle and cousins will have years of construction work ahead of them, and so will lots of other people with all kinds of different jobs.”

Again in unison and on cue, the kids put on worried faces and cried, “They will win that lawsuit, won’t they, dad…won’t they?” Dad waited until everyone had grabbed hands so they could shout it together: “They’d better!!” Even mom and the grandparents laughingly joined in – as always.

“You see, kids,” dad said in his serious voice, “this entire project could be delayed by the lawsuit, and that would be a bad thing – for you, for your cousins, for the entire community, and especially those who don’t want to sit in traffic. But I’m confident the city did everything by the book."

Granddad chimed in: “Most everybody knows we need this train,” he said. “You kids will use it to get to jobs in town or to school in Manoa. Gas prices will be far higher in years ahead then, and so will parking costs. The train will be so convenient and cost-competitive, it would be terrible for anyone to block this project and toy with your future.” The kids nodded.

“Granddad’s right,” mom called from the hallway. “Once commuters see how easy it is to ride the train and connect with buses or walk from the stations, you kids might even have to fight for a seat!”

And so this balmy Christmas Eve 2011 progressed in Kapolei – not incidentally with the President and his family vacationing on the windward side – as dad ended his tale of the three Ghosts of Traffic and the family’s three generations sat down around the Christmas tree to hear a much older story.

When the kids awoke early to open their presents on Christmas Day, the youngest said she dreamed all night about Santa arriving in Kapolei with a sleigh full of toys. But it was different this year. Santa's sleigh wasn't pulled by reindeer. It was riding high up on an elevated guideway, pulled by a train.

Anti-Rail, Anti-Bus Slater Now Touting Bus Rides; His Letter to FTA Is Classic Case of Obfuscation

2011-12-23T07:48:00.000-10:00

Cliff Slater has posted a pro-bus letter to Region IX of the Federal Transit Administration in which he provides more unintentional humor.

The first laugh point is that he’s writing in favor of bus travel at all. As we noted recently here at Yes2Rail, Mr. Slater was a die-hard opponent of the Bus Rapid Transit plan put forward by the Harris Administration a decade ago.

The second laugher is his extreme parsing of travel times for the Country C route on TheBus. We spent some time on September 1 showing how Mr. Slater mixes apples and oranges in comparing travel and transit times on TheBus and the future train.

People who use TheBus regularly to commute from Kapolei to downtown will be laughing when they read Mr. Slater’s glowing report of bus travel in the Zipper Lane. Callers to the Town Square show on September 15 countered Mr. Slater’s claims of fast bus travel and said their own experience doesn’t compare to his stopwatch travel times.

And lastly, Mr. Slater reveals his inability to imagine transit-oriented travel when he writes in his letter: “Kapolei commuters would have to drive (emphasis added) to the East Kapolei rail station park-and-ride lot on North-South (sic) Road, which would take 12 minutes or more from Kapolei proper, which is six miles away.”

No, Mr. Slater, they wouldn’t have to drive. They could take a bus and leave the driving to the city – first on TheBus and then on a train, which during rush hour would arrive in less than 3 minutes. Rail will be an alternative to driving, and public transportation service will improve, contrary to his letter's claims.

As a visit to our “aggregation site” and the Mr. Cliff Slater (and Friends) section shows repeatedly, Mr. Slater enjoys playing his obfuscation role in the Great Train Debate. It’s an essential piece of his repertoire, and as his FTA letter shows, he’s not about to give it up.

This post has been added to our "aggregation site" under the heading noted immediately above.

Let’s Finally Nix these Ridiculous On-Line Polls or Apply a Disclaimer: ‘Entertainment Purposes Only’

2011-12-22T07:46:00.002-10:00

TV and radio stations do it, Honolulu’s only daily newspaper does it, online blogs do it. How can an allegedly legitimate media outlet consider using “come one, come all” click-on polls?

These opinion “surveys” invite website visitors to register an opinion, and the results are obviously unscientific. That much should be obvious to every editor who authorizes their use.

HawaiiReporter.com floated one of these laughers earlier this week, and the current issue of HonoluluWeekly.com mentions the response to a recent Star-Advertiser “Big Q” point-and-click survey.

These “surveys” lack the minimum requirements of legitimate public opinion polls – scientific sampling of the population and questions that don’t predetermine the outcome.

At a minimum, the media outlets that choose to use these features should publish a disclaimer that makes the intent clear – pure entertainment. Put them in the Comics section or give them up altogether.

Pacific Business News finally ended page one “girlie” photos decades ago. Let’s see if today’s journalists have as much integrity.

Hawaii Reporter Rail ‘Poll’ Among 2011 Lowlights

2011-12-20T13:25:00.002-10:00

Under the headline Public Not Supportive of Honolulu Rail Project, Poll Shows, the Hawaii Reporter website has published the results of its latest failed attempt at legitimate journalism.

There are polls that mean something – they’re usually called “scientific” public opinion surveys – and then there’s Hawaii Reporter’s latest solicitation of views on Honolulu rail.

HR’s poll ranks right down there with the infamous 1936 presidential election survey conducted by The Literary Digest. Says Wikipedia: “The Literary Digest is almost certainly best-remembered today for the circumstances surrounding its demise…. In retrospect, the polling techniques employed by the magazine were to blame. Although it had polled 10 million individuals…, it had surveyed firstly its own readers….”

Wikipedia goes on to note that the Digest’s readers weren’t representative of the voting public. The magazine’s prediction of an Alf Landon victory (FDR won 46 of 48 states) is remembered as a “Titanic” event; it sank the Digest.

Hawaii Reporter’s poll is guilty of the same grievous error. Judging from HR’s anti-rail editorial position that was even evident in the poll's questions, it’s safe to conclude its readers are equally opposed to rail. The website’s readership in no way represents the cross-section of Oahu citizens, so this survey – which shows overwhelming opposition to the rail project – isn't worth the bytes that make up the post.

For scientific results on what the public has said about rail, see the Public Opinion section of our “aggregation site.”

More on ‘Honor System,’ plus Flip-Flopping Rail Opponent Who Fought BRT Now Thinks It’s Swell

2011-12-19T09:29:00.005-10:00

Saturday’s edition of the LTE Forum reacted to two letters to the editor that questioned use of the so-called honor system rather than ticketing barriers on the Honolulu rail system. Transit systems elsewhere have good experience with “honor.”

But a letter in yesterday’s Star-Advertiser did a better job of responding to the skeptics. The Manoa writer had several reasons why “proof of payment” systems make sense for Honolulu:

‘Proof of payment’ is not ‘honor system’ (Star-Advertiser, 12/18, subscription)

“…Since a turnstile system can be hurdled or crawled under, a more costly system would not guarantee payment by all riders. As most Honolulu riders carry a monthly pass now – especially seniors, disabled persons and University of Hawaii students – fare evasion will probably be lower than average. Because 42 percent of all transit riders will use rail for part of the trip, many cash-paying riders will be holding a paper bus transfer, good for their train ride…. Finally, fare checkers will keep homeless people, drunks and criminals off stations and trains.”

As with most issues that provoke knee-jerk reactions by rail critics, the “proof of payment” system will work in Honolulu, just as it does in dozens of other cities with rail transit.

Flip-Flopping on BRT

We make a point of dropping in on anti-railer-in-chief Cliff Slater’s website. It’s often rich in material that blunts his arguments against Honolulu’s future rail system, and this weekend was worth the visit.

Mr. Slater has posted three items since Friday in praise of bus rapid transit. His fondness for BRT is laughably ironic to those of us who remember his opposition to Mayor Jeremy Harris’s BRT plans a decade ago. After quoting Mr. Harris on how “cutting-edge” bus technologies and operational systems “can make big improvements at an affordable cost,” Mr. Slater asked on Friday: “In your heart of hearts, don’t you really miss the guy?”

Mr. Slater continued his new-found enthusiasm for BRT into the weekend with two more referrals – a 2010 speech in Boston by FTA chief Peter Rogoff and a Detroit News story on the FTA's support of a regional bus system.

The FTA believes BRT would work well in the Detroit region, and that’s great. The agency has its reasons, which you can read, but unless I missed it, there’s nothing in the newspaper story about what’s right for Honolulu – just for Detroit.

As for Mr. Rogoff’s speech about the importance of transit system maintenance, he mentions BRT only once: “Is Bus Rapid Transit a workable option for every corridor – no. But it’s a fine fit for more communities that are seriously considered it.”

Honolulu seriously considered BRT under the Harris and Hannemann administrations, and it didn’t fly either time. What works for one city or region doesn’t mean it would work in Honolulu. Don’t we hear all the time about “how different” Honolulu is? We know it’s true, and two reasons it’s different are outside for everyone to see – the mountains and the ocean.

Quotes by ABC Slater

Mr. Slater’s weekend work on BRT was just more obfuscation in his long-standing attempt to confuse Oahu citizens about the issues. We’ve found so many of them that we’ve created a special corner at our “aggregation site" about his tactics, and we’ll add today’s post to the Mr. Cliff Slater (and Friends) section.

Calling Mr. Slater “Always By Car Cliff” is another way of saying he favors car travel over mass transit options, but he’ll endorse BRT if he thinks doing so can add to the confusion in his fight against Honolulu’s elevated “light metro” system.

Here are some of his quotes from Honolulu’s brief exposure to Mr. Harris’s proposed BRT system:

• City’s rapid transit vision will fade – Honolulu Advertiser, 9/4/01. “First you must understand that while BRT is rubber-tired, it is like a streetcar in that it uses dedicated lanes in the middle of the streets. Thus, it embodies all the congestion-causing drawbacks of a light rail line that Mayor Harris quite correctly opposed when he was promoting heavy rail transit.”

• City’s BRT has degenerated into a farce – Honolulu Advertiser, 2/16/04. “While (BRT would be) great for bus riders, private transportation providers and UH traffic experts noted that the use of exclusive lanes in town would have a terrible impact on traffic congestion. Traffic congestion in town is already bad enough; taking road space away from existing traffic would cause a traffic nightmare.”

The Congestion Issue

You can find numerous Slater-BRT connections. We also found other quotable material from Mr. Slater in our BRT search, and they shed light on Mr. Slater’s tactic of attacking rail because it won’t reduce road congestion to the extent he wants.

Mr. Slater himself is the source of the erroneous belief that Honolulu rail’s principal goal is to reduce or even eliminate road congestion. He’s responsible for this "straw-man" argument that he works so hard to knock down. Rail will be an option to driving in that congestion, and since rail can’t possibly lower overall congestion to below current levels, he attacks rail for failing to do the impossible.

Here’s a quote from his “Second Opinion” column on 6/3/02: “…these fixed systems just do not do what people assume – reduce traffic congestion.” They assume that because Mr. Slater works hard to convince them that’s rail’s goal; see his Civil Beat video interview and our next-day post.

Here’s Mr. Slater’s newspaper ad (7/5/11) that solicited contributions to support his federal lawsuit to stop Honolulu rail: “Traffic congestion will be worse in the future with rail than what it is today.” Yes – absolutely true, but Mr. Slater’s intent is to suggestion rail will be a failure if traffic increases. With the population growing by 200,000 in the 2005-2030 period, of course traffic congestion will increase.

Mr. Slater is nothing if not clever; having it both ways on BRT and capitalizing on his straw-man tactic show that much. As Internet searches reveal, he’s been anti-mass transit for as long as anyone can recall, and he’s not going away now.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to catch him on his contradictions and in so doing lessen the likelihood he'll add another notch to his belt by killing rail.

As noted above, this post has been added to our "aggregation site" site under the heading Mr. Cliff Slater (and Friends).

LTE Forum: Fretting about Freeloaders, Writers Ignore Success of ‘Honor System’ in other Cities

2011-12-17T11:25:00.005-10:00

Hawaii’s geographical isolation contributes to how some Oahu residents react to Honolulu rail in its entirety or in its details. Our residents must travel farther to set foot in another metropolitan area than anybody else on earth. That means our exposure to successful transit systems is significantly less than elsewhere. Low exposure leads to skepticism and then outright opposition among some – our theory, at least.

Opponents often write that “nobody will ride this train,” an assessment that ignores reality around the world in cities with cost-effective and convenient rail transit systems. Two letters to the editor (LTE) in the Star-Advertiser this week (subscription) seemed to ignore what works elsewhere, too. They reacted to the newspaper’s earlier story on plans to use the “honor system” for fare payment rather than turnstiles, gates or other fare-collection systems.

Honor system will cost a lot (Star-Advertiser, 12/16)

“...City planners are considering an ‘honor system’ for rail transit. Every driver (the writer is one) knows that relying on people’s honor is ideal, but it does not work, leaving someone else to pay for the shortfall.”

Honor system ignores security (Star-Advertiser, 12/16)

“The ‘no barrier concept’ for access to rail clearly will not meet current security needs, post-9/11… The honor system will not meet the revenue needs for the taxpayers asnd requires greater manpower for enforcement, lower revenue and reater expense is a bad formula….”

Wikipedia has a list with dozens of cities where a “proof of payment” system – aka, honor system – works for rail and bus systems. It’s worth noting that some of the newest systems are on the list; modern concepts of building attractive rail transit systems include making them accessible to riders. Barriers like turnstiles don’t support easy access.

As for the security concerns expressed by a Kaimuki resident, safety and security have been key components in planning Honolulu rail, and there’s no reason to anticipate threats to passenger safety with a proof-of-payment system.

A letter in today’s paper focuses on another issue that’s top of mind for rail opponents and supporters alike.

Rail will be worst case of isle visual pollution (Star-Advertiser, 12/17)

"Congratulations to Bob Loy and The Outdoor Circle for finally getting into the fight against rail…. Where is the Hawaii Visitors Bureau? Does it really think this is what visitors want to see when the come to Hawaii?... I doubt you can find a city where an elevated transportation system has improved the area around it. Honolulu is going backwards visually with rail.”

We addressed the Outdoor Circle’s 12/11 commentary at some length and acknowledged that an elevated guideway will have visual impacts. The EIS system acknowledges it, too, but those impacts have to be weighed against what an elevated system will deliver – fast, frequent, reliable and safe transportation through the urban core.

Traffic congestion is a reality in 21st century Honolulu, and it has profound effects on the lives of those who commute twice a day through our narrow east-west corridor using the H-1 freeway and parallel surface streets. Today’s letter writer lives in windward Kailua and presumably experiences none of these commuters’ frustrations. Traffic is their issue, and Honolulu rail will be an option to sitting in it.

Tourists won’t stop coming to Waikiki or even the west-end resorts because we’ve built transportation infrastructure to improve the quality of life for tens of thousands of local residents. Tourists come for sun, sea, sand and surf. Few if any will be put off by a 30-foot-tall rail system between Ala Moana Center and East Kapolei; many will ride the system to Pearl Harbor and other destinations. Vastly more visible to tourists is the high-rise forest growing in Kakaako and the ones already rooted in Waikiki and downtown that block mountain and ocean views.

The more people travel, the more they appreciate how cities deal with the issues that affect their citizens. Oahu’s major issue is traffic congestion, and we’re dealing with it by building elevated rail.

More from Misleader-in-Chief Slater: As Usual, His Latest Post Is Example of More Flash than Bang

2011-12-15T09:28:00.013-10:00

We asserted here yesterday that anti-railer Cliff Slater has been less than truthful over the years in his opposition to Honolulu rail. His campaign implies things that aren’t true and relies on information that doesn’t pan out.

He’s doing it again at his website in the December 13th post that’s headlined New report says the transit selection process biased in favor of rail. This two-paragraph item is classic Cliff Slater, and we’ll explain why after responding to a friend’s suggestion. If you want to skip this part, jump down to the “New Report” subhead.

Our friend slogged through yesterday’s Yes2Rail post and then emailed the following:

“The logical progression seems OK but it necessarily takes a long time to get there…. In any future address of this issue you might want to emphasize/tinker with the point that it was a HNL/ADV poll question error that is the basis of Slater's confusion. He not only refuses to acknowledge this fact but, more importantly, he disregards knowledge of the error, then he shamelessly and repeatedly floats out his misinformation.”

So before examining Mr. Slater’s latest post (as of this writing), here’s the essence of the Obfuscator-in-Chief’s anti-rail campaign:
• ”ABC” – Always By Car – Slater supports car-based options to deal with Oahu’s increasing congestion with options such as HOT (high occupancy toll) lanes, and he consistently opposes mass transit. The car is king in Mr. Slater’s world.
• He flat-out misrepresents the city’s goals in building Honolulu rail. Mr. Slater’s campaign implies rail is intended to reduce congestion to less than current levels, which is impossible with a growing population (200,000 more Oahu residents in 2030 than in 2005). Mr. Slater knows rail's true purpose, but he misleads his audiences on this point anyway. Yesterday’s post and several others cover this (see our "aggregation site").
• Mr. Slater says the public believes rail's purpose is to relieve congestion (rather than its true goals) and cites a 2008 Honolulu Advertiser public opinion survey as his source of what the public thinks. As noted in yesterday's post, the poll’s question was badly worded to suggest a different goal – traffic reduction. Garbage in, garbage out, and Mr. Slater’s use of this GIGO question's response is described by two other letters.

New Report

Mr. Slater performs the neat trick in his 12/13 post of having it both ways. His opposition to Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) was well-known during the Harris Administration, but his post refers his readers to a report from the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, an organization that urges BRT instead of rail transit when it's the better option.

The report is titled “Recapturing Global Leadership in Bus Rapid Transit, a Survey of Select U.S. Cities.” However, the headline Mr. Slater posted (second paragraph, above) could easily be interpreted to suggest that Honolulu’s process was biased in favor of rail. That’s not what's in the report. Honolulu is mentioned twice in 75 pages, both times are in passing and without emphasis.

The Institute obviously is pushing BRT, so it’s logical it favors that option over rail throughout the report. Mr. Slater’s headline may in fact reflect the report’s conclusion about rail vs. BRT, but written as it is, the headline seems like a deliberate suggestion of impropriety in Honolulu’s selection process that’s simply not supported by the report.

Now, the Irony

Mr. Slater’s post mentions that “long-time transit enthusiast Congressman Earl Blumenauer, Democrat-Oregon,” wrote the report’s forward. Mr. Blumenauer supports transportation alternatives and concludes, “If American communities are to become more livable, we need all transportation options on the table for consideration.”

BRT is one of those options, and it's ironic that despite Mr. Slater's fight against BRT a decade ago, he uses this report to diminish rail. But here's where the irony ramps up: Mr. Blumenauer spoke highly about Honolulu’s future rail project when he visited here in 2004, as reported by the Honolulu Advertiser:

“People will always tell you the faults of a rail system first and then their resistance to raising local taxes to pay for it. But when one is finally put in place, it has the potential to revolutionize the way people live and work, and then they wonder how they ever lived without it.”

Digging deeper into ABC Slater’s 12/13 post found something other than what he'd like you to know. BRT has its place as Representative Blumenauer suggests, but as a travel alternative for Honolulu, Honolulu's selection process rejected it, and nothing in the Institute's report argues against that result.

We have to believe even Representative Blumenauer would think Honolulu's choice of elevated rail was excellent and appropriate for our city.

This post has been added to our "aggregation site" (linked above) under the heading Mr. Cliff Slater (and Friends).

Cliff Slater Won’t Stop Using Same ‘Non-Truth’ in His Anti-Rail Campaign, but Is It Something Else?

2011-12-14T10:20:00.004-10:00

“One of our major criticisms of the City is not what they tell you but what they leave out. For example, they tell you that rail will relieve traffic congestion, and that is true, but grossly misleading. What they don't tell you is the rest of the story. That is, rail will relieve traffic congestion (slightly) from what it might be if we did nothing, but congestion will still be worse than it is today.” – Cliff Slater, 12/5/11 at HawaiiTraffic.com

That’s definitely one of Cliff Slater’s continuing and tiresome criticisms, but the rest of the story is something Mr. Slater will never admit:

His criticism is ethically challenged because it relies on what some would call an outright lie.

Mr. Slater wants the public to believe the city hasn’t told the truth about rail, but he’s the one who’s been the Big Misleader in promoting the erroneous notion in nearly every speech and every interview he gives that the rail project is intended to cut traffic congestion dramatically.

That’s not rail’s goal; you can look it up. Rail will be an alternative to driving and wasting hours sitting in traffic congestion. By being the traffic-avoiding travel option residents don’t now have, rail will restore mobility to the community – the ability to travel through the urban core whenever you want without having to contend with traffic congestion.

We first started noting Mr. Slater’s deliberate efforts to mislead the public about rail when Civil Beat posted its interview with him in July 2010. Here’s how he began:

What he implies with this opening (view the entire interview here), which he employed again two months ago at a meeting of the Rotary Club of Honolulu, is that rail is supposed to reduce traffic decades from now. Mr. Slater obviously is motivated by traffic reduction goals, which are not the rail project’s goals.

Following his Civil Beat interview, Mr. Slater testified before the City Council in July 2010 and quoted from a letter sent to him by City Transportation Director Wayne Yoshioka about the traffic-congestion issue: “You are correct in pointing out that traffic congestion will be worse in the future with rail than it is today without rail,” Yoshioka said.

It’s a true statement and accurately conveys what the city has said repeatedly every time the issue is raised. Mr. Slater has known the city’s position on rail and traffic reduction and even agreed with it when he and Mr. Yoshioka were on a KHVH radio program on November 3, 2008.

Slater: “…We in the room here all understand that traffic congestion is gonna get worse with rail in the future, OK…. The public thinks that traffic today, today’s unendurable traffic congestion…will be reduced from today’s levels once rail goes in. That’s what they believe. OK, and we don’t believe it. You and I don’t believe that….”

Mr. Slater bases his alleged knowledge of public thinking on rail – that it’s supposed to reduce traffic – on a 2008 public opinion survey that he says backs him up. We made the connection in September when we found a Honolulu Advertiser story about that poll.

It was a classic case of “garbage in, garbage out” because the poll itself misstated rail’s intended outcome in one of its questions. Here’s some of the Advertiser’s reporting on the poll:

“The poll asked voters whether they favored or opposed rail following this statement: ‘The City and County of Honolulu has approved developing a fixed-rail mass transit system as a means to reduce traffic (emphasis added).”

And there it is – the polling company’s misstatement of rail’s goal that Mr. Slater has dishonestly attributed to the city ever since.

We think this is worth repeating here at Yes2Rail. The public needs to know Mr. Slater is not telling the truth when he says the city has promoted rail as a way to reduce traffic congestion to below current levels. That’s how he describes rail, not the city.

The fundamental flaw in Mr. Slater’s anti-rail campaign is dishonesty at the core. His willingness to deliberately mislead the public says more about his efforts than any rail advocate could.

This post has been added to our "aggregation site" under the heading Mr. Cliff Slater (and Friends).

Oahu Citizens on Rail Dispute’s Sidelines Must Wonder, ‘’How Much of All This Is Believable?’ Opponents’ Media Statements Raise Eyebrows

2011-12-13T09:28:00.003-10:00

Nothing in today’s post or any Yes2Rail post about the lawsuit that aims to stop Honolulu rail is based on “insider” information. This is a pro-rail website, but we’re in no position to evaluate or comment on the statements made by attorneys for the plaintiffs and defendants in court.

We’re on the outside – just like the 99.9999 percent of Oahu residents who have nothing to do with the case, and it’s on the outside where the plaintiffs are continuing their public relations campaign against rail that began in August. We have to take on face value what attorneys for both sides say in front of the federal judge, but what rail opponents say to the media is another matter.

Spinning

The space outside the courtroom is the plaintiffs’ Spin Zone, and yesterday’s ruling by Judge A. Wallace Tashima provided another opportunity for them to work the media and therefore the public.

In court, Judge Tashima denied the defendants’ motion to remove several plaintiffs from the case based on the city’s claim they failed to participate in several years of rail’s environmental impact statement and other processes. The judge said the argument is “premature” since the entire record of the administrative proceedings is still being compiled. The city says half a million documents are involved and that it will renew the motion once the judge has the complete record before him.

Outside federal court, plaintiff attorney Nicolas Yost called the ruling “a complete victory and a confirmation that the city/county motion was a waste of the court’s time and the taxpayers’ money,” according to the anti-rail Hawaii Reporter blog. Rail opponent Cliff Slater accused the city and Federal Transit Administration of intentionally “dragging their feet” to drive up the plantiffs’ expenses in paying Yost and his team. Plaintiff Ben Cayetano said the same: “I think they knew as well as we did that they had little chance of winning that motion, and we had to spend attorneys’ fees just to rebut the motion.”

It’s all spin, of course, since it’s based on nothing more than the plaintiffs’ predictable opinions that they hope will influence the public once they see media coverage generated in their Spin Zone. There’s plenty of reason to treat these statements with a grain of salt. Independent online news source Civil Beat found little truth in the Gang of Four’s August 21st newspaper commentary.

Examining the Record

The plaintiffs’ lawsuit charges the city with failing to properly evaluate all the alternatives to a steel-on-steel system built on an elevated guideway above surface traffic. It also alleges disregard for Oahu’s historic and cultural sites, failure to deal with noise issues, improper route evaluation and other deficiencies.

With the FTA monitoring the city’s progress every step of the way, it’s implausible that the city would have been careless and deficient during the long process leading to route and alternative selection, but readers can judge for themselves.

The record is available for examination at the project’s website. A search for “noise” finds the word on 78 pages of the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS); “cultural” is on 100 pages, “historic” on 179, “alternatives” on 119, “route” on 80 and “environment” on 481. Those are pages, not the number of actual mentions in the FEIS.

A random search for “alternatives" finds this paragraph from Chapter 8, page 23 in the FEIS; it deals with a favorite of some architects and others in the community – at-grade transit on a route that includes Hotel Street in downtown Honolulu:

“The Alternatives Analysis Report evaluated the alignment alternatives based on transportation benefits, environmental and social impacts, and overall benefits and cost considerations. The report found that an at-grade alignment along Hotel Street would require the acquisition of more parcels and could affect more burial sites than any of the other alternatives. The alignment with an at-grade operation Downtown and a tunnel through the Hawaii Capital Historic District (under King Street) was not selected because of the environmental effects, such as impacts to cultural resources, reduction of street capacity, and property acquisition requirements of the at-grade and tunnel sections, would cost an additional $300 million. Of the remaining elevated alignments that were studied, the Alternatives Analysis concluded than an elevated alignment along Nimitz Highway would have less visual impacts than one along Queen Street because of its much wider right-of-way and location along the edge of the Hawaii Capital Historic District.”

That’s typical of the FEIS. The plaintiff’s assertion that alternatives were not evaluated isn’t remotely plausible when the FEIS is filled with detailed descriptions of why an elevated guideway was chosen and the alternatives were rejected. The same is true about noise and visual impacts, historic and cultural preservation and other issues the plaintiffs say were not explored properly during the rail process.

This case may last until next summer or later, giving the plaintiffs dozens of opportunities to continue their PR offensive in the Spin Zone, a tactic than can be pretty offensive, indeed.

Friends of the Outdoors, How Big Is Your Circle? Broader Vision in the 21st Century Could Win Friends, Save Human Lives as Well as Trees

2011-12-11T10:17:00.015-10:00

Today’s Honolulu Star-Advertiser editorial page (subscription) is a study in contrasts for supporters of the Honolulu rail project. The editorial – HART makes good case for Ansaldo deal – is just what they’d hope the paper would say about the selection of the Italian firm that will supply rail cars, the train control system and operate/maintain the system once it’s built.

Next to it is a commentary by the Outdoor Circle, the century-old environment-oriented organization that traditionally has fought to preserve trees and keep the state free of billboards. The group had been working with the city but now says it wants to kill the project.

The piece argues that Honolulu rail’s elevated structure (in most places built about 30 feet above the middle of streets and highways) will “become an ugly scar across one of the most beautiful places on Earth while there is little evidence that it will bring relief to Oahu’s unacceptable traffic.”

Didn't Even Try?

Today’s commentary is essentially the same piece the Circle posted at its website last month – a denunciation of elevated rail based on the group’s apparent belief that the city just didn’t try hard enough to find a better alternative.

Read the Circle’s commentary and you know what it’s against, but it’s also obvious the group doesn’t know specifically what it’s for – just an undefined something other than rail that will “bring relief to Oahu’s unacceptable traffic.”

The group’s leadership apparently is following the lead of the plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit to kill rail when they assert the city didn’t really explore all the alternatives to achieve that relief. Today’s editorial disagrees:

“…plaintiffs face an uphill battle in proving capriciousness on the city’s part, given that the entire process was vetted by the Federal Transit Administration and congressional overseers, too.”

The Outdoor Circle clearly is happy with the delay this lawsuit is causing, and in the months it will take for the case to run it course, the group might study congestion and the range of alternatives to come up with a specific preference.

Defining the Issue

The Circle says it “is not anti-transit and would support a proposal that will reduce traffic and protect Hawaii’s greatest asset, the unique and incomparable beauty of our islands.”

That statement suggests the Circle doesn’t understand the issue. “Reducing traffic” is not what Honolulu rail is intended to do, and in fact, nothing can accomplish as long as Oahu’s population continues to grow, as it surely will over the decades. The commentary is silent on what could reduce traffic below current levels because nothing will.

In essence, Oahu’s mobility issues are about time and the hours commuters waste while sitting in traffic or creeping slowly on freeways and surface streets because of congestion.

The city’s latest attempt to address that issue is the rail project, and as all the alternatives were indeed examined, it became apparent that the only transportation alternative that will provide commuters time-saving travel through the city is grade-separated transit.

Building a subway (unacceptable for cost and other reasons) or an elevated line would be the only way to simultaneously avoid traffic congestion and provide the level of service that’s needed by commuters and others.

The project’s goals are clear, and they say nothing about reducing traffic. They’re about providing a travel option that will be fast, frequent, reliable and safe – the very definition of elevated rail. A transit option such as at-grade light-rail isn't "green" if it can't deliver those attributes; it would be just another way to rob commuters of their time.

A 21st Century Vision

While the Outdoor Circle has been successful in keeping out the billboards and preserving trees, the realities of urban life in the 21st century suggest the possibility and even a necessity for a broader vision beyond preserving Oahu’s mauka-makai view planes.

Grade-separated transit is as inevitable on this island as are the dozens of high-rises currently planned or under construction in Honolulu’s urban core – buildings that will inflict much more damage to view planes than low-rise rail. One could conclude that the Outdoor Circle has already lost that fight.

The “great outdoors” is a work in progress, and much of what’s happening outdoors needs a lot more work. Pedestrians are killed outdoors, even while in crosswalks; bicyclists are hit and killed by drivers who apparently care too little about their safety to avoid them.

Oahu’s maddening traffic congestion robs drivers of their time and also makes them impatient. Red-light running is common, and so is failure to yield to pedestrians, yet there’s little evidence traffic laws designed to protect pedestrians and others are enforced. (Late-afternoon update: We saw two cars blow through a four-way stop in Kakaako this afternoon. Life-threatening traffic violations are now commonplace in Honolulu.)

What if the Outdoor Circle’s 21st century activities included proactive efforts to reduce the number of pedestrian fatalities on our streets and highways? What if the Circle’s concerns extended to bicyclists in the great outdoors? What if the Circle moved from being against the only travel option that will reduce hours of delay by 18 percent in the urban core to supporting efforts to make the great outdoors more accessible because it will help commuters save travel time?

The Circle’s current anti-rail stance can only alienate large numbers of long-suffering commuters who appreciate rail as a congestion-avoiding option they’ll eventually use. A broader 21st century vision to make the outdoor experience a safer experience would rest nicely on the foundation built by the Circle in the 20th.

We’ll have more in future posts that might help Outdoor Circle members better appreciate congestion and population issues and rail’s promise to make life in the outdoors more livable for future generations.

Giving ‘The Tampa Look’ a Second Look; Is This What Environmentalists Say Is Better than Rail?

2011-12-09T10:31:00.004-10:00

Some believe Tampa's elevated highway scheme is right for Honolulu

How much do Honolulu residents really know about the so-called “flyover” option that some say would be preferable to Honolulu rail? We admit to not spending much time on it until yesterday, when we realized highway proponent Panos Prevedouros is still pushing something like the Tampa Reversible Elevated Lanes toll road for Honolulu as an option to rail.

Dr. Prevedouros mentions the Tampa REL in his most recent essay (linked at Yes2Rail yesterday) , and perennial anti-railer Cliff Slater has been praising it for years at his website. We’re posting several photos of Tampa’s new look with REL.

Opponents of Honolulu’s rail system usually congregate their resistance around rail’s elevated configuration. Before they gravitate to the Prevedouros-Slater option, let them look upon Tampa’s high-visual-impact solution.

The REL is three lanes wide, plus an emergency safety shoulder lane and railings on both sides. The highway is 14 miles long, but length isn’t the issue here in Honolulu. Width is a better gauge of how an overhead highway would be received on this island. The Tampa elevated highway is approximately 60 feet wide, or twice the width of Honolulu rail’s guideway.

What strikes us about the photos we’re posting today – and even in the graphic at the bottom of this post that was lifted from Mr. Slater’s website – is the absence of traffic on the surface highway. The combined carrying capacity for the elevated and surface lanes far exceeded their daytime use when these photos were taken. Might Tampa have been better advised to add three lanes at ground level and avoid the visual impact?

We won’t second-guess Tampa on its decision, but it’s worth noting that the city has a distinguishing characteristic that made its car-based solution logical for Tampa: It’s on the mainland. That city’s residents use their vehicles in ways Oahu residents never do. Tampans (Tampanians?) can climb into their cars and drive to Miami, New York or San Francisco if the spirit moves them; their cars can transport them thousands of miles in a single trip. Not so for Oahu residents, and therefore, a more logical option than building more highways on an island is to create a transit system that's fast, frequent, reliable and safe – all of that because it’s elevated.

The REL works for Tampa, and that’s great, but try as they might, Messrs. Prevedouros and Slater can’t make a solid case for building an elevated highway in Honolulu. If environmentalists want to avoid the hypocrite label, they’ll have to oppose that “solution” here, too – and maybe, just maybe, reconsider their knee-jerk opposition to elevated rail, which will be a fraction as tall as the high-rise buildings currently being planned for Kakaako.

One More Thing

A minor point but one worth mentioning nevertheless: The Tampa REL uses an automated toll system that allows vehicles to enter the lanes without stopping to take a ticket or pay a toll. It’s a modern system that uses modern equipment – like the cameras shown at right. Remember how well cameras pointed at cars went over on Oahu a few years ago when they were used to catch speeders? Based on the “anti-surveillance” mentality that seems alive and well here, we have to believe there'd be opposition to their use, too. Call it a hunch.

Media Roundup: Congestion, More Lanes on H-1, Rail Maintenance and Tampa’s ‘Aircraft Carrier’

2011-12-08T10:33:00.005-10:00

Tampa's elevated expressway looms above surface lanes.

You know a topic is “trending” locally when you hear and read about it all over the place in traditional media, let alone Twitter. Rail is trending on Oahu.

Highway proponent and rail critic Panos Prevedouros posted a link a few days ago at his Fix Oahu website to another of his essays on “the relative advantages of Rail and HOT Lanes for Honolulu.” We bit, clicked and found a photograph there of Tampa’s Reversible Express Lanes (REL), which he and other rail critics repeatedly praise as a better transportation option for Honolulu than rail. We posted that photo at the top of today’s post. Here’s another one:

A night-time view (below this post) makes the elevated highway look prettier, but what strikes us is how wide the elevated highway is. If anything, it looks more like the “aircraft carrier in the sky” description rail critics have tried to pin on Honolulu rail.

Beyond the visual blight, Dr. Prevedouros’s HOT lane idea has numerous issues. The most obvious one is the T; a toll road serves those who can afford (1) a car and (2) to pay the toll. Large numbers of elderly, youth, students, unemployed, underemployed and other car-less, cash-strapped citizens derive no benefit from HOT lanes unless they ride a bus on those lanes, but even that mode has a fundamental problem – limited HOT lane access.

The 11-mile HOT project would have only three exits between the project’s start and end points – the H-1/H-2 merge and “downtown,” which his site says is “one half mile before the waterfront.” Honolulu rail will have nine stations between those points and another 12 along its 20-mile route. Rail will offer many more options for using the system than Dr. Prevedouros’s “solution.”

Finally, he says “there would be no visible blight because HOT Lanes run mostly next to the H-1 freeway…..” His use of “mostly” is a warning that some segments would be elevated – resulting perhaps in “The Tampa Look." Also, building a new highway next to the existing H-1 would obviously require the taking of property. What would be taken -- parks, trees, businesses, neighborhoods....what?

Honolulu rail will use a relatively narrow elevated guideway – the missing piece of key infrastructure that will allow commuters and others to avoid streets and highways altogether as they travel congestion-free through the city.

More Lanes?

The morning drive talk show host began his program today with a traffic report that highlighted rain-induced problems on the freeways and his sarcastic observation that “…building more lanes to handle that traffic wouldn’t be a good idea” (paraphrased). He obviously is a more-pavement proponent, and that's where he veers off into the rabbit hole.

An example: The host repeatedly described the rail project incorrectly during his one-hour “Community Matters” interview with Dr. Prevedouros this past weekend on Clear Channel’s Honolulu stations (no link found). He and other opponents say rail is being built to fight congestion; in their most extreme mischaracterization of the project, they say rail is supposed to “eliminate congestion” (see the MidWeek Letter to the Editor linked from our 12/3 post).

This deliberate misstatement of rail’s actual goals obviously suits their purposes. They want the public to believe rail will be a failure for not dramatically reducing or eliminating congestion. What they ignore – again deliberately – is that there is no magic bullet to achieve their idea of traffic heaven, not as long as Oahu’s population continues to grow.

The host, Dr. Prevedouros and Cliff Slater have been repeating this mantra so long they may actually have deluded themselves into believing rail is supposed to eliminate congestion. As we noted here in October, building more highway lanes doesn’t reduce traffic; if anything, the result is that more cars join the jam and fill up those extra lanes, too. It’s called “induced traffic,” a phenomenon that’s widely studied and understood – just not by the host and his friends.

Maintaining Rail

The anti-rail editor of Honolulu magazine takes another shot at the project this month. In short, his equation goes something like this: [Potholes on Streets = Failed Rail Maintenance] – i.e., since road maintenance is a continuing problem, maintaining a more complex rail system will be problematic: “If we can’t get roads repaved any faster than every 20 years, why would we expect that rail would fare any better?”

That’s one way to look at it. We’ll leave it to our readers to decide if one equals the other and simply file it along with the editor’s other observations on the rail project, such as his belief that on-demand shuttles are a better approach to Oahu’s growing transportation issues than adding rail as a critical piece of infrastructure.

Tampa's "aircraft carrier in the sky" looks kinda pretty at night -- huge but pretty.

HART: Ansaldo Contract Oversight Is Top Priority; LTE Forum: ‘Free’ Bus Service Isn’t Really ‘Free’

2011-12-06T10:00:00.009-10:00

Recent financial losses by Finmeccanica, the parent company of the joint venture that will supply cars and operate/maintain Honolulu’s rail system, are not a threat to the viability of the project.

That's the message delivered this morning on KIPO's "The Conversation" public radio show by Toru Hamayasu (at right), interim executive director of the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation.

Despite large losses in the past year (about $480 million over the past nine months), the corporation is large enough to absorb it without causing problems for the Honolulu project, Hamayasu said. “It’s not that we’re not concerned, but we’re confident the company can do the job…,” Hamayasu said (paraphrased).

“When you look at the company that makes the train control system (Ansaldo STS), that company has been profitable and its financial standing is good. It’s responsible for about 85 percent of the entire contract. Ansaldo Breda (the car supplier) has had some financial problems, but it is responsible for only 15 percent of the contract.”

Hamayasu said the city has a “huge responsibility” to monitor the situation and that if anything were to happen to threaten performance under the contract, the city would catch it. Also, he said the city has secured bonding sufficient to cover all obligations under the Ansaldo Honolulu JV contract.

LTE Forum

Today’s rail-related letter in the morning paper (subscription) examines one slice of our observation two days ago – that providing free bus service would not result in open-road traffic-free travel on our streets and highways. The Kailua resident makes the valuable point that "free" bus services are anything but free and must be paid by somebody.

Someone must pay for ‘free’ bus rides (Star-Advertiser, 12/6)
“In response to (a 11/4 letter), it sounds like a nice idea to make the bus ‘free,’ but it’s not logical…. You can’t make TheBus ‘free’ because the money has to come from somewhere, which is from taxes… Everything comes at a cost. We don’t need the government to spend more in ‘public goods’ and increase its debt.”

We differ with the writer on the last point. Government debt is justified when it implements essential services for the public. Honolulu rail will be an invaluable contribution to the city’s infrastructure and a “public good.”

Rail Project Eyes Cost-Cutting Alternatives that Would Reduce Station Size, Improve Frequency

2011-12-05T10:45:00.001-10:00

The page-one headline in the morning paper today (subscription) was ripe for misinterpretation if read too quickly. Leaving out the “on” in the headline – City explores ways to save on rail project – leaves an altogether different impression.

Unfortunately for opponents, the piece is about city efforts to save money, not the whole project. The story says the city is exploring how reducing the maximum number of cars on trains from four to three could result in shorter rail stations – 180 feet for three-car trains, or 60 feet shorter than platforms for trains with four cars.

The Star-Advertiser quotes Toru Hamayasu, interim executive director of the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation, as saying the train-length issue is part of an ongoing “value engineering” effort to evaluate costs and reduce them when feasible. Shorter stations could reduce costs, he said.

More Frequency

Also under consideration is a turnaround at Leeward Community College that would allow some ewa-bound trains to head back into urban Honolulu rather than go all the way to the last station in East Kapolei. Hamayasu said that could result in shorter headways, or time intervals between trains, in the most densely populated neighborhoods along the 20-mile route.

Service frequency would have to be increased if a three-car system were to provide the same level of service and overall carrying capacity as a four-car system. As it is, the headways during morning and afternoon rush hours will be only three minutes, but since the trains will be automated and without drivers, the headways could safely be reduced even further.

The story notes that with more frequent service and shorter trains, the system might lower costs by requiring fewer rail cars.

LTE Forum

Today’s letter-to-the-editor feature focuses on change and a Honolulu resident’s concern about what it’s doing to our “paradise.”

Tall buildings, rail are not island style (Star-Advertiser, 11/8)
“Soon we’ll be saying, ‘Remember when we could see sky and ocean?’…. Donald Trump blocked out a big hunk of sky and water toward Diamond Head. Hilton’s new building by the Ilikai created a complete wall where Ala Moana curves toward Kalia Road. Two more buildings are planned. When the Waikiki wall is complete, expect the Kakaako wall…. Who imagines rail when thinking paradise? Rail is a money pit and eyesore, making streets claustrophobic. Buildings 650 feet high around rail stations don’t scream island life….”

The writer is at least partly right: Honolulu today isn’t the town of James Michener's novel, and it isn’t what it was at Statehood in 1959 either, when Aloha Tower was the city’s tallest building. Time changes all things, even “paradise.”

Rail will meet the transportation needs of 21st century Honolulu, which has some of the worst traffic congestion in the country. High-rise buildings are here to stay, and more are on the way – maybe two dozen more in Kakaako, according to media reports. Buildings as tall as 650 feet are envisioned to provide housing that’s both affordable and conveniently located near a rail line that will be only a small fraction of their height.

Many Honolulu residents believe paving paradise to create new highway lanes would be even more objectionable than the elevated guideway, which the writer opposes. Despite the project’s impacts that are acknowledged in its environmental impact statement, grade-separated rail was selected as the best – and least-objectionable – way to provide fast, frequent, reliable and safe travel through our ever-growing city. That’s what this and future generations will require, even as we recall the paradise earlier generations once knew.

This post has been added to our “aggregation site” under the heading LTE Forum.

Enlarging TheBus Fleet and Making Rides Free Would Do Nothing To ‘Solve’ Congestion Problem

2011-12-04T10:31:00.006-10:00

We’re using our new LTE Forum again today as a counter-point to another letter to the editor (LTE) that purports to have a non-rail “solution” to Oahu’s traffic congestion problem.

The Forum’s readership is only a tiny fraction of the exposure anti-rail letters receive in the paper, of course, but at least the Forum can be a more-or-less permanent counterweight on the Internet. Web searches with Google and other engines presumably will turn up both the letter and what we’re posting here at Yes2Rail.

Today’s LTE (subscription required) supports the free-bus-ride alternative to building Honolulu’s rail system:

Don’t wait for rail, make TheBus Free (Star-Advertiser, 12/4)
"…A free bus system will motivate folks to leave their cars at home. This will increase bus ridership, which in turn would justify increasing the number of buses and bus routes. More buses would lead to more bus availability and more timely bus schedules….This solution would serve the entire island, not just a narrow 20-mile corridor."

The Kaneohe resident’s letter says a “free bus system” would cost a fraction of the rail project’s tab, and: “Getting thousands of motorists to use the bus system would lead to immediate traffic relief.”

Taking TheBus instead of driving one’s own car certainly reduces commuting costs, even when bus rides are not free. The American Public Transit Association calculates the annual savings achieved by using public transit in cities all over the country. At current gas prices, Honolulu residents can save more than $11,000 annually by switching to TheBus and not using a car.

But beyond that important fact, the free-bus “solution” has numerous problems, and all of them were thoroughly examined in the rail planning process. Making transit rides free is no solution at all for the simple reason that congestion is a fact of modern life – here and everywhere. There are no simple "solutions" to congestion – only alternative modes of transportation that avoid it.

When for whatever reason conditions produce a sudden surge in public transit usage (such as during the 1974 OPEC oil embargo) and “free up” street and highway lanes, new bus riders soon see car traffic moving faster than the bus they’re on and switch back to their own vehicles.

It’s a natural human response that’s been observed repeatedly. People value their own time more than the cost of a bus ride, so when they can save time by getting back in their cars, they do. The temporary congestion relief – if it happens at all – soon disappears.

Lingering Consequences

The writer recommends a big expansion of the bus fleet with free rides for all, but the cost of such a fleet certainly wouldn’t be free. In addition to the bus acquisition costs that property taxes would cover, every bus in the fleet would add to the city’s expenses, including labor costs for drivers and additional personnel to maintain the fleet. The enlarged fleet’s expenses would continue indefinitely.

With that many buses already purchased and O&M costs budgeted, the entire fleet would have to be used even as riders abandon TheBus to drive their own cars for the reason noted above. The inevitable result would be even more congestion due to a larger bus fleet that demanded to be fed.

The letter ends by asking, “What’s the harm in trying it?” We’ve briefly described some of the harm of building a much-expanded bus fleet without actually helping commuters reach their destinations faster.

Rail will do that by providing congestion-free fast, frequent, reliable and safe transit through the narrow urban core, which of course is where Oahu residents experience their biggest congestion headache – not in neighborhoods all over the island.

This post has been added to our "aggregation site" under the new heading LTE Forum.

LTE Forum Covers Both Sides of Rail Issue, but Focusing on Opposition Seems More Productive

2011-12-03T11:19:00.006-10:00

We launched the LTE Forum (LTE = Letters to the Editor) yesterday with a couple observations – that publications’ letters columns represent an unscientific sampling of public opinion and that opponents of major government projects probably are more energized in writing letters than the proponents.

We’ll discuss some pro-rail letters and commentaries here in Yes2Rail’s Forum, but addressing the opponents’ positions, which clearly are intended to sway public opinion, is the better option. Rail opponents’ viewpoints deserve consideration, and we’ll endeavor to respect them as we respond in our own effort to influence others to support rail. So let’s get started.

Council wimped out on rail issue (Star-Advertiser, 11/09)
(A Kapolei resident begins with a complaint that the City Council overwhelmingly rejected a proposed Charter amendment that would have prohibited the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation from developing the rail project.) “The more I hear of this rail and how it’s so flawed, full of insider privileges, self-serving politicians and their handlers, it makes me sick. Bad enough that taxpayers are force-fed this steel-on-steel monstrosity; we’re told there can be no reconsideration of styles that would be cheaper.”

Steel-on-steel technology for Honolulu’s system was recommended during the selection process by a panel of transit experts (the vote was 4-1) that evaluated the major competing options – monorail, rubber tires on cement and magnetic levitation. A prominent anti-rail Council member proposed the Charter amendment authorizing the city to include development of this technology among the duties of the Department of Transportation Services. Voters approved the amendment in 2008, so steel-on-steel wasn't “force-fed” to the public.

It’s frankly not reasonable to revisit the February 2008 selection of the most widely used technology for Honolulu’s system. The panel said steel was the best option based on cost, ride quality, safety and reliability. The competing technologies were rejected for capacity and other concerns. Throwing out steel’s selection nearly four years later would be an incredible waste of time and money. At some point, the technology considerations need to be put to rest, and that point truly was reached years ago during the recommendation and selection process. As for the writer’s accusations about insider privileges and other matters, they seem typical of the vague anti-rail comments often voiced by citizens upset with local government.

Letter to the Editor (MidWeek, 11/16)
(The writer objects to columnist Bob Jones’s 10 reasons to support the Honolulu rail project.) “I am usually a fan of Bob Jones, but I must clarify some of his observations in his ‘Just Thoughts’ promotion of the proposed railroad. To begin with, the city refused to consider some alternatives. I submitted better ideas, and the prorail (City and County) folks did not even acknowledge receipt of them…. More buses, more bus routes and greater bus frequency would take more cars off the road, just the opposite of what Bob suggests…. The city has admitted that the proposed railroad will not eliminate traffic congestion (emphasis added). In fact, that is no longer their goal; they want to create temporary jobs….”

The writer’s chagrin at not having his proposals acknowledged by the city is somewhat charming, but Bob Jones had it exactly right in concluding the alternatives were considered “in great detail. Saying otherwise is a canard from the let’s-keep-our-horse-and-buggy people.” Adding more buses to meet the demand for east-west travel through the urban core would simply add to the congestion. Elevated rail will be above the traffic and won’t contribute to it as buses currently do and would to a greater degree if more of them were on the roads. Regarding rail’s goals, they never were to “eliminate traffic congestion.” It’s a preposterous notion! The writer’s use of that phrase is a reflection of anti-railer Cliff Slater’s misleading campaign against this project.

We’ll wrap up today on a more positive note:

Rail foes waste public money (Star-Advertiser, 12/3)
“…The H-3 (freeway) was delayed for decades, but when it was opened, Windward residents found the freeway beneficial by providing a third access across the Koolaus, particularly when accidents block Pali or Likelike. Like the H-3, all residents will benefit from rail as an alternative transportation mode when the H-1 freeway is choked off due to rush hour congestion, accidents or bad weather. I hope the courts rule quickly and dismiss this lawsuit against rail. We have been down this road before, and it’s time we build rail.”

The Kaneohe resident accurately describes Honolulu rail’s purpose – to be an alternative mode of fast, frequent, reliable and safe transportation that will avoid all congestion. He undoubtedly also was correct in concluding that the anti-rail lawsuit will saddle taxpayers with additional costs.

This post has been added to our "aggregation site" under the new heading LTE Forum.

Rail Court Case Will Make News Intermittently, so We Launch a New Feature on Letters to the Editor

2011-12-02T10:46:00.012-10:00

The calendar has wound down to what many believe is the most uplifting month of the year – a time for goodwill and cheer among people of all stripes. In the spirit of the season, we’ll make an extra point to not “go personal” in our continuing criticism of the leading rail opponents’ arguments.

We perhaps came close on occasion over the past several months. It does rankle when we catch someone repeatedly misleading the public about the project by misstating its goals. Rail won’t accomplish the miracle of reducing traffic congestion in decades ahead as Oahu's population grows. Its purpose will be to give residents a travel option that avoids congestion completely.

It also rubs us the wrong way when a leading rail opponent essentially accuses city officials of lying with his “shame on the city” accusations. We lift a glass of eggnog to Hawaii Public Radio for giving those same officials their own hour to defend the project as well as their reputations a month later.

So let the holiday season begin. We’re launching something new here at Yes2Rail – the LTE Forum, a recurring feature on views expressed about rail in letters to the editor published by the Honolulu Star-Advertiser and other media outlets. There will be nothing personal in this feature – a strictly issue-focused examination of what’s said about rail in the letters columns from a pro-rail perspective.

The LTE Forum

First, a couple observations: A newspaper’s letters column is not a scientific sampling of community sentiment on any particular issue. It is a compilation of individual views on the issues – whether those views are researched and well-informed or not. What's important is that residents are taking their time to express and share them.

Editors presumably attempt to print a representative sample of the letters they receive on any given recurring topic (see submission information on more than 100 newspapers). Human nature being what it is, our presumption is that rail opponents are more active than supporters in their writing. Sampling the volume of letters therefore may result in the printing of more letters in opposition than in support.

Something else: The “I won’t ride it so why should I support it?” factor is alive and well on Oahu. Rail obviously will not be an option for every car commuter on the island; it will mostly serve those who live and/or work along its 20-mile route between East Kapolei on the ewa plain and Ala Moana Center, giving them a travel option in the east-west urban corridor. Stops along the way will include the UH West Oahu campus, Leeward Community College, Pearlridge Shopping Center, Aloha Stadium (and the nearby Arizona Memorial), Pearl Harbor Shipyard, Honolulu International Airport and related businesses, commercial districts along Dillingham Boulevard, Honolulu Community College, Chinatown, the downtown business district, Blaisdell Center and the emerging Kakaako “urban village.”

We’ve found in our community outreach that quite a few people – still a minority in our experience – don’t want to pay for a project that does not benefit them personally. Most people on the island won’t ride rail each day, and if that’s their opinion, they’re entitled to it. What’s good for others doesn’t seem to matter to this segment of the population, and we think it’s a consideration worth weighing. An undertaking of rail’s size and import truly is a “community” project.

On to the letters. As it happens, the first one this week was from a rail supporter:

H-3 success offers lesson on rail delay (Star-Advertiser, 11/29)
The writer, a Honolulu resident, is reminded of the drawn-out H-3 freeway project in the 1970s. “The opposition then made similar claims about how it would damage the visual impact of the Windward side…. As I drive the H-3 now, I don’t see any degradation to the environment as it is one of the most scenic drives on Oahu. And the freeway is working perfectly fine in reducing congestion to the Windward side. The rail provides an alternate means of transportation and we need it now.”

The writer has it perfectly right about rail’s purpose – to be the travel alternative that will give the rider a traffic-free experience. His other point about the cost of delaying rail’s construction was especially timely this week; the anti-rail lawsuit had its first hearing on Wednesday.

Rail transit will burden Hawaii (Star-Advertiser, 11/30)
“I can’t believe that the train is still going forward. Not one train in the entire U.S. has made money or broken even. Everyone will have to drive to the train station and/or use TheBus at either end…. What’s going to happen when the work (the unions) are promised is done? Where will Hawaii be? I’ll tell you: broke and broken! Here’s a question that I would love someone to answer: How much will we have to pay to ride the train?”

We'll respond to the Kaneohe resident’s issues starting with her question: Riding the train will cost exactly the same as riding TheBus. As with the bus system, most of its regular patrons will use a pass purchased annually or for another period. A trip that includes bus rides at both ends of a train ride will be considered one continuous trip, whether using a pass or buying a single trip ticket; i.e., transfers to other public transit modes will be covered by the single price.

She’s right about transit systems not turning a profit. Not many people complain about the taxpayers’ subsidy of TheBus; the City Council’s budget each year includes a subsidy for the system of between 67 and 73 percent of its O&M expense. Like underwriting the cost of schools, which also don’t “make money” in the short run, public transit is treated as a critical piece of the public infrastructure and therefore worth supporting. Rail isn’t a “jobs project” (see the project’s goals), although jobs certainly will be created during construction and afterwards to operate the system. As for accessing train stations, tens of thousands of riders will walk to and from them on their trips; that’s how it’s done by millions of rail transit users in cities the world over.

Rail would be a permanent mistake (Star-Advertiser, 12/1)
“Thank God people are actually coming to their senses about the monstrosity being planned for our fair city…. The biggest problem with a permanent rail system is precisely that it is permanent. No matter how our population shifts, the huge concrete pillars will remain just where they are. Other systems can be flexible – trolly/bus lines or whatever – but concrete is forever….”

There’s more to this Hawaii Kai resident’s letter, and you’re invited to read it, but we won’t comment on each and every point in the letters discussed here in the LTE Forum. Regarding Oahu’s population growth, the patterns are pretty well understood by now and are the consequence of considerable planning over the past four decades. The city’s General Plan channels significant housing development to the ewa plain and central Oahu and away from east Honolulu, the Windward side and the North Shore – helping to “keep the country country.” The mountains and the ocean also dictate limits on where growth reasonably can occur.

Honolulu’s “inflexible” rail system will be a transportation spine running east-west through our urban corridor. Patrons will use the flexible bus system to reach the stations; others will drive and park there, be dropped off or walk. People do become accustomed to walking as part of their daily commute when a cost-effective, time-saving option like rail is introduced. It happens elsewhere by millions of customers and will happen here, too.

We’ll continue dipping into the newspaper’s letters column here at the LTE Forum. You’re invited to leave a comment on our observations by clicking the "comments" link immediately below.

This post has been added to our "aggregation site" under the new heading LTE Forum.

Rail Opponents Finally Get Their Day in Court, but That Won’t End Their Outside Spinning Campaign

2011-12-01T09:55:00.011-10:00

Plaintiff Cliff Slater (left) and lead attorney Nicholas Yost (right) leave court.

One day down in the lawsuit that’s intended to kill rail, and what we know so far is that final resolution of the case may not happen until next summer at the earliest.

That’s the biggest news to come out of the first hearing in the case – the potential for months of delay and increasing project costs.

Despite that prospect, we also know the city wants to adhere to the project’s sequential timeline. City deputy corporation counsel Gary Takeuchi (at right) stated: “We’re just going to do our best to try to get the project done on time, under budget, and deal with these legal issues as quickly as we can.”

The city’s determination to keep the project moving prompted plaintiffs’ lead attorney Nicholas Yost to threaten more legal maneuvering: “If the city and the FTA are going to plunge ahead and start significant kinds of construction, we will have no alternative but to go in for a preliminary injunction.”

Arguing on the Outside

The judge in the case took under advisement the city’s motion to disqualify some of the plaintiffs for their lack of involvement during years of environmental process. “None of these particular plaintiffs participated at all, and they didn’t raise certain claims that they’re now complaining about in the lawsuit,” said deputy corporate counsel Takeuchi.

Speaking with reporters outside the court building, plaintiff Ben Cayetano (at right) responded: “I’ve written op-eds, and then the city has responded to my op-eds. I’ve said things at press conferences, and the mayor and (Wayne) Yoshioka and all those guys get a little bent out of shape and they make statements. What more notice to you need?”

That’s a strange query by the former governor, who’s an attorney. Does Mr. Cayetano equate newspaper commentaries and press conferences with the formal processes of the Alternatives Analysis and Environmental Impact Statement effort?

Mr. Cayetano may feel comfortable spinning that argument with reporters, but we doubt he’d try it inside the courtroom. In the court of public opinion, Oahu citizens have every right to question the plaintiffs’ motives as they pursue an action that could boost project costs through further delay. (They might also want to ask the former governor and the others to defend their favored alternative to rail, if they have one.)

Shifting Responsibility

In light of who’s actually delaying the rail project with the lawsuit, the most remarkable statement made yesterday came from rail opponent Cliff Slater: “The city is doing everything possible to delay the process, to run up the bill.,” he said. “They sit there with five attorneys.”

That’s typical of Mr. Slater’s tactics throughout his long opposition to mass transit – to disavow the obvious while introducing an irrelevancy. What does the number of city attorneys have to do with anything? One might even conclude that more than five would be reasonable to fight off the Slater-led assault on the most important infrastructure project here of all time. Mr. Slater is more responsible than any other person for the delay in building a viable rapid transit travel alternative in Honolulu. He fought Mayor Frank Fasi’s project 20 years ago with his pro-car, pro-highway agenda, and he’s doing it again.

Why this Lawsuit?

By early 2011, it was clear Mr. Slater’s efforts to block the current rail project were failing. Pro-rail City Council and mayoral candidates had been elected, and pro-rail charter amendments had been passed in 2008 and 2010.

With his efforts gaining no traction as shown also in scientific public opinion surveys, Mr. Slater recruited others to join the lawsuit, which was filed in May. The plaintiff’s pre-trial media campaign began in August with their 1,500-word newspaper op-ed piece that contained nothing new and served only to hype the lawsuit and raise money to hire their California attorney, Mr. Yost.

The so-called Gang of Four (Mr. Slater and his three high-profile recruits) followed the op-ed with a radio show, a public television program and various speaking opportunities. They succeeded in grabbing the spotlight with their dumbed-down and misleading rhetoric; plaintiff Randy Roth’s “shame on the city” explosion on public radio’s “Town Square” program was perhaps the most hyperbolic exclamation of this campaign.

It’s a campaign that no doubt will continue outside the walls of the federal court building. It’s only a matter of time before Mr. Slater floats his familiar assertion that rail is supposed to reduce traffic congestion, and if it doesn’t, why build it? (See rail’s actual goals.)

His continued misstatements about the rpoject and what it will accomplish says a lot about the integrity of Mr. Slater’s campaign and also, unfortunately, about the lost art of reportorial challenge. Just once we’d like to hear a reporter stop Mr. Slater in mid-sentence and challenge him on yet another of his obfuscations about rail.

It’s a style of journalism that once was common in Honolulu under different media leadership, but it probably won’t happen any time soon. It might spoil a good sound bite.

‘New Media’ May Have Its Place, but Don’t Expect To Find ‘Balance’ and ‘Objectivity’ There, too

2011-11-30T14:03:00.011-10:00

We mused yesterday about how different the community’s conversation on Honolulu rail might be if there were a DeeJay on the air to counter the daily anti-rail remarks by a certain morning talk show host. Today we step back to marvel at HawaiiReporter.com and its “reporting” on the Honolulu rail project.

“Journalism” it isn’t – not if your idea of journalism as a craft includes the traditional standards that apply to objective, unbiased reporting. To be sure, some of the website’s content is produced by writers who earned their spurs decades ago working at newspapers, but HR.com’s coverage of the rail project is driven by an anti-rail agenda that shouts from your computer’s screen with each and every post on the project.

Time out: Please see the white-type paragraph in the blue band at the top of this blog. Yes2Rail exists to promote rail, but at least we strive for accuracy when describing rail’s goals, elevated rail’s advantages and the drawbacks of so-called alternatives, like at-grade transit.

Yesterday’s HR.com post on rail was typical of the site’s rail coverage – an anti-rail writer’s summary of the lawsuit filed by several plaintiffs with the intent to stop the rail project. The lawsuit’s first hearing was scheduled for this morning in federal court, and we’ll be summarizing what happened there later today or Thursday.

The 1500-word-plus piece might well serve as a can’t-do-this-in-real-journalism teaching point for high school and college students if balanced, objective journalism is their intended career path. Some examples:

• Flat-Out Inaccuracy: “Ansaldo company officials convinced HART board members to sign the deal when they presented more information on the company’s finances in a closed door meeting and told the city that (it) has contracts for $10 billion worth of transit projects around the world.”

The door to the hall may have been closed, but the HART meeting itself was open to the public and was reported extensively by the Honolulu news media. Calling the meeting “closed-door” implies that the public was excluded and the discussion was a back-room deal. HR.com got it flat wrong.

• Cheerleading: This piece and just about every rail-related post at HR.com is transparently tilted toward and supports the viewpoint of rail opponents. If one paragraph has a rail supporter’s comment, the next five or more will be about the opponents. The top third of Tuesday’s post was a perfect example.

• Stretchy, Sketchy Writing: Some stuff at HR.com simply demands a response or comment. For example, from Tuesday’s post: “The public appears to be passionately spit on the project, with support largely coming from the neighborhoods that believe the rail will alleviate their traffic.”

Is that for sure what those neighborhoods believe? The writer presumes to think she knows – or more precisely, to know what residents of those neighborhoods think. Cliff Slater and HR.com obviously believe rail is being built to reduce congestion – a fundamental misunderstanding of the project’s goals. As we noted in October, traffic will grow over the decades no matter what; building rail or even more highways can’t reduce it in the long run. The people we’ve heard from in neighborhoods along the route appreciate rail for what it will be – a travel alternative that will allow them to completely avoid traffic congestion by providing fast, frequent, reliable and safe travel through the urban core.

About those neighborhoods: OF COURSE they support the project! Conversely, look who opposes it; they’re generally from neighborhoods not directly served by the rail’s route. You hear it from opponents all the time: “I won’t ride it, so why should I support it?” They might consider supporting it because it will greatly benefit other communities on the island – just as building the H-3 freeway benefited windward side residents and Kalanianaole Highway improvements benefited Hawaii Kai residents.

More from Tuesday’s HR.com post: “The opposition alliance speculates rail proponents’ (sic) are ramping up publicity around the project, to include press releases on the newly signed Ansaldo contract and (Senator) Inouye’s announcement, to convince taxpayers and Judge Tashima that the rail project is a done deal.” Really? Supporters think a federal judge will be persuaded by press releases to ignore the evidence presented to him? That’s just nonsense and not atypical of what you find at HR.com.

Finally: “Former Gov. Benjamin Cayetano, a Democrat who served in public office for more than three decades, said the rail project is driven by politics, not sound engineering.” Mr. Cayetano’s opposition to rail seemed to be driven by politics when Mufi Hannemann was the biggest rail supporter as mayor of Honolulu. That was the media buzz whenever Mr. Cayetano spoke up against rail during the former mayor’s tenure.

But more to the point, Mr. Cayetano has said he supports at-grade transit instead of elevated rail – for reasons that appear to be about aesthetics, not engineering. He would be hard-pressed to explain why at-grade rail is superior for anything other than aesthetics; it can’t match elevated rail's fast, frequent, reliable and safe service – all attributes sorely needed by Oahu commuters. HR.com naturally does not challenge Mr. Cayetano’s assertions in this regard.

Other content in the Tuesday post deserves attention, such as the writer’s statement that the Italian-owned consortium selected to build Honolulu rail, Ansaldo Honolulu Joint Venture, is “financially troubled.” The description is overly broad and attributes to the joint venture a condition that is simply not supported by the facts. HART met last Friday to explore this very issue and came to a conclusion that is completely opposite of what HR.com wrote – in a meeting that was open to the media and the public.

Which brings us back to where we began today’s Yes2Rail post. The bottom line: Don’t expect to find fact-based, objective reporting on the Honolulu rail project at Hawaii Reporter. It’s no more in evidence there than it is five mornings a week on that anti-rail radio show.

Top Ironic News of the Day: Traffic-Stuck Drivers Hear Radio Host Blast Signing of Rail Contract; What If Honolulu Had a DeeJay Who Liked Rail?

2011-11-29T09:52:00.007-10:00

What would the tone of the so-called “rail debate” in our community be like if Honolulu had a radio talk show host who supported the Honolulu rail project five mornings a week?

There’d be a certain logic for a radio station to adopt a pro-rail viewpoint during morning drive, especially one that carries traffic reports four or five times an hour.

Honolulu rail will give scores of thousands of drivers complete freedom from traffic tyranny. By being elevated above all surface-street congestion, the system will deliver fast, frequent, reliable and safe transportation to patrons who board anywhere along its 20-mile route.

You have to believe the local buzz would be decidedly different if a Honolulu station provided an outlet for the pent-up frustration commuters feel in their twice-a-day grind along the H-1 freeway and other east-west routes.

Airwave Irony

As it is, the conservative anti-government-spending host on the formerly all-news Honolulu station uses the public airwaves to attack rail day in and day out. Rail opponents, including a handful of high-profile activists, are always welcomed onto his air.

This host does invite pro-rail listeners to call, but few if any ever do thanks to the reception they receive. Personal habits being what they are, rail supporters are more likely to have found another station to entertain them in their daily commutes.

But it does seem ironic for a radio personality to be so dead-set against rail while complaining so much about traffic. Two weeks ago today, as President Obama shut down the freeway to travel from the Ko`olina resort in west Oahu to the Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam for his flight to Australia, the host wailed about the plight of commuters affected by the highway’s closure.

They were caught in “a very difficult situation…. What you’re enduring right now has to be just unbelievable…. We have limited routes to get around. We have the H-1, H-2, H-3, and it all filters into downtown, and you have to get there!”

All his pro-commuter hyperbole doesn’t extend to supporting the rail alternative to traffic, of course. Rail is the costliest government project in the state’s history and therefore must be condemned as a matter of principle.

What If?

We heard more of the host’s anti-rail rhetoric this morning as he reported HART’s signing of a contract with Ansaldo Honolulu JV to provide rail cars, train controls and to operate and maintain Honolulu’s future system. It got us to wondering how listeners would react if a morning drive host supported Honolulu rail consistently and sympathized with commuters’ traffic woes.

Honolulu traffic is among the nation’s worst, according to the Texas Transportation Institute, and it takes a toll on commuters who must deal with it twice a day. Wouldn’t a radio host who both complains about traffic and supports the rail alternative find an audience among those commuters?

Listeners gravitate to programs and hosts with whom they agree – or at least, to hosts who manage to avoid being disagreeable. That’s one way the Perry and Price show has dominated Honolulu radio rankings for nearly three decades – agreeable music, agreeable opinions, agreeable format. (Agreeability isn’t always the winning formula. P&P took over KGMB radio’s morning program after the death of host Hal Lewis – aka "J. Akuhead Pupule." Owner Cec Heftel had made the disagreeable Aku the highest-rated, highest-paid radio host in the nation.)

A station that “played the rail card” might find an audience among long-suffering commuters who look forward to having a rail travel option but find no support for it on a radio dial mostly dominated by conservative talkers -- the exception being (mildly conservative but likeable) Perry and Price.

The rail card play probably isn't going to happen, but it sure would be a refreshing counter-point to the knee-jerk anti-rail opinions we hear Monday through Friday.

Big Week for Honolulu Rail: Federal Lawsuit’s 1st Court Date, plus Likely Ansaldo Contract Signing

2011-11-28T10:17:00.000-10:00

As 2011 winds down into the holiday season, the Honolulu rail project feels like it also is entering a new season, having passed through the planning and evaluation season that produced the Alternatives Analysis and Environmental Impact studies.

A lawsuit filed last May by opponents of Honolulu's grade-separated transit project will finally begin its courtroom phase Wednesday morning before visiting 9th Circuit Judge A. Wallace Tashima.

The defendants (officials of the City and County of Honolulu and Federal Transit Administration) have moved to dismiss some of the plaintiffs from the suit, saying they have no standing or should have pressed their case against rail during earlier phases. The court is expected to rule on some of those issues this week and schedule future proceedings.

The plaintiffs allege violations of federal environmental, historic preservation and transportation laws in Honolulu rail’s planning process. Just speculating here, but if city officials knew every step of the rail project would be under a microscope in court at some future date, wouldn't they have dotted every "i" and crossed every "t" throughout the process?

This lawsuit by long-time transit opponent Cliff Slater and friends was anticipated years ago, and now it’s finally here. The defendants likely will cite precedents and provisions of law that support the city’s actions over the years. We’ll know soon enough whether Honolulu has been cleared to begin the construction season.

Ansaldo Contract

Last Friday’s joint meeting of two Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation committees apparently satisfied their members that the Ansaldo Honolulu joint venture is financially sound.

Ansaldo STS CEO Sergio De Luca met with the committees for nearly three hours, after which HART Interim Executive Director Toru Hamayasu said the city could well sign its contract with the Ansaldo team this week.

Traffic Updates

Preparation work for Honolulu’s biggest project ever continues, and HART’s website is a handy reference for information on streets where work is underway to relocate utilities and trip and relocate trees. HART also maintains a hotline with information and updated work schedules at (808) 566-2299.

HART Panel Quizzes Ansaldo on Firm’s Stability, Finds ‘No Red Flags’ To Block Contract Signing

2011-11-26T10:22:00.003-10:00

Ansaldo executive meets with HART members (Hawaii News Now image).

Board members of the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transit reportedly have had their concerns allayed about the joint venture that was selected to supply cars and train control systems for Honolulu’s rail transit system.

Members of HART’s Finance and Project Oversight committees met jointly yesterday and questioned Sergio De Luca, CEO of Ansaldo STS, who had flown in from Italy for the meeting.

The session was prompted by media stories on the financial losses sustained by Finmeccanica SpA, the parent company of the Ansaldo Honolulu joint venture.

According to Civil Beat (free for occasional visitors), the session covered 10 topics and ended with “no red flags” about the venture’s ability to perform under a $1.4 billion contract with the city.

The Star-Advertiser (subscription) quotes Finance Committee Chair Don Horner as saying the committee was “satisfied that the questions we had have been addressed.” The contract could be signed as early as next week, according to several media stories.

Hawaii News Now’s video report has additional details.

Streetcars Returning to Los Angeles?

Rail transit continues its comeback in America’s leading car-crazy city. Los Angeles officials are evaluating the reintroduction of streetcars onto their old thoroughfares, a move they hope would revitalize the downtown district.

KTTV FOX 11 carried a report earlier this month on how rail transit was once a vital component of the region’s transportation system until the post-war years, when tracks were replaced by concrete for vehicle lanes.

Two disadvantages of at-grade rail transit are obvious in KTTV's archived video footage – its relatively slow speed and the potential for collisions with other vehicles.

Just yesterday, a Metro Blue Line train collided with a car in downtown Los Angeles, resulting in injuries to nine people, including five train passengers. KNX newsradio described the aftermath.

Honolulu’s future rail system will be built elevated above city streets and traffic, making accidents like this one impossible.

Thankful To Still Be Alive on Black Friday; Map Shows Oahu Traffic Death Locations, Including Where Dozens Died While Crossing City Streets

2011-11-25T09:22:00.002-10:00

Each square shows the location of a traffic fatality 2001-2009.

We managed this Thanksgiving to avoid the fate of San Francisco Chronicle sports columnist Scott Ostler. He’s the newest member of the Cornball Hall of Fame (his description) thanks to his what-I’m-thankful-for-on-Thanksgiving column published yesterday. (He didn’t mention it, but he should be especially thankful he’s no longer the sports editor of The Lompoc Record, as he was in the early ‘70s when we both lived in the Flower Seed Capital of the World.)

Maybe we can get a future HOF nomination for expressing thanks to not be shopping on the day after Thanksgiving. For us, the “black” in Black Friday has a dark connotation and nothing to do with the bottom line. Black Friday is now entrenched in the language, along with other “new” phrases and words that weren’t in use all that long ago – like “lede” to describe a news story’s “lead” paragraph, and the ubiquitous “no problem.”

So in keeping with the “dark” symbolism of Black Friday, we’re posting a map showing the location of road fatalities in the USA 2001-2009, along with a Key to the map, at right. Oahu had three hit-and-run incidents less than a week ago, including the fatality of a Hawaii Public University student on the Windward Side. A few days later, another pedestrian was struck while in a crosswalk, this time in Kalihi.

Hawaii leads the nation in the senior pedestrian death rate. In just the past few days while driving through town we’ve seen multiple red-light runners and several failures to yield to pedestrians.

Another phrase now in common use is the can’t-we-all-just-get-along question. Do you suppose we all can be more attentive to traffic laws and each other while driving and walking this holiday season? We all want to be around to express our thanks for being alive in 2012 -- don't we?

Open Letter to Outdoor Circle Members: Some of You Oppose Rail, but Have You Weighed Impacts vs Benefits? Unless Your Life Is Impacted Daily by Congestion, You Can’t Appreciate Traffic’s Costs

2011-11-23T11:14:00.009-10:00

Aloha,

Thank you for your years of support for the generations-long determination to keep billboards out of Hawaii. The Circle’s influence can be seen with every drive we take through town and country, and we’re always pleased when first-time visitors remark on the billboard-free environment that differs so markedly from their hometowns. Your conservation of notable trees is another ongoing campaign that rightly deserves praise.

This letter comes to you as a sincere attempt to encourage a broader view of the Honolulu rail project than what your organization’s leaders seem to have embraced. As you know, the Circle’s leadership has just declared its opposition to the Honolulu rail project. The story in today’s Honolulu Star-Advertiser (subscription) raises issues that are familiar to both rail opponents and supporters alike.

Even those of us who endorse rail recognize that an elevated 20-mile-long rail structure will have impacts. But the newspaper story contains information that suggests areas ripe for further discussion, and it totally ignores the impacts that other construction projects will have on our town that will be far more visible than what rail will impose.

Benefits vs Impacts

Rail supporters disagree with the Circle’s leadership that believes impacts outweigh the benefits that rail will provide to our population. In that regard, it may be worth noting that according to the Circle’s website, your group apparently has no organized representation in Leeward Oahu. Branch Presidents are listed for the North Shore, the Windward Side and East Honolulu but not for the communities on the ewa plain where hundreds of thousands of residents live now or will live decades from now in the one large area on Oahu designated by the county’s General Plan for development – the Second City.

If you don’t experience the morning-and-night commute in traffic congestion that even a prominent anti-rail morning talk show host calls “a very difficult situation” and “unbelievable,” you undoubtedly can’t appreciate what that daily grind is doing to commuters on the H-1 and the surface streets and highways and to their families. Quite obviously, traffic congestion robs them of their most valuable commodity – time. Commuters who reside on the ewa plain and drive to their jobs in town waste dozens of hours each month caught in traffic that they simply cannot avoid. The Lanikai resident who called the morning radio show today almost certainly never ventures into that kind of congestion.

Representatives of leeward communities attended several outreach meetings conducted by the rail project a couple months ago. Residents of Kapolei and Makakilo stood up at the sessions at Kalani High School in East Honolulu, Castle High School in Kaneohe and at other venues in town to tell others about the hours they spend in their cars each day. They said building rail would afford them a travel option. That’s what rail will be for them and anyone else who chooses to ride – an option that will completely avoid all traffic congestion on the H-1 freeway and other thoroughfares in the east-west corridor.

Understanding Rail

Today’s newspaper story contains a quote from your organization’s website that deserves special attention: “The project is destined to become an ugly scar across one of the most beautiful places on earth while there is little evidence that it will bring relief to Oahu’s unacceptable traffic situation.” That quote suggests your leadership does not understand what we’ve just stated in the preceding paragraph – that rail’s first-among-equals goal is to restore mobility to our community by providing an alternative to driving and sitting in traffic. Rail is not a “traffic relief” project; those of you who have actually spent time with project documents know that its goals are about mobility, travel reliability, transportation equity and future development rationality – things Outdoor Circle members presumably care about. And while the website decries the “degradation to neighborhoods” along the rail route, others see opportunities for in-fill development that will enrich those neighborhoods with housing and supportive commercial activities.

Unfortunately, it’s not surprising that some in the Circle have succumbed to misinformation about rail’s goals and rail’s true relationship to traffic – a way to avoid it, not reduce it. Prominent anti-rail activists, including those who want an elevated toll road built instead of elevated rail, have been deliberately confusing the issues and thereby the public for years. It’s a despicable practice that does them no credit, and it’s a shame that the Circle’s leadership seems to have been persuaded that traffic reduction is rail’s goal. That simply is not the case, but as should be obvious, without rail there will be no relief from traffic congestion that’s already horrible and will only worsen as Oahu’s population increases in the decades ahead. If you haven’t spent time understanding rail’s purpose, please take time to do so by acquainting yourself with the project’s website and the many documents posted there.

And to members of the Circle’s leadership, we pose this simple question: If not rail, what? What is their alternative to rail, which exhaustive analysis has found is the only way to provide fast, frequent, reliable and safe transportation through the urban corridor for large numbers of commuters and other travelers and thereby achieve the project’s goals.

About that ‘Scar’

There’s no question that an elevated rail line will have impacts, but they are exaggerated by those with an agenda to oppose rail no matter what and no matter the benefits of building the project. According to an October 27th story in the Star-Advertiser, a proposal to increase the height limit of buildings in Honolulu would allow a 650-foot tower to be built in Kakaako “that would offer spectacular, unobstructed views of the ocean and downtown….” The views truly would be spectacular, but a 650-foot tower would have other impacts on views – the ones this building and the 26 other high-rises currently planned for Kakaako would obstruct.

All this vertical construction begs the question: What about those impacts, and how will they compare with a 30-foot tall structure that will be dwarfed by existing and new buildings? The rail project’s environmental impact statement readily acknowledges rail’s potential to affect the environment, especially when viewed from a short distance, but as distance increases, the elevated guideway’s impact will decrease, too. Adding two dozen high-rise buildings to our cityscape will create view blockages for miles in every direction. Rail’s presence in that environment will be virtually invisible, a fact that we would ask the Outdoor Circle’s membership to weigh against the benefits it will deliver to our community.

Thank you for your attention to these issues, most of which seem to be lost in the misinformation campaign that is influencing the discussion about rail. The bottom line is simple: Nothing will reduce traffic congestion one, three or five decades from now – not as long as families have babies and people are free to move to our state and settle here. With congestion a fact of life, the issue then becomes how we deal with it while providing a fast, frequent, reliable and safe travel option for our citizens. At-grade transit can’t meet those requirements, and neither can a reversible toll road, a so-called “solution” that benefits those who can afford to own a car and pay the tolls, but nobody else. We've posted dozens of entries on these issues here at Yes2Rail, and you're invited to scan through them by clicking on links to their headlines in the right-hand column – below the many photographs of vehicle accidents in cities with at-grade rail transit.

In conclusion, we urge Outdoor Circle members to think beyond your traditional areas of concern and embrace rail for its potential to benefit our community and future residents for decades to come.

This post has been added to our “aggregation site” under the heading Project’s Goals, and more.

Tell It Like It Is: Cliff Slater Campaign To Mislead Oahu Residents on Rail Deserves Rebuke; His ‘Big Lie’ Doesn’t Become 'The Truth’ with Repetition

2011-11-22T10:52:00.011-10:00

What would you think if you knew someone was waging a propaganda campaign in your community built on “the big lie”?

This isn’t a hypothetical question about what the Nazis did a long lifetime ago. It’s happening now in Honolulu.

After posting our Prediction on Sunday, we went to the Internet to get a sense of how viral Cliff Slater’s basic talking point has gone. Mr. Slater’s “big lie” is that the Honolulu rail project is being built to reduce congestion on our streets and highways.

He wants the public to believe traffic reduction is the project’s goal because such a goal is unattainable. Oahu’s population total is expected to be 200,000 higher in 2030 than it was in 2005. The number of vehicles to service that population also will be much higher than today.

If natural population growth will increase congestion after rail is built, Mr. Slater’s reasoning is that rail should not be built if it can’t produce absolute reductions in traffic congestion from current levels. It’s a bizarre proposition, but that’s what he wants you to think. (The project’s actual goals were listened in a January post.)

Say It Again

We first came across Mr. Slater’s dubious assertion about rail's purpose in his video interview with Civil Beat in July 2010:

It was remarkable to hear him use the exact same approach in his presentation to the Rotary Club of Honolulu last month. Mr. Slater wouldn’t repeatedly use this stand-up routine if he thought it weren't effective, and it made us wonder just how far this “big lie” about rail’s purpose has spread.

Here’s a short and incomplete review of Mr. Slater’s “big lie” presence on the Internet in no particular order:

• City Council meeting, July 2010: Mr. Slater used the occasion of a Council hearing on rail to assert his familiar refrain about traffic being worse in the future after rail is built than it is today. The city’s Wayne Yoshioka responded, “No kidding…,” etc. It was probably the best ever put-down of Mr. Slater’s specious talking point. As Mr. Yoshioka noted, the city has never misled the public on traffic issues – something Mr. Slater does routinely.

• “STOP THEIR TRAIN!” newspaper ad, July 2011: The ad solicited funds to support Mr. Slater’s lawsuit that was filed with the intent of killing rail. Using the “big lie,” the ad says the city “admits” that traffic will be worse in the future, which is no admission at all – just a fact.

• “How the city misled the public” Star-Advertiser commentary, August 2011: This 1500-word piece dredged up the past and offered nothing new (our assessment at the time). Civil Beat went to town fact-checking seven statements in the op-ed and found two FALSE , three HALF FALSE (CB called them half truths), and two TRUE . As we noted, one of those allegedly TRUEs deserved a flat-out FALSE . The op-ed piece popped up elsewhere, such as at this Hawaii Political Info site.

• Civil Beat commentary, September 2011: The lawsuit plaintiffs responded to Civil Beat’s fact-checking by complaining the independent online investigative news organization “went to extraordinary lengths trying to convince it readers we were wrong” in their newspaper op-ed piece. The “big lie” is the centerpiece of the Gang of Four’s complaint against Civil Beat. Mr. Slater takes advantage of CB’s comments sections to bang away with his “worse” point, as he did in October and December 2010.

• Pacific Business News editorial, August 2011: With little evidence of independent analysis, PBN’s new editorial leadership bought into Mr. Slater’s same old arguments that had failed to persuade the business weekly’s earlier management team. It ran the “worse-in-the-future” comment first in a list of "highlights."

• Letter to Pacific Business News, October 2008: More of the same re “the city has to admit (but only when pressed)…” that traffic will be worse with rail than it is today. The more we look into it, the more evidence we find that the “big lie” is the centerpiece of Mr. Slater’s campaign against rail.

• Hawaii Reporter, numerous times: This online aggregator of anti-rail opinions is ever ready to publish Mr. Slater’s “worse-in-the-future” talking point, whether signed or unsigned. For examples, go here and here.

• Hawaii Free Press, numerous times: This conservative “aggregator” site is as eager as Hawaii Reporter to publish anti-rail opinions, including the “worse-in-the-future” observation. See here and here, and go to the Grassroots Institute for its own iteration of the “worse-in-the-future” “big lie.”

* * *

You get the picture. By dumbing down his argument before uncritical audiences and using cooperative websites to repeat it, Mr. Slater is waging an anti-rail campaign that abuses the public by confusing the issues. We publicize his tactics with confidence that the more sunlight they receive, the more they’ll wilt.

This post has been added to our “aggregation site” under the heading Mr. Cliff Slater (and Friends).

Prediction: Anti-Railers’ Illogical Messaging on Future Congestion Issue Will Be Their Undoing

2011-11-20T09:46:00.006-10:00

Today’s Star-Advertiser’s main story on page 1 (“Court fight may decide if rail stays on track” – subscription) summarizes the federal court lawsuit that will have its first hearing this month.

The story comprehensively covers the main issues and sets the stage for what’s been expected all along, a court fight that will either validate the opponents’ view of the project or reject it.

The city filed its response to the lawsuit in July, and the federal defendants followed with their own in August. The responses are classic legalese, but Toru Hamayasu, interim executive director of the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation, states the city’s position in plain language in today’s story:

“The notion that alternatives and various technologies were not properly considered is incorrect. We followed a comprehensive process that included several layers of review and analysis, public scoping meetings and comment periods and more.

“…This lawsuit is unfortunate and an unnecessary waste of taxpayers’ dollars for the special interests of a select few. We in Hawaii know all too well how lawsuits can delay and increase costs of worthy projects, so it is our hope that this lawsuit is resolved quickly in the taxpayers’ favor."

Judge A. Wallace Tashima of the U.S.. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco will conduct the lawsuit’s first hearing on November 30.

Bogus Messaging

It’s worth noting that today’s newspaper story accents a continuing message by the lawsuit’s prominent “Gang of Four” plaintiffs – that “the city acknowledges Oahu’s traffic congestion will get worse even with rail.” The story continues with the city’s response to the Gang’s talking point – a response so central to understanding the rail project that it deserves boldface type, not parentheses:

“(The City replies that future traffic congestion would be much worse without rail.)”

We’ve written here repeatedly about anti-railer Cliff Slater’s deliberate mischaracterization of rail as a traffic-reduction project (see our “aggregation post” and nearly three dozen links beneath the Mr. Cliff Slater and Friends heading).

Virtually all of his speeches and essays accentuate the observation that traffic will continue to grow on Oahu after rail is added to the mix of travel options. He wants Oahu citizens to believe rail will be a failure if traffic congestion isn’t reduced by building rail.

It’s a dumbed-down argument that disrespects his audiences’ intelligence. Traffic will increase as the population grows along with the number of vehicles on the island. An estimated 200,000 more people will be living here in 2030 compared to 2005; that’s the inevitable consequence of migration to Oahu and of families having babies.

We sincerely hope the plaintiffs’ attorneys attempt to press this Slater-inspired point sometime during the court case. The city’s attorneys would certainly tear it to bits, ending once and for all this deliberate effort by Mr. Slater and friends to confuse the issues and the public.

As Mr. Slater was forced to admit when cornered in a City Council meeting in July 2010: “We don’t disagree at all that rail will have an effect on reducing traffic congestion from what it might be if we did nothing at all….” Rail's actual goals are certain to be highlighted during the case, and residents might well keep them in mind whenever Mr. Slater attempts to recast them as something else.

This post has been added to our "aggregation site" under the heading Mr. Cliff Slater (and Friends).

HART Delays Ansaldo Contract for Second Look

2011-11-18T06:55:00.002-10:00

New concerns about the financial health of Finmeccanica SpA, the Italian parent company of Honolulu rail’s car supplier, have delayed execution of a contract with Ansaldo Honolulu.

Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal had stories this week on Finmeccanica’s potental sale of its rail car subsidiary, as well as other financial news on the parent company’s losses.

Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation Interim Executive Director Toru Hamayasu said additional due diligence will be conducted on Finmeccanica. Hamayasu told the board, “If the results are favorable, we will execute the contract,” according to Civil Beat’s report on the meeting.

Looking on along with all the other interested observers are executives of Sumitomo, one of the losing bidders in the selection process. Civil Beat quotes Gino Antoniello, Sumitomo vice president:

“The time for questions has expired. What HART needs to do is require Finmeccanica and Ansaldo to provide a real financial guarantee.”

Project supporters, while perhaps frustrated by the delay, are united in wanting rail built on time and on budget. Hawaii has no experience with projects this big and this expensive, so what’s page-one news here may be tucked inside elsewhere as “business as usual.” Regardless of how it’s played, the largest project in the history of the islands must be done right. If that includes a delay now and maybe others later, so be it.

If You Believe Rail’s Goal Is To ‘End Congestion,’ You’ve Been Fooled by the Project’s Opponents

2011-11-17T08:57:00.003-10:00

A tactic used by some of Honolulu’s most visible anti-railers is to misstate the project’s goals and intended outcome, then attack the project because that outcome can’t possibly be achieved by building rail.

They posit something that’s completely absurd – that rail is being built to achieve absolute reductions decades from now in traffic congestion below 2011 levels in the urban corridor on the H-1 freeway, Farrington Highway, Kamehameha Highway, Nimitz Highway and presumably all surface streets.

Since a new rail system can’t possibly do that as the population grows by a couple hundred thousand by 2030, they argue rail will be worthless and a failed project and therefore should not be built. (NOTE: building additional highway lanes doesn’t reduce congestion, either, as demonstrated repeatedly in studies around the country; see our October 25th post.)

This anti-rail tactic is pretty clever when you think about it. For most people, the rail project and most other functions of local government are fringe issues that are “out there” somewhere but not top of mind day in, day out.

Cliff Slater highlights his “gotcha” argument in his anti-rail presentations but ignores entirely rail’s actual project goals, which include improving travel mobility and reliability in our community. There’s nothing in the goals about eliminating congestion in our time or even drastically reducing it to levels far below what commuters experience today.

Misleading the Public

The radio host has been following Mr. Slater’s lead all week – boldly going where no transportation expert or even thinking citizens have gone before. Here’s how he put it yesterday (paraphrasing):

“Rail was supposed to be a transportation issue in the beginning. The initial conclave was called by Governor Linda Lingle, and rail was supposed to alleviate congestion, improve our quality of life and provide relief to those who’ve been forced to sit in traffic.

“This project was supposed to give you a better morning and afternoon drive, but the overriding agenda was never about taking care of you folks out in Waipahu and Kapolei and the ewa plain. They don’t care about your drive or about the hours you spend in traffic.”

Notice how he applies ex-Governor Lingle’s alleged goal – a “transportation issue” of traffic reduction, if that truly was what she had in mind – to Honolulu rail without actually saying what the true goals are.

The host delivers this standard anti-rail line with considerable outrage, either feigned or legitimate. If his outrage is truly legitimate, it’s a reflection of his gullibility in swallowing Mr. Slater’s bogus talking point hook, line and sinker. That can’t be good for someone so prideful about his alleged independence and original thinking,

The Congestion-Free Choice

But he did get something right in yesterday’s rant: The city is building rail to “improve our quality of life and provide relief to those who’ve been forced to sit in traffic” with no option to avoid that congestion.

Riding rail will be that option, and those who find rail’s convenience and economy to their liking will choose to ride and thereby completely avoid the thoroughfare congestion that robs hours from their lives each week. Millions of commuters use traffic-avoiding rail each day all over the planet. We highlighted grade-separated systems in several cities in last Saturday’s post.

So when you hear the radio host, Mr. Slater and other anti-railers blast rail because it won’t reduce traffic congestion below current levels, ask them what would. When they say an elevated reversible-lane highway and/or High Occupancy Toll roads would achieve that pie-in-the-sky outcome, tell them flat-out they’re wrong.

Be ready with facts to confront their outrage at your defiance. Facts are available in abundance, and our October 25th post contains links to useful websites.

Ansaldo Caution; Revenues Up

News stories about the financial viability of Ansaldo Honolulu’s parent company prompted the City Council yesterday to request a delay in approving a contract with the company to supply rail cars for Honolulu’s rail project and operate the system. The Honolulu Star-Advertiser (subscription) has the story today.

Civil Beat (free to occasional visitors) reports that revenues in the first quarter of Fiscal Year 2012 from the rail surcharge that’s funding the local share of the project’s construction cost were $46.4 million, 5.9 percent above the budgeted amount.

With President Out of Town a Few Weeks, Focus Returns to Top Anti-Railer’s Smokescreen Efforts; Rotary Video Edited To Make It Less Offensive

2011-11-16T05:54:00.004-10:00

We reluctantly leave the anti-railers’ upset over APEC-connected traffic jams; there’s just so much irony in their opposition to grade-separated transit, which is the proven way to avoid traffic congestion.

But an equally rich vein to mine is the obfuscation campaign conducted by anti-railers like Cliff Slater. If his HonoluluTraffic.com website has a theme, it’s a determination to divert the visitor’s attention from that central fact by highlighting other issues.

Case in point is the website’s video of the anti-rail presentation to the Rotary Club of Honolulu on October 11 by four plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit intended to kill rail. We attended that presentation and called attention here at Yes2Rail the next day about its shallow content.

Let’s Go to the Tape

Our October 12th post noted Mr. Slater’s familiar routine in making his anti-rail pitches, something we’ve been pointing out since we first saw it on July 12, 2010 in his interview with Civil Beat. Here’s our review of Mr. Slater’s Rotary talk:

“We’ve repeatedly called attention to Mr. Slater’s dumbed-down anti-rail rhetoric because it suggests his campaign has a problem at its core. As he did in July 2010, Mr. Slater yesterday told his audience that rail will cost X billions of dollars to build, then said traffic will be worse in the future after rail is built than it is today – and then he sat down!”

It’s the simplistic nature of his pitch that deserves attention. As we’ve noted innumerable times and as the city also freely acknowledges, of course traffic will be worse in the future than it is today! With a couple hundred thousand more residents by 2030, how could it NOT be worse?

Here’s where Mr. Slater’s Rotary video gets interesting: The video has been edited to insert other material between the “here’s what it will cost” part and the “traffic will be worse” part. See it for yourself.

Mr. Slater begins the essence of his opening remarks at the video’s 3:00 mark. His presentation proceeds as usual for 22 seconds; in his “live” performance he continued on to the “traffic will be worse” bit, then asked for questions without taking any and then sat down.

But not on the video. At 3:23, new material has been inserted – remarks Mr. Slater made later at the Rotary Club meeting after anti-rail pitches by Messrs. Roth, Cayetano and Heen. He uses the 13 inserted seconds to deride the appearance of the rail system’s stations, which he calls “ugly as sin.”

At 3:36, the video jumps back to the original “live” sequence of events: “To cap it off,” says Mr. Slater, “the city admits in the EIS that traffic congestion in the future, with rail, will be worse than it is today. So do you have any questions?”

Embarrassing

The line produced Mr. Slater’s hoped-for response – laughter. As a 20-year Rotarian, we felt a tinge of embarrassment at the time for those who had succumbed to Mr. Slater’s misleading rhetoric.

Traffic congestion growth is normal, natural and expected over time, and reacting to Mr. Slater’s opening gambit as if he had just delivered the coup de gras to the project was – well, embarrassing.

The editing job is telling, too. It tells us that criticism of Mr. Slater’s shallow presentation opening seems to be getting through. If not, why did he find it necessary to edit the Rotary video? Why did he change the sequence of the October 11th presentation from what Rotarians saw that day?

We think the answer is that he, too, now realizes the folly of his dumbed-down illogical conclusion – that rail will fail if traffic continues to increase. What seemed to him to be a good argument in July 2010 has long since started to ring hollow. With just a little thought, citizens are able to see through it.

Mr. Slater still seems capable of fooling some of the people all of the time, like many of the good Rotarians he met last month, but as another American president once famously remarked, you can’t fool all the people all the time.

With Oahu residents consistently giving their majority support to Honolulu rail, Mr. Slater’s ability to fool most people has passed.

Parting APEC Shot: Morning Drive H-1 Shutdown; Radio Host Goes Ballistic over Traffic Congestion, Ignores Future Rail Option that Will Avoid It All

2011-11-15T09:16:00.004-10:00

Honolulu’s only daily newspaper’s top headline on page one today says the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum proved Hawaii is a place to do serious business. Elsewhere, the paper is in “day after” mode with reports on APEC’s impact on the local economy – whether business was up or down, which businesses benefited and which were hurt, and so on.

The broadcast media, however, are still reporting on APEC as if it’s still here, and part of it is. President Barack Obama’s entourage is heading from the west-end resort where he spent the night to Honolulu International Airport during drive time.

The S-A’s website announces “Police close H-1 Freeway for President Obama’s departure.” Honolulu radio stations all are carrying updates from the Traffic Management Center and from callers stuck in the shutdown.

We’ve been listening to the morning talk show host who regularly blasts Honolulu’s elevated rail project. Ironically, he’s been saying things about today’s traffic that we can confidently predict congestion will resemble without a presidential visit in decades ahead.

Drivers are caught in “a very difficult situation,” he says, and then asks whether “there's a better way” that would have avoided the congestion. “What you’re enduring right now has to be just unbelievable,” he says. “We have limited routes to get around. We have the H-1, H-2, H-3, and it all filters into downtown, and you have to get there.”

The Future is Now

A caller complains that he’s at a standstill on the H-3 freeway that brings commuters over the mountains from the windward side. The backup is three or miles long, he says, prompting the radio host to note that traffic’s impact is “unbelievable on the daily lives of all our citizens, and it directly impacts our productivity.”

The host says everybody caught in traffic has an absolute right to be outraged at the President’s insensitivity about the plight of the freeway shutdown on citizens. It’s an ironic statement, since everyday commuters might well feel outrage at the insensitivity of Honolulu rail opponents like the radio host and the plaintiffs on the lawsuit that was filed to kill Honolulu’s future traffic option project – elevated rail.

Everyday commuters along the H-1 freeway and on east-west thoroughfares confront slow-crawl congestion morning and night. That much is obvious to anybody watching late-afternoon TV newscasts that show views from H-1 traffic cameras.

What truly is outrageous is the failure of rail opponents, including the radio host, to suggest a workable alternative to elevated rail that would satisfy the project’s goals of providing fast, frequent, reliable and safe traffic-free transportation through the urban core.

“Gang of Four” plaintiff leader Cliff Slater’s HOT lanes wouldn’t do it; ex-Governor Ben Cayetano’s preference for at-grade rail wouldn’t do it, and as far as we know, former Judge Walter Heen hasn’t suggested an alternative at all.

“We have elevated our politicians and statesmen to a position of celebrity,” the radio host says as he continues his rant against the car caravans that shut down freeway and street access during APEC and again today.

Maybe he’ll never ride Honolulu rail, but those who do will ride an elevated guideway that completely avoids traffic. Drivers might well take some comfort from that reminder if they're caught in freeway shutdowns when the President and his family return to Oahu next month for their annual holiday.

Biggest APEC Take-Away for the Oahu Audience: We Absolutely Want To Go When We Want To Go

2011-11-14T09:22:00.005-10:00

Star-Advertiser's Sunday photo of H-1 gridlock caused by APEC security.

Even considering all the local stories over the past 10 days about high-level trade talks and one unfortunate incident in Waikiki, the biggest news to come out of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum was the traffic.

Local television reports on APEC began with overhead shots of traffic jams and details about travel restrictions that were creating gridlock. Honolulu officials flooded Twitter with cautionary blurbs about when and where not to drive.

Traffic updates were the most important content of radio reports and talk shows, and today, after APEC’s conclusion, a page one story in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser is headlined “Traffic woes continue as global leaders depart.” Even National Public Radio mentioned Oahu drivers’ plight by noting President Obama “thanked the islanders for their Aloha Spirit in the face of mammoth traffic jams.”

APEC proved beyond a doubt that Oahu residents obsess over traffic, and the reason is clear: The ocean and mountain ranges squeeze our streets and highways into a narrow east-west channel. When that channel is blocked repeatedly as it was by APEC security measures, we’re stuck. We don’t have the option, like most mainlanders do, of driving around the “congestion inundation zone.”

Predictability

Can there be any doubt that Oahu residents will embrace elevated rail? We know to a person what we all hate, and that’s the traffic congestion that comes with unusual events like APEC but also what we encounter each day. Given an option to avoid that traffic, we’ll take it.

We’ve been saying it here at Yes2Rail for years: Only grade-separated transit – elevated rail in Honolulu – allows users to know even as their trips begin exactly when they’ll arrive at their destinations.

If you catch a train at the Waipahu Transit Center, you’ll arrive at the Kalihi station in 21 minutes – every time. If you board at the Kapalama station near Honolulu Community College, you’ll arrive at UH West Oahu in 32 minutes – every time. Trips from one end of the line to the other will take 42 minutes – every time and no matter what’s happening on surface roads.

You simply can’t say with certainty how long your drive will take when you set off using streets and highways. Whether it’s a fender-bender, a broken water main, too many cars in too little space or a caravan carrying one of the world’s most powerful leaders, if it’s in your way, you’re stuck and out of luck, as thousands of drivers learned all over again this weekend.

End of Debate

Do the four plaintiffs on a lawsuit that was filed to kill rail really think Honolulu drivers don’t want a grade-separated alternative to that congestion that would save them both time and money? Does anti-railer Cliff Slater, who has fought mass transit for decades, really think a majority of Honolulu residents buy his pro-car propaganda?

The evidence is overwhelming that most Oahu residents support rail. We’ve elected pro-rail candidates and defeated those who would shut down the project. We’ve endorsed charter amendments to include a rail system in our transportation mix and manage its construction, operation and maintenance with a transportation authority. Support for rail in three scientific opinion polls since 2008 averaged 57.6 percent.

APEC was a reminder of how much Oahu drivers loath traffic. We want what we want when we want it, and we want to get where we’re going as quickly as possible. Rail will be that option for many of us if and when the world’s leaders ever return for an APEC summit in our beautiful but traffic-choked mid-Pacific home.

The Next Time APEC Comes to Honolulu, Residents Will Choose — Elevated Rail or Traffic Gridlock

2011-11-12T19:16:00.016-10:00

Nearly all our energy is imported. The state is overwhelmingly dependent on the outside world for its sustenance. The islands are the most isolated and remote inhabited spot on the planet, but this weekend Honolulu can legitimately claim to be a power center.

Presidents of the three most powerful nations on Earth and other regional leaders are here for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, and with that concentration of political power come the security requirements you’d expect.

Social media sites have become dumping zones the past few days for residents upset about street and highway closures – precautions that truly world-class cities take in stride. Honolulu’s good citizens don’t complain about the weather much, but traffic is nearly always on their list of complaints, especially now with more than a dozen heads of state in town.

It struck us that these leaders have something in common besides their moving security bubbles. All of the national capital cities where they reside saw the need long ago to provide their residents a grade-separated transit option.

Travel mobility is a requirement for vital economic development and progress, and grade-separated transit has preserved mobility in our visitors’ hometowns. Honolulu rail will restore mobility through the urban core by the end of this decade, and that’s when we’ll have something in common with the world’s major cities represented this week at APEC.

To those who argue truthfully that these cities are all much larger than Honolulu, we'd suggest this: Honolulu's gridlock – now bad and growing worse – has robbed citizens of their mobility, which can be restored with construction of an alternative mode of transport through the southern urban corridor. Grade-separated rail works for all these larger cities, and it'll work for Honolulu, too.

Calling the Transit Role

Here a roll call of some of APEC's most distinguished visitors and the modern transit system in the city they call home:

President Barack Obama, United States of America

Most visitors to the nation’s capital return to Hawaii raving about the Washington Metro, one of the nation’s busiest rapid transit systems. The Metro has 106 miles of rail connected to 86 stations, half of them serving Federal facilities. The distinctive station design was created by Chicago architect Henry Weese and relies on exposed concrete in repetitive design motifs. Metro rail and the system’s 323 bus routes help visitors move through Washington quickly and easily.

President Hu Jintao, China

The Beijing Subway is the fifth busiest system in the world, with 1.84 billion riders in 2010. The first of the system’s 14 lines opened in 1969, and 209 miles of track today service 172 stations. All but two of the lines were built within the past 10 years to meet the population’s burgeoning demand for mobility, and capacity is still inadequate. The system is aggressively expanding and will have 410 miles of track by 2015 and 620 by 2020.

President Dmitry Medvedev, Russia

The Moscow Metro carried 2.348 billion passengers last year and ranks second only to Tokyo in ridership, with an average of more than 7 million passengers on weekdays. The system opened in 1935 with one line and now has 182 stations along its 187-mile route. The stations often are cited as among the most beautiful in the world. An interesting feature is how the system announces the next station; a male voice is used when traveling toward the city’s center, and a female voice when going away from it.

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, Japan

The Tokyo Subway reigns supreme at the top of the annual ridership list, with 3.161 billion passenger trips in 2010. The Tokyo Metro and Toei networks carry a combined average of more than 8 million passengers each day. The Japanese are heavily reliant on rail transportation, and despite the subway system’s ridership, it represents only 22 percent of Tokyo’s 40 million daily rail passengers. Hawaii’s visitors to Japan invariably come home with praise for the city’s rail network.

President Benigno Aquino III, The Philippines

Many in Honolulu’s sizable and growing Filipino community are familiar with Manila’s Light Rail Transit System. Its 19 miles of track connecting 31 stations are mostly elevated, as Honolulu’s rail system will be. The system carries around 200 million passengers annually on its two lines. The Yellow Line opened in 1984 and travels on a north-south route; the Purple Line was completed in 2004 and runs east-west. A reusable plastic magnetic ticketing system has replaced the previous token-based system.

President Lee Myung-bak, South Korea

The Seoul Metropolitan Subway ranks third in the world in passenger trips, with 2.048 billion in 2009, an average of more than 8 million daily trips on the system’s 13 lines. More than 70 percent of the total metro track length is underground, and according to Wikipedia, many of the system’s stations are equipped with platform screen doors, which provide a barrier between station platforms and the tracks. Honolulu’s system will be similarly equipped.

Former Vice President Lien Chan, Taiwan

The Taipei Metro serves the metropolitan Taipei region with 89 stations and 63 miles of track. The system carried an average of more than 1.6 million passengers each day last year, and according to Wikipedia, “has been effective in relieving some of Taipei’s traffic congestion problems,” which is what Honolulu’s elevated system will do on Oahu. Trains operate with headways (time between trains) of as little as 90 seconds.

President Sebastian Pinera, Chile

Metro de Santiago is South America’s second longest metro system (after Mexico City) with more than 60 miles of track, mostly underground, and 82 stations. The system carried 621 million passengers last year. The first line was opened in 1975, and new lines are projected to be in operation by 2014 to keep pace with Santiago’s growing transit needs.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Canada

Canada’s capital city of Ottowa is just now building its light rail system, but other Canadian cities have long experience with their rail transit systems. Montreal’s Metro is a rubber-tired system and is grade-separated as a subway. The Metro was inaugurated in 1966 and is Canada’s largest system with 68 stations and 43 miles of track. Toronto’s system was launched in 1954 with 12 stations on its underground line.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, Singapore

The city-state’s Mass Rapid Transit or MRT forms the backbone of Singapore’s railway system. It opened in 1987 and is Southeast Asia’s second-oldest metro system after Manila. The system has 89 stations on its network and in 2010 carried an average of more than 2 million passengers each day. Except for one at-grade station, the entire MRT is elevated or underground. The system has steadily expanded in response to public support for more service.

President Felipe Calderon, Mexico

Mr. Calderon withdrew from the APEC forum after the helicopter crash that killed members of his government last week. His capital city’s transit system, the Mexico City Metro, carried nearly 1.5 billion passengers in 2008, which places it eighth on the world’s highest ridership list. The first Metro line opened in 1969, and the system now has 11 lines with 280 miles of track and 163 stations – 106 underground, 53 at ground level and 16 elevated. Each station was given a distinctive logo when the system was launched to help riders identify their station due to the widespread illiteracy at the time. That purpose is no longer required, but logos have persisted as a feature largely unique to Mexico City’s system.

Those are just a few of the dozens of world-class cities with rail transit systems that transport millions of commuters and other passengers each day. A global list would include the famed systems of Europe, Africa, South Asia, North and South America – in other words, just about everywhere. Honolulu will join the list in less than a decade.

Travel-Wise Military Personnel and Veterans Will Likely Be Appreciative and Frequent Rail Riders

2011-11-11T09:49:00.005-10:00

We’ll pair some facts with a few assumptions and come to a conclusion on this Veterans Day. The “facts” are from a variety of sources that sometimes don’t agree, but they’re a starting point. (Try your luck in searching for them if you like.)

A friend with solid Veterans Administration credentials says 116,210 veterans were living in Hawaii in 2009, with 85,482 of them on Oahu. The Census Bureau found a higher number in 2010 – 11.4 percent of the state’s total population, or about 155,000 vets statewide. The majority presumably is on Oahu.

The State’s Data Book said active duty military personnel totaled 37,527 in Hawaii on July 1, 2009, with nearly all of them on Oahu. A 2008 survey located more than 50,000 military dependents on the island.

Counting them all up somewhat conservatively, there would appear to be upwards of 200,000 people living on Oahu with some connection to the military – active duty personnel and their dependents or veterans. That latter’s dependents aren’t in that aggregate, so when they’re added, we probably have close to a quarter million Oahu residents with an up-close and personal connection with the military.

Our conclusion is that as a group, these folks have traveled more and have experienced more of the world than those without a military connection. It’s the consequence of active-duty life – pulling up temporary roots for a new assignment elsewhere in the USA or around the globe.

Personnel with two- or three-year assignments abroad often embrace the experience of living like a local – enjoying the cuisine and traveling about on trams and trains. Sailors putting into world-class port cities see the sights using transportation that’s available – buses, subways, streetcars, high-speed trains, whatever.

Bringing it back to Honolulu rail, a sizeable percentage of Oahu residents already are conditioned to using public transit – presumably more so than residents without a military connection. If anything, the military’s presence in Hawaii is expected to be higher by the time the city’s elevated system is up and running around the turn of the next decade.

We doubt that few if any of the “Oahu people won’t ride rail” letters to the editor are from military personnel and veterans. They know better because they’ve traveled more, have seen more and experienced more travel options than the typical resident.

This isn’t to say the non-militarily connected among us won’t embrace rail, too. People start riding and give up driving – even if only occasionally – when public transit offers them cost and convenience advantages.

Honolulu’s future trains won’t know a veteran from a dependent from an active-duty service member from a civilian. The “All Aboard!” welcome will apply to everyone, as does Happy Veterans Day!

With Growth our Century's Operative Principle, ‘Aroundward’ Joins Upward, Outward as Option

2011-11-10T10:06:00.005-10:00

Aloha Tower (foreground) was Hawaii's tallest building 50 years ago.

We weren’t living here in the 1950s when the H-1 freeway was being planned and discussed, but we’re pretty sure there was plenty of opposition to this thoroughfare, without which driving through Honolulu today would be unthinkable.

We can imagine some freeway opponents arguing that Honolulu should either build the freeway or improve surface streets, but not both.

Both obviously were necessary to accommodate the travel needs of Oahu’s growing population. Doing one but not the other was not an option, and those who could foresee the future’s requirements won that argument.

Oahu population growth is an acknowledged fact of life in the 21st century, just as it was in the 20th, and Star-Advertiser columnist Cynthia Oi’s “Under the Sun” column (subscription required) today has her perspective on how and where it should happen.

Ms. Oi flatly declares there should be only one direction for Oahu’s future growth; it should be either upward in taller buildings or outward in suburbia.

Her principle focus is Governor Abercrombie’s recent proposal to raise Honolulu’s height limit to 650 feet. The Governor reasons that significantly taller buildings in urban Honolulu would include a mix of both luxury and affordable housing, with the latter available for Honolulu’s so-called “work force.”

Limiting the Options

Ms. Oi argues that planners need to decide whether to build upward with high-rises or outward in a continuation of the pattern of the past half-century. She concludes, “They can’t have both.”

Reading between the lines, we detect Ms. Oi’s familiar anti-rail sentiments that go back at least five years (see her “Under the Sun” column on 12/13/06). The inference we draw from today’s piece is that if future growth is channeled into town, it won’t be necessary to build Honolulu rail to support growth in the Second City on the ewa plain.

This either-or approach to planning Oahu’s future seems as far-fetched as the earlier one would have been to either build freeways or improve surface streets, but not both. We know the Second City is on the planning map. We know people will continue to drive their cars. We know there will always be pressure to provide homes where 50 years of planning says they should be – in ewa.

We also know building housing in town makes sense. It lessens the need to drive and add to the congestion on streets and highways. “They can’t have both” just doesn’t ring true in a century that is only 11 years old.

The Third Option

Both are going to happen, but there's a third option that will be an important component of the Honolulu rail project. The “aroundward” option in our headline is about creating housing and commercial opportunities around the system’s 21 rail stations.

Transit-oriented development (TOD) is one of the project’s goals. It's going to happen in urban Honolulu with new high-rise buildings and along rail's 20-mile route linking Ala Moana with Kapolei out west.

Fifty years ago, the tallest structure in Hawaii (aside from broadcast towers) was 10-story Aloha Tower on the Honolulu waterfront – all 184 feet of it. We can imagine more than a few voices being raised in opposition to the first building that would exceed the Tower's height.

Predictions made in 2011 about where people will be living on Oahu 50 years from now will be accurate only if they embrace the obvious possibilities – upward (27 high-rises already are planned for Kakaako), outward to areas already designated for growth and around Honolulu rail’s stations.

Ariyoshi: ‘…I Can No Longer Remain Silent…’ ‘…Rail Options Are Important…’ ‘…the City and HART Have Left No Stone Unturned…’

2011-11-09T06:13:00.008-10:00

It’s good to read in the morning newspaper that former Governor George Ariyoshi is a strong supporter of the Honolulu rail project. That’s certainly a proper inference from the above headline, but unfortunately, the headline doesn’t accurately summarize Mr. Ariyoshi’s commentary in today’s Star-Advertiser (subscription). It’s only how a movie blurb writer might summarize it.

Movie ads are notorious for using only a few words from a movie review to create a short but entirely erroneous impression – always positive. For example, a review might say “John Travolta’s character is back in ‘Be Cool,’ and although Travolta is as smooth as ever, the picture is a bust….” An actual movie blurb said “…Travolta is as smooth as ever…”

All the words in our headline today were lifted exactly as quoted from Governor Ariyoshi’s commentary in today’s newspaper. Our “movie-blurbing” was done to make a point: It’s important to read Mr. Ariyoshi’s piece with care and discernment.

Despite the commentary’s cautionary message, rail supporters might take heart from what he revealed in the first paragraph – that he declined to become a plaintiff in the lawsuit filed by another former governor, Ben Cayetano, along with anti-railer-in-chief Cliff Slater.

Staying in Touch

Mr. Ariyoshi has been a constant voice for temperance and careful planning since leaving office a quarter century ago. His latest commentary is another in a long series of messages to the public about how he believes Hawaii must proceed with education, business, environmental protection and numerous other issues.

If he considered but declined to join a lawsuit that was filed with the intent to kill rail, that’s good to know and something positive for rail supporters to take from this commentary. Mr. Ariyoshi’s political theme in his day was “Quiet and Effective.” Joining in the lawsuit would not have fit that image. He is not urging that contracts be tossed out and the project start all over again:

“…the public has every right to expect that the City and HART have left no stone unturned to ensure that the right, the best decision is made so that taxpayers’ dollars are spent wisely. The public has a right to expect the City and HART to take every precaution to ensure that rail does not just get started, but that it is completed on time and on budget.”

That’s a reasonable cautionary note – something with which officials charged with executing the rail project undoubtedly agree.

They probably would not agree with the implication in Mr. Ariyoshi’s closing paragraphs – that it’s necessary to “take another close look at the options” that already were thoroughly vetted. HART officials so far seem satisfied that winning bidder Ansaldo is qualified and equipped to deliver on its contract and that elevated rail is the only option that will deliver fast, frequent, reliable and safe transportation through the urban core.

We suspect Governor Ariyoshi will continue to watch over the rail project from a distance, and as an attorney, will respect the outcome of the legal challenges to the rail project and its component parts.

He didn’t become “Mister Quiet and Effective” by throwing bombs.