One City’s Experience with At-Grade Rail Safety: Salt Lake City’s Search for Answers to At-Grade Crashes Deserves More than a Passing Glance; Bicyclist Dies There Today in Yet Another Incident

A truism in the blogosphere is that readership falls off sharply on weekends. If you have something truly significant worth sharing, it’s best to hold off for a weekday.

We violated that “rule” on Saturday because of timeliness. Salt Lake City’s at-grade TRAX rail system had experienced yet another accident earlier in the week, so we devoted Saturday’s blog to a review of TRAX’s safety record. Most of you missed it.

The safety issue has been virtually ignored by opponents of Honolulu’s future elevated rail system as they urge construction of an at-grade system. “We support rail transit,” they insist, “just not this project.” Former governors Lingle and Cayetano, a few outspoken architects and some environmentalists have taken pains to distance their support for rail transit from Honolulu’s elevated system.

Rail supporters find themselves hard-pressed to defend an elevated guideway against the indisputable fact that it will have visual impacts. There’s no denying them, but that’s not where the debate should end.

It can’t end until opponents are asked to defend the proposition that view planes are more important that human safety. That’s where the at-grade vs. elevated discussion must inevitably lead – and that’s why we’re returning on a weekday to the subject of Saturday’s post.

“It’s the Safety, Stupid!”

James Carville coined his catch phrase during the successful Clinton campaign 20 years ago to focus workers on the campaign's critical issue. “It’s the economy, stupid” was his way of reminding them that the nation’s economic recession was more important than the short-lived military success the incumbent had enjoyed thousands of miles from home.

Each year, scores of people are injured and some of them die from accidents involving at-grade transit systems. The deaths include pedestrians who unwittingly walk into the path of an onrushing train or stumble from a platform onto the tracks. Others are vehicle drivers and passengers who have ignored flashing lights, warning bells and crossing gates at rail intersections.

Today’s Death

Salt Lake City's experience with at-grade rail transit is a wake-up call for Honolulu residents. Another person was struck and killed by a TRAX train there today. According to a witness (see TV video), a bicyclist had just exited a train after realizing he was headed in the wrong direction. He got off and was hit almost immediately, perhaps while waiting to catch the train that killed him.

Dozens of comments were posted on media websites within an hour of the latest incident:
• “How is this still happening? You’d think as it’s been in the news so much people would learn to LOOK for these trains….”
• “That’s the whole point. These are trains. (TRAX) needs to put out safety comments on their commercials that this mode of transportation is a TRAIN….”
• “…It’s unbelievable how many train accidents have happened recently. Please be careful when you are near those tracks.”
• “…I do not understand why so many people are getting hit and/or killed. It is not as if TRAX trains or trains are new in our world!”
• “…”What is with people though? Did it really come out of nowhere, with no warning? I feel terrible for the family, but I just know there are going to be a bunch of nay sayers that want TRAX gone. It’s here and not going anywhere anytime soon. People need to give more respect to these fast-moving trains. It is people’s fault, not the TRAX fault, sadly.”

• “TRAX is a joke. How many people are being killed or injured by this line every week!!?”

• “TRAX is not a joke. We people are the joke. We the people do stupid things. They are called accidents, but we people caused them. TRAX is on rails. People are not on rails. That is no joke.”

• “…If any public projects became accident- or idiot-proof, nothing would ever be built.”

• “…This is another tragedy that could have been prevented….”

You get the picture. Utah residents are anguished by yet another fatality involving their transit system and the result of another human’s error in judgment – crossing when he shouldn’t have, not paying attention, standing too close to the platform’s edge, whatever.

Today’s death of course could have been avoided, and so could all of 2011’s crashes, injuries and fatalities there and elsewhere. This brings us back to Honolulu’s future transit system and the call by some to build it at ground level.

They need to be confronted by the at-grade accident experience and asked how they can possibly be serious about running rail tracks and trains through a city with one of the nation’s oldest populations. According to one ranking, Honolulu is #56 in that category, but that includes 22 higher-ranked communities in Florida and Arizona, which are famously home to increasing numbers of elderly “snowbirds.” Honolulu appears to be the largest city on that list, by far.

Since some, including the local architect chapter, propose running tracks through Chinatown on Hotel Street, ask them how they will protect the elderly and other pedestrians there. Trains traveling even 30 miles an hour in that configuration would be unthinkable, so ask them how they propose to provide fast, frequent and reliable public transit service with their slow-moving at-grade trains – characteristics that Honolulu’s future system must possess if it’s to become an attractive alternative to our growing congestion problem.

Building at-grade transit here just doesn’t add up. Honolulu’s elevated trains won’t run into pedestrians, bikers, cars, trucks or buses. Trains will travel above crowded streets in the urban corridor at speeds above 55 miles per hour – impossible for trains operating in Honolulu’s surface maze.

The elevated trails will be automated, so intervals between trains during rush hour will be only three minutes – also impossible for at-grade trains with humans at the controls. Stations will be equipped with platform screen barriers to prevent accidental or intentional falls/pushes onto the tracks.

Yes, the elevated guideway will produce some visual impact. So? As “mom of five’ wrote at KSL.com, “What is the price of a life? There are too many deaths to try to make any other excuse except that there is something fundamentally wrong with the system.”

What’s wrong with TRAX is that it’s at ground level. Honolulu won’t make that same mistake when it builds elevated rail.

At-grade TRAX system claimed another victim today.

SLC Media Cite Numerous Light Rail Accidents, Report on At-Grade Deaths across the Country

Aftermath of Monday's at-grade rail transit crash in Salt Lake City.

We’re not making this stuff up – the notion that at-grade rail transit has an inherent risk of accidents, injury and death. That’s why our “fast, frequent, reliable and safe” description of Honolulu’s future elevated rail system can’t be applied to surface transit – the kind preferred by former Governor Ben Cayetano and some local architects.

At-grade trains are routinely involved in accidents. Salt Lake City’s TRAX system had four in October alone, the same once-a-week rate that Phoenix’s at-grade trains racked up in its first year of service – 52 crashes in 52 weeks.

On this past Monday, a TRAX train slammed into a tow truck (TV station video here), seriously injuring the driver after he bypassed lowered crossing gates and drove into the train’s path. Yes, bad thinking (aka human error) is the cause of virtually all of these at-grade train accidents.

All the at-grade crashes shown in the photos in our right-hand column were caused by human error – drivers ignoring crossing barriers, drivers turning into the path of the train, bus drivers running red lights, pedestrians using bad judgment. Take your pick; it happens all the time in cities that for whatever reason built a rail transit system at ground level.

Making Comparisons

Salt Lake City’s Deseret News looked into the TRAX system’s accident record to compare it with other systems around the country after a spate of TRAX accidents, including pedestrian fatalities in June and August. It’s sobering reading, and we’d make it required reading for at-grade transit advocates in Honolulu if we could.

Since that’s not in the cards, maybe just looking at the photographs we’ve posted at the bottom of today’s Yes2Rail post will be enough to drive home the message that while at-grade transit doesn’t impact view planes, it does impact lives and property in devastating and irreversible ways.

Following Monday’s crash, The Deseret News wanted to know how the local system compares with other light-rail systems nationwide. The newspaper randomly selected systems of approximately the same length as TRAX had in 2007-10 before it added to the system – about 22 miles of track. The tables at right summarize the results. Salt Lake City ranks high in both TRAX’s number of accidents and fatalities. Transit officials have noted factors that make the city’s system “unique,” a claim that is probably made by all cities with at-grade systems.

Pedestrian Risk

TRAX spokesperon Gerry Carpenter said 2011 has been unusual in that six of the system’s incidents have involved pedestrians. From The Deseret News story: “There’s definitely an element of personal responsibility,” Carpenter said. “(Trains) are big, they can’t stop quickly and they can’t swerve.”

Carpenter urged pedestrians to walk defensively by not wearing headphones or text on their mobile phones while near train tracks. “We do recognize we have a responsibility to make our system safe,” he said. “We need to make our crossings safe. We want to improve our standards to protect pedestrians.”

Honolulu’s elevated systems will have no crosswalks, no cross streets, no possibility of running into cars, trucks and buses, and no possibility of being broad-sided by a red-light-running vehicle. Honolulu’s system will even have platform safety screens and doors in its stations that will prevent accidental falls onto the tracks.

With no possibility to interact with vehicles and pedestrians along its 20-mile route, Honolulu rail promises to be one of the safest systems anywhere in the world. Critics who seem consumed by the view-plane issue might well think through the consequences of what they're proposing – trains running at ground level through Chinatown and other Oahu neighborhoods.

So here’s the graphic evidence of just one city’s experience with at-grade rail transit. Honolulu’s news media would be capturing similar scenes if our fast, frequent, reliable and safe elevated rail system were instead built at ground level. Thankfully, that won't happen.

March 11, 2010 -- The Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office investigates a fatal TRAX train, car accident near 4100 South and 200 West in SLC (credit all photos, The Deseret News)

July 29, 2009 -- Two men were hit by a TRAX train at the Library Square stop in SLC.

October 31, 2008 -- A TRAX train passes by the scene where an accident between a separate TRAX train and the pictured automobile happened a short time before.

December 2, 2008 -- SLC police investigate a TRAX train and auto accident.

April 18, 2007 -- The automobile that collided with a TRAX train sits on Main Street.

May 17, 2007 -- TRAX and automobile accident at 500 South 1100 East in SLC.

Audiences Agree: Anti-Rail Argument Falls Flat with Only a Little Thought about Future Growth

All aboard the anti-rail train -- Zimmerman, Slater and Heen.

There’s nothing quite as comforting to a public speaker as an agreeable audience. Nodding heads beat arms-crossed frowning any day (as long as they’re not nodding off), so that’s why we begin presentations asking audiences for their agreement on three observations.

Number One: Oahu’s population will continue to grow in the decades ahead. No laws will be passed to prohibit migration to Hawaii from the mainland and elsewhere. The Aloha State can expect new arrivals for the foreseeable future.

Number Two: The number of cars on Oahu will continue to grow with the population. Former State Director of Transportation E. Alvey Wright once floated the idea of limiting the number of cars a family could register. It died a quick death. The car dealer lobby on Oahu is anti-rail, but it really was anti-Wright.

Number Three: Young people will continue to marry or otherwise hook up, and babies will be born. Heads nod vigorously to that one, since more babies means more grandchildren – always important to many in our audiences.

More + More = More

Everyone by now is in agreement, and that’s good, because our next point builds on the first three: Traffic congestion on Oahu will be worse in the future than it is today. Nobody in any of the audiences where we’ve spoken disagrees with that notion. It’s not just a probability; it’s a fact that’s easily understood by everybody!

This all is a lead-in to the next portion of our talks about Honolulu rail, and it’s the same point we’ve been making month after month: Anti-railer Cliff Slater likes to tell his audiences, as he did three weeks ago at the Rotary Club of Honolulu, that “traffic congestion with rail in the future will be worse than it is today,” and then he sat down! That was it – his meat-and-potatoes smack-down of rail that’s nothing more than what our audiences appreciate without any visible effort whatsoever.

The difference is that Mr. Slater and his supporters try to use future traffic growth as if it’s a reason to kill the rail project. It’s totally ludicrous to argue rail will fail if traffic increases, but….

Unabated Ludicrousness

It’s fairly amazing that anti-railers continue to use that argument – to our advantage, we might add. Hawaii Reporter posted a new 30-minute interview to YouTube this week of HR’s Malia Zimmerman’s interview with Mr. Slater and Walter Heen, a fellow plaintiff on a lawsuit that hopes to kill rail.

Mr. Heen: “You know, the bottom line – and I’m surprised (Slater) hasn’t pointed this out yet – is that the city says, ‘Traffic will get worse, even with the rail.’ So what are we doing with the rail system if traffic’s gonna get worse?”

Anti-rail Ms. Zimmerman: “The other night you both were at a neighborhood board meeting with Council member Stanley Chang, and he got up and, as you say, he danced around, but he actually did in the end say, ‘Well, yes. We know this isn’t going to improve traffic.” He had to admit that, and he’s one of the rail supporters.”

“He had to admit that…” Council member Chang had to admit what our audiences also "admit" – the obvious.  But here are a couple things rail opponents like Mr. Slater and Mr. Heen only reluctantly if ever admit and only if they're under pressure:

Traffic will be worse in the future without rail than with it. Rail will reduce the daily number of car trips by 40,000 and produce an 18-percent reduction in vehicle hours of delay in the urban corridor by 2030. Mr. Slater had to admit the truth of rail’s contribution to reducing traffic after being boxed in at a City Council meeting in July 2010.

The second thing rail opponents hate to discuss: Commuters will completely avoid traffic congestion by taking the elevated train.

The audiences we’ve met listen pretty carefully to rail presentations, and we can only hope they do the same with opponents. Better yet, they could watch the opponents’ videos and decide which side sticks to the facts in this protracted rail discussion and which side confuses them.

City Council Kills Anti-Rail Charter Amendment; Opponents Hint They’ll Fight for a Vote on Rail; White House Says Infrastructure Investment Is Key to Economic Recovery, Community Growth

Yesterday’s City Council 7-2 vote to reject a proposed City Charter amendment on its first reading was an example of representative government in action. Seven Council members who’ve sat through innumerable hours of testimony and briefings wasted no time in killing a proposal that had a goal of blocking Honolulu’s steel-on-steel fixed guideway project.

The vote didn’t sit well with the morning radio talker, who (unconsciously?) minimized the defeat by repeatedly calling it a 5-to-2 vote – minimizing the impact of a 77-percent Council majority beat-down to 55 percent.

The Star-Advertiser’s story (subscription) reported on Council members’ rationale for their unusual defeat of a measure on its First Reading. Transportation Committee Chair Breene Harimoto: “We can no longer afford to be divisive, we can no longer afford to just prolong the agony of revisiting over and over and over past decisions.”

Civil Beat blogged yesterday from the Council meeting a concern of Council member Ikaika Anderson “that such a charter amendment would result in the federal government demanding all of its funding returned.”

No Deviation

That’s of no concern to the radio talker, who hasn’t deviated from his anti-rail campaign throughout the project’s life – including the span of time when three scientific opinion surveys of Oahu residents revealed an average of 57.6 percent support for rail.

The radio host ironically said something that’s true about Honolulu rail (paraphrasing): “Rail proponents who believe rail will alleviate traffic need to know it won’t! Reducing traffic is not a component of this project.”

We agree; traffic reduction is not one of the project’s four main goals. What the radio talker never ever mentions is what the project will provide – an alternative form of transportation through the urban core that completely avoids congestion.

Anti-railer-in-chief Cliff Slater also avoids that point altogether, and in that respect, the radio host and Mr. Slater are in complete agreement.

What They Really Want

They both want a traffic-reduction project (as if that’ll ever happen with a growing population), not a mass transit project – and that’s perfectly OK for them to want that. We all want things that either are attainable or just wishes.

Through representative government, Oahu residents put grade-separated rail on their attainable list and made that clear with their votes in 2008 and 2010 – when they approved steel-on-steel rail, when they created the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation and when they elected pro-rail politicians and defeated anti-rail candidates.

Since Mr. Slater and the radio host yearn for traffic reduction and not traffic avoidance, they might want to propose such a project and run it up the proverbial flagpole to see if anybody salutes. Our guess is they’d find lots of agreement about wanting to reduce congestion, which has become intolerable for hundreds of thousands of drivers who contend with it daily.

But saluting isn’t enough. Getting a project built that actually accomplishes their goal is the tough part – and as we noted last month, congestion simply doesn’t go away when new highways are built or existing ones are widened. Building more highway lanes results in more congestion, and that’s just the way it is, as metro areas across the country have experienced.

Without a Clue

Ending congestion in our time, which is what these two particular anti-railers and many of their supporters illogically think is possible, is not an attainable goal unless we also limit car imports, immigration and baby making. They’re not advocating any of those, so how exactly do they propose Oahu residents avoid congestion?

They don’t have a clue, but that doesn’t mean they’ll stop trying to kill rail. The host today ended his commentary on yesterday’s City Council vote with his call to arms – an appeal to residents to put rail on next year’s ballot:

"You can mobilize over the next year and garner signatures and submit them to the county, and with initiative you can get this question on the ballot. Did you know that? If these five (sic) other Council members who believe they supercede your voice, who believe they have the knowledge to make this decision, and believe evidently that you should not go through the agony of a $6 billion commitment that they are making on your behalf without a vote...it is astounding, the height of ignorance. And it's ultimately all about you."

So there you have it – an unmistakable indication that the anti-rail movement led by a minority of citizens is determined to carry on this fight by attempting to put rail on the November 2012 ballot. And if it comes to that, they'll lose that vote but undoubtedly continue plotting against rail. Get used to it; that also is just the way it is.

Around the Web

Yes2Rail will continue to highlight the pro-rail norm and other transit-related news in cities across the USA. The White House yesterday released a report titled “Recent Examples of the Economic Benefits from Investing in Infrastructure.”

You may have seen the President on network news yesterday making the case for his infrastructure spending proposals as he stood in front of the Key Bridge in Washington, DC, one of thousands of structures across the country that require upgrading.

Although Honolulu rail is a mobility project, job creation certainly is an important part of the whole effort. From the White House report:

“A large body of economic research has shown that investments in transportation infrastructure can have a substantial positive impact on the long-run performance of an economy. Investments that create, maintain, or expand transportation networks are likely to promote improved economic efficiency, higher productivity, and more rapid growth of economic activity.”

Go Giants!

This wasn’t the Giants' year, but last year was. We noted a year ago today that San Francisco’s BART system set a new all-time record for passenger numbers as San Francisco Giants fans flooded the system on their way to and from the team’s World Series victory parade. It was St. Louis’s turn this year. Nearly 87,000 passengers rode the city’s MetroLink system on Friday, including the happy Cardinals fans below who enjoyed Game 7 of the 2011 World Series. Another 79,905 rode on Sunday for the Cardinals parade and the Rams game, prompting MetroLink folks to gush: “That means on Friday, MetrtoLink carried more people than those who live in Chesterfield, Hazelwood, and Bridgeton combined. Wow!” We don’t know those fields from the woods, but we’re envious of MetroLink and its passengers who already are enjoying the joys of congestion-free travel in their urban community.

Anti-Rail Charter Amendment Fails 1st Reading; Unmistakable Sign of City Council’s Rail Support

The Honolulu City Council today went down the road less traveled – the one that leads to defeat of a resolution on First Reading.

Summarily killing off a fellow Council member’s initiative at its first hearing is unusual and has occurred only a couple times in the past dozen years or so, according to veteran Council observers. Measures almost always receive “courtesy” support on the First Reading vote that sends bills and resolutions to the subject matter committee.

Not today. Council Member Tom Berg’s amendment to the City Charter would have prohibited the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation “from developing, operating, maintaining, and expanding a fixed guideway system that includes ‘steel wheel on steel rail’ technology.”

The key phrase is “steel wheel on steel rail.” That’s the very same technology contained in the 2008 Charter amendment that Oahu voters approved. Mr. Berg’s amendment would have stricken that technology from HART’s work product. I.E., HART would have still been authorized to build and operate a fixed guideway – just not a steel one.

Civil Beat’s brief story this afternoon (not later expanded, far as we can tell; the Star-Bulletin has a long one, but it requires a subscription) reports that only one member among the nine-member Council joined Mr. Berg in supporting his resolution. Passage would have required six votes.

Chair Ernie Martin and Vice Chair Ikaika Anderson both raised the alarm, writes CB, that the Federal Transit Administration would have been highly displeased with such a dramatic reversal of Council policy and might have even demanded the return of federal money already received by the city.

You can learn quite a bit about Mr. Berg’s rail technology views from a Hawaii Reporter video interview that was posted just yesterday at YouTube. We’ve added a link to that video at our “aggregation site” with the firm belief that the more Oahu residents hear from rail opponents, the better Honolulu’s rail project looks.

When you view the video, be alert for statements by the guest and the program’s host (Malia Zimmerman, above, with Mr. Berg) that don’t seem to reflect what you’ve heard elsewhere about the project. Fact checking can be accomplished easily by visiting the project’s website, where you’ll find the Final Environmental Impact Statement, the Alternatives Analysis and much more information.

We hope you'll also use our "aggregation site" to find posts on why suggestions made during the program – for at-grade transit, tunnels, buses or other options to elevated rail – would not provide cost-effective fast, frequent, reliable and safe congestion-free transportation through our city.

Columnist Has 10 Reasons To Back Honolulu Rail; Headline Writer Gets a Free Pass to the Woodshed

“Rail: Ugly But Necessary Evil” ??? Hold on! Electrical engineers praise 138,000-volt overhead transmission lines for their beauty. How could something so essential to modern life be anything but beautiful – or so their reasoning goes.

The same could be said about the future overhead guideway for Honolulu rail's trains that will give residents traffic-free commuting along its 20-mile length. Tell us that won't be beautiful!

Beauty is where you find it, and so apparently is ugly. But nowhere in his MidWeek column this week does Bob Jones say overhead rail is “evil.”

Just the opposite! Mr. Jones practically gushes with enthusiasm over Honolulu’s fixed guideway project, and he gives 10 reasons why Oahu residents can be enthusiastic, too.

Why Bob Jones Says Yes2Rail

It’s not David Letterman’s comedic “Top 10 List” – just 10 solid reasons why this veteran journalist believes rail critics are wrong, plus some editorial comment by us.

1) The argument that alternatives were not fully considered is not fact-based. They were, in great detail. Saying otherwise is a canard from the let’s-keep-our-horse-and-buggy people. No comment necessary; he has it exactly right.

2) Yes, it’s heavy rail rather than light rail. Light rail essentially means a streetcar. That was tossed out early on because running a many-coaches train on the street would mean stopping traffic at every intersection and substantial pedestrian risk. Toru Hamayasu, HART’s interim executive director, told HPR’s “Town Square” audience last week: “We’re saying ours is a light metro system. It’s certainly not heavy rail like other systems such as (San Francisco’s) BART or the Washington METRO where each car is 75 feet long….” Honolulu’s trains will be much shorter and lighter, “so we’re not heavy rail. We’re not light rail. That’s why there’s now this new terminology, light metro.”

3) Yes, elevated heavy rail will be on the ugly side (see #2 above), but we long ago uglified Oahu with suburban sprawl… We’re already ugly except in those Hawaii Five-0 beauty shots. It’s all in the beholder’s eye, isn’t it? See yesterday’s Star-Advertiser (subscription) for graphics showing how some of the anticipated twenty-seven new high-rises might look in Kakaako if the height limit is raised to 650 feet. Rail's guideway will be 30 feet above the street.

4) Buses are great, but to move large numbers of people into downtown would require an enormous add-on of buses, and that would mean more vehicles on our already-jam-packed roads during rush hours. Why add to the traffic count? Why, indeed?

5) Freeway flyovers sound great when proposed by would-be mayor Panos Prevedouros, but he’s a hard-core highway aficionado. He ignores that all the added vehicles on the flyover have to get off somewhere. The problem is compounded. We could go on about what Dr. Prevedouros thinks – and we do at our “aggregation site.”

6) Standing down and rethinking the whole project isn’t an option at this point. We’ve invested big bucks in basic planning and community meetings. There are times when you’ve taken huge steps and you must make the next leap of faith. This is one. Oahu residents have been perched on the edge of this particular leap forward to modern commuting for decades. Let’s go!

7) The train will not make traffic congestion a thing of the past and no government official has said it will. What’s been said is that without the train, traffic will be totally gridlocked in later years…. Amen, Bob Jones, amen! We’ve dropped more words into Yes2Rail about this particular canard, a favorite of anti-railer Cliff Slater, than any other subject. See aforementioned “aggregation site.”

8) We eventually need to extend the train to UH and Waikiki, so we’ll likey be paying that extra excise tax forever. Get used to it…. Option: Limit vehicle imports. Chance of that is zero. Decisions about extensions into Waikiki and up to UH will be for another crop of office holders, transit planners and voters in the decades ahead. Our bet today: Rail will be so obviously successful that it’ll happen asap.

9) A major reason for the train is to allow development along its corridor. I would hope vertical housing with retail space. It would present a marvelous opportunity for small business if done right. The Star-Advertiser has carried three major TOD-related stories in the past week. TOD makes so much sense it’s one of the rail project’s four main goals.

10) Nobody’s lied or misled on this project. Many have mis-inferred. To say the city or the state misused the law to ram this through is false. The city’s done exactly what the Federal Transit Administration said to do. As noted here innumerable times, Mr. Slater is the inferrer-in-chief, and that’s a polite way of referring to his tactics over the years. Spend some time at the “aggregation site” for chapter and verse.

Here's our rewrite of this column’s headline – a little shorter and a lot more accurate about what Bob Jones wrote:

Rail: Necessity for our Sanity

A Spooky Thought on Halloween: Some Critics of Honolulu’s Future Elevated Rail System Think At-Grade Transit Would Be Better. That Might Be OK for Ghosts and Others with Plenty of Time To Kill, But Humans Need Fast, Reliable, Safe Transit

-- Mahalos to Stephen Wyllie and Brian Lee

Back to the Show: City Rejects Opponents’ Charge It Has Misled Public on Future Congestion Issue

We pick up from yesterday’s post at the point when our call finally made it onto the “Town Square” program Thursday afternoon to focus on a recurring theme in Cliff Slater’s decades-long anti-rail campaign.

Mr. Slater suggests to audiences – including those listening to the “Town Square” show on September 15th when he and Randall Roth spent an hour attacking rail – that Honolulu rail would be a failure because traffic congestion after rail is built will be worse than it is today. He couples that natural consequence of a larger Oahu population with an assertion that the city has deliberately hidden the future congestion issue from Oahu residents.

Professor Roth contributed to that theme with his passionate “shame on the city” remarks, which could dangle from his neck for years to come as a sign of how little he truly understands the Honolulu project.

After noting that the anti-rail guests as good as called city officials liars on their radio show, we directed our question to Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation Interim Executive Director Toru Hamayasu, and asked him, “Have you been lying all these years….?” (The question comes at the 36:32 minute mark of the archived mp3 file of the program.)

Show host Beth-Ann Kozlovich broke through the laughter from fellow guests Mayor Peter Carlisle and Makakilo resident Maeda Timson and said such a “nasty” question doesn’t need an answer, but of course, the question’s focus wasn’t nastiness but rather the ludicrous Slater-Roth allegation that the city has deliberately misled the public.

Kozlovich said she had put it to Messrs. Slater and Roth six weeks earlier that future congestion will be a natural consequence of population growth, since migration to Hawaii can’t be regulated.

Hamayasu: “We cannot guarantee that 30 years from now, 20 years from now that traffic congestion is gonna be better than today, but without the rail, it’s gonna be much worse. That’s the point that Slater is always twisting. He uses a real clever thing and says, OK, isn’t it true that traffic congestion is gonna be worse with the rail, as if the rail is the catalyst for the worse congestion. That’s a clever play on words – that traffic will be worse in the future with or without rail, but, it’s gonna be much worse without rail.”

Kozlovich: “So categorically you’re saying, yes – it will be worse without rail, period.”

Mayor Carlisle: “Let me see what Mr. Slater says. This is what I have from him, July 2010, City Council hearing (reading Slater quote): ‘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.’ Does that answer the question for you? This is the simple answer to that: There will be zero traffic congestion in the future for those who ride the rail.”

“Peggy from Pacific Heights” called to say she doesn’t think children will ride rail to school. Kozlovich gave Ms. Timson her first chance to speak up on the show by asking her to respond to Peggy’s comment.

Timson: “What is really going to happen is when the kids are old enough to do it on their own, they will, but in the meantime, because I can tell you what I personally did, when my children did not go to school (in her neighborhood), they went to town and (used) buddy systems. So they were 8 and 10, and there were (older) kids in the area that went to the same (in-town) school, so the kids all went together. They went on the bus…and the express bus, and they went to school and came back home. We trained them to be smart and independent.”

Kozlovich said the caller’s main issue was that congestion is less when school is out of session and that people are in search of near-term relief from congestion before rail is built. Carlisle interjected that congestion has grown to the point that on Saturdays, when parents aren’t driving children to school, traffic congestion is bad.

Carlisle: “The point is, on Saturdays you don’t have the 6 o’clock to 8 o’clock jam but you now have the 9:30 to 11:30 jam….it’s a disaster, it’s miserable. The point is that (rail opponents) are saying that once we get kids out of school, (congestion) is fine and dandy, and that’s simply not correct…..”

“Chad of Kapolei“ asked whether there’s been an effort to improve the efficiency of the current infrastructure. Carlisle said it happens constantly and cited the high-occupancy vehicle lane on the H-1 freeway as an example. He said stop light synchronization is addressed, as well.

Carlisle: “Are we still working to have the best type of systems at grade that we possibly can? That’s being done always by the Department of Transportation Services as well as the State Department of Transportation. They are trying to do it, but it’s not successful because of the volume of cars.”

Timson: “Yes, it’s all about the volume, but the light synchronization doesn’t necessarily help us. We have the problem when we get onto the freeway. That’s where it is – when everyone merges to go to work at the same time. In Kapolei, we have at least eight road projects that are in process right now…We have an on-ramp, an off-ramp that’s gonna happen…. The suggestion’s been made that we should go at-grade in Kapolei. That is totally ridiculous because in the area of East Kapolei where the rail will come, we are not through with building roads. We’re gonna have all kinds of (arterial) roads, so if you’re gonna put the rail on the ground, we’d go back to the same problem. It’s more congestion all over.”

Hamayasu: “I’d like to address one thing that’s seems like is getting focus. It’s like we’re putting all the eggs in one basket – rail – and that’s not true…. I’ve been a traffic engineer and transit planner, too, so the last four years we’ve been doing all of that. So the (light) synchronization, yes. Honolulu’s been engaged in that since the 1960s, so if it doesn’t look like everything’s synchronized in your favor that’s because, like the Mayor said, there are side streets (with congestion) that’s just as heavy… (Also), everybody wants to give more cross-street time to pedestrians, so when you bunch it all together, it’s not gonna be a smooth flow for the traffic. You gotta take care of everybody.”

Hamayasu noted regarding school congestion that it was former Governor Ben Cayetano (an anti-rail lawsuit plaintiff) who staggered school start times, but the experiment did not succeed in relieving congestion appreciably or “work out in a way that it was supposed to.”

Kozlovich: “Having said everything that all three of you have just said, including some of the things we’ve heard from our callers, is it really something that we all just need to get ourselves over – that there really isn’t going to be a great deal of relief, and we’re gonna have to deal with a lot of these situations pretty much as they are right now? And forgive me, but put up or shut up until rail offers another option? Because people are looking for something now. You hear people scuttling about saying, what about this, what about that, what about something else? Because they are looking for something.”

Carlisle: “We’ve been looking for things for years. I’ve just put down a list. We’ve got Zipper lanes now, we’ve got HOV lanes, we’ve got contra-flow lanes. We’ve done all those things. Has that relieved the traffic? No.”

Kozlovich: “Right, which is again back to my point. Do we just have to say, that’s the way it is, gang, and until there’s a viable option to do something else, we’re gonna have to deal with this and make adjustments on our own?”

Carlisle: “There’s no doubt that we’ll need rail no matter what we do, but are we gonna continue to look for things to try and abate the problems that we’ve got, of course we are if they’ve got something that helps, but is it gonna be a magic bullet that will replace rail? Not with what we know now.”

“Rebecca of Hawaii Kai” said she disagrees with her neighbors who say a west Oahu transit system won’t benefit them. She said traffic alleviation is one important benefit. Another is the potential for transit-oriented development around future rail stations and the opportunity it will provide for revitalized neighborhoods and affordable housing. She said communities will be built around the stations, and she said she’ll personally benefit by being able to more easily travel through the urban core by avoiding surface traffic. Her peers will have more job opportunities – a more holistic contribution than merely avoiding traffic. Carlisle said she’s “absolutely right – period.”

“John of Kapolei” called to ask “what the average person can do to get this project moving faster. It has been way too long…. We need to move forward, and we need to move forward now.”

Carlisle: “You can always help by telling the people who you have elected that you want them to support rail. Basically, politicians respond to what their constituents want….They’re just hearing (from a well-organized) opposition (that) makes sure they have phone trees and people writing emails and answering the polls on TV and other things that aren’t done scientifically. The more you can (tell) people who you’ve put in office that this is what you want them to do, then the more they’re going to be pressured into doing (rail) that will have benefits for generations to come.”

Timson: “And those of us who feel it and live it every day, we need to remind our friends that it’s OK to speak….” She said neighbors who share their frustrations can build a groundswell of support for rail. “We’ve got to go back to the grass roots. That’s what Go Rail Go is. It was just a bunch of us who are sick of fighting and being alone about rail…That’s how it got started….”

Kozlovich: “If somebody comes to you and says I’m absolutely against rail, what do you tell them?”

Timson: “First of all, we want to find out where you live, of course…. And (rail) is not just about today. It’s about the future… I went to every single rail community meeting that (the city) had a couple weeks ago. I went to Kailua, I went to Kaneohe, I went to Hawaii Kai, and there were a couple who said, Oh, we don’t need it. So I say to them….do you know what the future is? It’s all on the west side. That’s where everyone is moving. Your kids are gonna grow up to be adults. They’re gonna look for a home, and guess where they’re gonna go. And they’re gonna say to you, hey Mom, I’m in traffic for four hours. I can’t visit you, ‘cause you didn’t like rail and didn’t help us to make it happen. You’re gonna have your kids living out on the west side. You need the future. It’s not just about today.”

Kozlovich brought up the rail project’s visual impact, saying rail doesn’t necessarily fit in with what most people associate with Hawaii. “Granted, what we think about Hawaii is changing, and some people are quicker to accept change than others, and certainly, Hawaii doesn’t look anything like it it did when I was a little girl, but now, when you hear people talking about the shadows being cast and the fact that it’s gonna be elevated, what do you tell them about that?”

Carlisle: “Take a look out of your (windshield) when you’re in a traffic jam. That’s what you get to see, how many hours a day? If you see something that’s elevated…I assume we can make it actually look good, then what is better as far as you’re concerned? I think a lot has been said that would intimidate people to think that these things are going to be monstrosities. The idea that being an aircraft carrier in the sky comes up every once in a while. Nothing could be further from the truth. An aircraft carrier would block four intersections, would crush everything around it and is solid steel. (Elevated stations) ultimately have a smaller footprint than some of the things that they’re talking about when you talk about trenching…and running it through the heart of the city. (The elevated system) will (have) every 120-some odd feet (a support column) as opposed to a trench that goes 30 feet wide and 5 feet down.”

Kozlovich: “One more thing about the money. There is some concern over the (general excise tax) and how long that will have to be collected and how long the additional surcharge (0.5 percent) will have to be and the concern that it will be tacked on forever and that it somehow will not necessarily make up the amount that we’re going to have to pay for this thing, that costs will escalate. How do you allay some of those fears that people have?”

Carlisle: “We’re doing things right now. Just take a look at it…how much money we have now holding back for contingencies and how soon, once we get to the full funding agreement….the whole dynamic changes.” Hamayasu said the contingency fund now is 21 percent of the project’s total cost, and once the full funding agreement is finalized, it will drop to 10 to 15 percent. “So that tells you right now we’ve got lots of extra money sitting around, and so far, we haven’t had to go into any extra monies because (the costs) are beneath what our projections were.”

Carlisle said the GET surcharge to cover the local share of construction costs eventually will end. Operations and maintenance expenses will continue, and he said that’s no different than funding the cost for highway upkeep today. “I don’t think that’s hard to understand,” he said. “Do we maintain our highways? Yes. Are we gonna have to maintain the rail system, too? Sure.”

We encourage Yes2Rail visitors to download the mp3 files for both the ant-rail and pro-rail “Town Square” programs and compare what you hear. From the former you’ll hear unsubstantiated allegations and obfuscation. From the city, you’ll hear fact-based analysis and comment that satisfies federal oversight of the project.

We say it repeatedly: The more we hear and read from rail opponents, the better the project looks. Rail supporters would do well to follow Mayor Carlisle’s advice and speak up for this critical piece of Oahu’s future transportation infrastructure.

‘Town Square’ Show Covered Many Rail Issues: Benefits, Funding and Whether City Officials Lie

We provided extensive quotes from the September 15th public radio show with guests Cliff Slater and Randall Roth beginning with our next day's post. Transcripts are a much quicker way to get the essence of what was said than spending an hour listening to the show, but if you insist, HPR has archived the program.

Thursday’s guests were Mayor Peter Carlisle, Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation Interim Executive Director Toru Hamayasu and Makakilo resident Maeda Timson, a former neighborhood board chair who's president of the Go Rail Go group.

After making the introductions, host Beth-Ann Kozlovich noted that Ansaldo, the company selected by the city to supply trains and operate the system, has paid a $150,000 fine for not being a licensed contractor when it first bid on the project. She said it prompts questions about Ansaldo’s reliability and asked the Mayor, “Are you satisfied beyond any doubt that Ansaldo is still the best choice, categorically?

Carlisle: “I think the doubt has to do with economic circumstances that are beyond anybody’s control, but am I satisfied that we’ve followed the right procedures to select the right person for the job? Yes, absolutely, unequivocally.”

Kozlovich asked for an update on the status of Ansaldo’s contract with the city. Hamayasu said after the evaluation of which bidder provide the best value to the city, Ansaldo was announced as the awardee. The contract was sent to Ansaldo, which has return it with a performance bond.

Hamayasu: “The one added element to this was the (HART) board had requested us to have a third-party counsel – outside lawyers – be hired and go through the bond document, so that’s what we’re doing right now. So once that’s done, then we have no reason to hold up, to execute the contract.” He said the city is now in the 30-day period it has to evaluate Ansaldo's package and bond.

Kozlovich: “A lot of people are still concerned about the money. Are people looking for too much certainty?”

Carlisle: “I think we have to give as much certainty as possible, but we also have to take a look around and say, OK, who is supporting this, what’s the oversight look like, and is this something that’s been going on for 40 years and we’ve wasted a lot of opportunities already to get this going? Is this the right time to be doing it?

“And frankly, the economic downturn is in many ways a bonus to us – less expensive labor, you can tie in contracts for longer periods of time, you have less-expensive supplies, the transportation of it is less expensive, so all of those things are real positives for us, and so far, we have gotten savings which we can detail that are less than what the original (cost) projections were. Now, that doesn’t mean we’re going to come in under that because things could happen in the future that would make it more expensive, but right now we’re coming in under budget.”

Kozlovich said even though costs may appear to be less expensive now, the average person wonders about costs not being “locked in” – part of their anxiety that the project will not come together exactly as projected.

Carlisle: “If you take a look at how they used to do projections, they were nowhere near as specific as they are now. The oversight wasn’t there, and people would always be padding the numbers or making them deflated so it wasn’t what was actually going to be spent. The Federal Transit Administration took a look at that and said, we’re going to do a better job at this, and right now, everything they’ve done so far has been spot on. So we have to be very, very impressed with what’s happened so far, and there’s no reason for us to foresee in the future that that’s not going to continue to be the case.”

Kozlovich: “But we’ve spent hundreds of millions and not necessarily sure in some people’s minds that we’re going to get the one point five billion in federal funds given the fact that we’ve got a huge federal deficit and that you’ve got opposition by Republicans in the House. Are you at all concerned about the chances of getting the money?”

Carlisle: “What I look at are all the people who are saying all the reasons why we’re going to get the money. You have essentially (FTA Administrator Peter) Rogoff telling you that. You have Secretary (of Transportation Ray) LaHood telling us that (rail) is something that he’s going to be working hard for and that this is the right project, and then beyond that, you’ve got Congress Member (John) Mica, who is in charge of the Transportation Committee as a Republican, and he’s saying this is exactly what we’re going to be doing, and that this is a great project, so he understands it.

“On top of that you have Dan Inouye, you have Barack Obama. And who (is there) lined up against those people – people who have the same stature and ability to put this forward? I don’t think so, and the oversight that we have is ongoing and extensive. There are meetings every month to make sure that everything is being done correctly by the book and being done in such a fashion that we’ll be able to do it on time and on budget.”

Kozlovich said that even with all the local officials’ trips to Washington for meetings and oversight, there's still a chance something will go awry with Honolulu rail.

Carlisle: “It’s critical to (make those trips), and frankly, that’s one of the things that was pounded into my head early by (former Council Chair) Todd Apo, who said one of the first things I need to do after my election – and actually I was empowered to do it – was to get to Washington, DC, and (answer the question) are you a supporter or not and to answer that question truthfully. And the answer is, I was skeptical of rail at the beginning like a lot of people were, but once you take a look at all the facts, this is absolutely essential to the infrastructure of this large city from now to 50, to 75, to 100 years from now.

“So (rail) is going to transform Honolulu, not only in terms of transportation but in terms of transit-oriented development and in terms of the quality of life for the people who are going to live here. They’ll be spending more time at the office working rather than being stuck in traffic and more time at home where they can do those things that they want to be doing – being with their family and interacting with them.”

Kozlovich: “What will you do, though, if Congress decides for whatever reason to only give you a smaller portion of what you thought we might get?”

Carlisle: “Plow forward, and I think that that’s a hypothetical that so far is not particularly realistic.”

Kozlovich: “Well, that’s why I asked you earlier. Do you think people are not being realistic when they look at some of these questions?”

Carlisle: “No, I think they’re being led by people to say the sky is falling, the sky is falling, and the sky is not falling.”

Kozlovich “Are you angry at the Gang of Four?”

Carlisle: “No, they have their own view of the world, and I don’t dispute that they think it’s the right thing, but do I think they’re giving people accurate information? No. Do I think that when they say we’re deliberately misleading the public? I think that’s false.”

Kozlivich said a lot in the public feel they’re caught between the two camps and that it’s tough for people to make a decision one way or the other. She asked, “Is there a way of sitting down with some of the Gang of Four and meeting them point by point?”

Carlisle: “If they want to do that someplace in an isolated room, I’d be happy to talk with anyone. Am I going to give them a public forum that they don’t deserve? No. They have been doing everything they can to delay this project and make it more expensive and to try and frighten away the people who are doing (rail) and frighten away support from it – sometimes using things like this ‘conspiracy’ to mislead people.

“I don’t consider myself somebody who conspires to tell people things that I know are false…. I just think that’s the rhetoric that comes from these guys, and if that’s what they want to do, fine, but I think we can beat this out with the facts. If you take a look at the facts and everything that’s been looked at, all the other alternatives, there are solid reasons why (they) were rejected. When (rail opponents) start saying let’s put it all on the ground, that makes absolutely no sense. When you think about what they did in Phoenix. They trenched 30 feet across and six feet down.”

The Mayor said building at-grade transit on Hotel Street through downtown Honolulu, as some have advocated, would essentially create chaos for pedestrian and vehicle traffic through Chinatown, with cross-traffic interrupted at intersections by trains arriving every few minutes.

“The second you do that through Honolulu, Hawaii and put (transit) on the ground, you can just wipe out Hotel Street as a method of people transporting themselves from point A to point B. Now what’s that going to do with traffic downtown? It’s gonna completely kill it off and leave (traffic backups) that are completely untenable, so (at-grade transit) is not solving the problem that we have …” Carlisle said at-grade transit also would be vulnerable to accidents at intersections.

Heavy, Light, What?

Kozlovich took a call from “Eileen in Kaimuki” who asked about the terms used to describe Honolulu rail, such as heavy rail, light rail and light metro.

Hamayasu: “We’re saying ours is a light metro system. It’s certainly not heavy rail like other systems such as (San Francisco’s) BART or the Washington METRO where each car is 75 feet long, and they can connect up to 10 or 15 cars together to make a train.”

He said Honolulu’s system will have only four-car trains and will be smaller and lighter in weight, with much less noise than heavy rail systems. Honolulu rail will be automated, which makes it different that the typical light rail that runs on ground like a streetcar, “so we’re not heavy rail. We’re not light rail. That’s why there’s now this new terminology, light metro.” Kozlovich asked the caller if the terminology makes a difference to her. “Eileen” said not really; she just wanted some clarification since she’s been hearing different terms being used and wondered about what’s so.

Rail opponents Slater and Roth, two members of the so-called Gang of Four, used the “heavy rail” term to describe Honolulu rail 26 times during their appearance on the one-hour “Town Square” show. Carlisle said the use of “heavy rail” to describe Honolulu rail is misleading and conjures up imagines that are not applicable here.

City Fibbers?

Caller “Kevin of Honolulu” said it’s a “fib” that the Sierra Club endorses Honolulu rail and said “neither the local nor the national Sierra Club has endorsed the rail, and if you’re fibbing on that, could (the Mayor) be fibbing about the Alternatives Analysis…?”

Carlisle quoted from a national Sierra Club report called Missing the Train: “We will enjoy benefits, including better air and water quality, greater public health, less sprawl and more independence for our aging population.” “Kevin” responded that the local chapter hasn’t endorsed Honolulu rail, and Kozlovich attempted to summarize the Sierra Club’s position on rail transit – that the Sierra Club nationally has made supportive statements about rail but the Sierra Club locally has not endorsed the rail project in Honolulu.

As blog posts go, transcriptions go long, so we’ll pick up with more of the “Town Square” transcript tomorrow – but not before jumping further into the show to address the Sierra Club issue with our own call to KIPO:

“I have a question for Toru, but let me just tell you what I see on the Sierra Club Oahu Group’s website. I’ll read you one short sentence: ‘Sierra Club Oahu Group supports the Fixed Guideway (rail) alternative.’ That should take care of the question about what the Oahu Group says.”

We didn’t have enough time to read the rest of the position statement:

“The Fixed Guideway alternative provides what Oahu needs most: an alternative to the automobile. Oahu residents have become overly dependent on private automobiles, and this dependence has devastating effects: reliance on fossil fuels, pollution and global warming, traffic congestion and the resulting loss of productivity, consumption of more land for roadways and parking, and negative impacts on public health and community life. The Oahu Group believes these are urgent problems that require a major shift in our transportation habits, and therefore supports the development of a rail system on Oahu.”

We’ll pick up the transcription with our question to Mr. Hamayasu based on comments by Messrs. Slater and Roth on “Town Square” six weeks ago – especially Mr. Roth’s “Shame on the city” hyperbole:

To Mr. Hamayasu: “Have you been lying all these years…?”

Come back tomorrow for his response.

Honolulu Rail Supporters Stick to Facts on Show, Counter Opponents’ Earlier Penchant for Bombast

An HPR talk show hosted another rail discussion yesterday.

As fireworks displays go, “Town Square” on Hawaii Public Radio last evening was more sparkler than aerial bomb.

The city’s response to anti-railers Cliff Slater and Randall Roth was pre-ordained to be more muted and – yes – more responsible than what the two rail opponents tossed around six weeks earlier.

Messrs. Slater and Roth as good as accused the city of lying to the public, so the question had to be asked: Have city officials been lying about future congestion issues all these years?

Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation Interim Executive Director Toru Hamayasu politely declined to respond in kind to Professor Roth’s “shame on the city” sham. Preferring the sparkler approach, he dispassionately affirmed what we already know: The city has always said traffic congestion in the future will be worse than it is today – even after rail is in operation. (With 200,000 more Oahu residents in 2030 than 2005, it can’t be otherwise.)

That was a direct response to Mr. Slater’s principal accusation – that city officials never openly discussed those issues. We’ve posted several refutations of that charge here at Yes2Rail, with perhaps the most damning evidence being the “live” radio show in 2008 when Mr. Slater said he agreed with the city’s Wayne Yoshioka that congestion will only get worse on Oahu, no matter what happens with rail.

Sparkler Illumination

Mayor Peter Carlisle also was more into sparklers than bomb tossing on the show. When asked by host Beth-Ann Kozlovich whether just sitting down with the Gang of Four (the lead plaintiffs on a federal lawsuit intended to kill rail) might do some good, the Mayor said no way.

“If they want to do that in an isolated room, OK,” he responded, “but I’m not going to give them a public forum” to carry on with their anti-rail rhetoric.

The Mayor said the opponents are doing everything they can to convince the public the city has conspired to not tell the truth about the rail project. “Look at the facts,” he said, noting the several sound reasons why other travel options can’t measure up to Honolulu’s planned elevated system.

Mr. Carlisle described the impacts at-grade rail transit would impose on Honolulu. He said Phoenix’s 20-mile at-grade system required trenching the entire length – 30 feet wide and 6 feet deep. Doing that through Honolulu would produce massive disruption to cultural remains. He also described the traffic chaos and pedestrian danger that would ensue from building at-grade transit in tight quarters like Hotel Street in downtown Honolulu.

West Side Concerns

Fellow “Town Square” guest Maeda Timson provided the perspective of a long-time resident of Makakilo, one of the several west Oahu neighborhoods that will benefit from rail. She said the personal toll congestion imposes on residents who commute into town can’t truly be appreciated by those who live outside the area.

We’ll have additional comments from the show and will link to an audio file once it’s posted at Hawaii Public Radio’s website.

Today’s ‘Town Square’ Show Will Be Opportunity for Officials To Refute Bogus Anti-Rail Allegations

It took some doing, but the producers of Hawaii Public Radio’s weekly “Town Square” talk show finally agreed to bring city officials onto the program six weeks after rail opponents enjoyed a one-sided conversation last month.

Mayor Peter Carlisle, Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation Authority’s Interim Executive Director Toru Hamayasu and Makakilo resident Maeda Timson will be on today’s “Town Square” on KIPO-FM (89.3), 5 to 6 pm.

It was more than a little surprising that public radio didn't immediately schedule the city to rebut what rail opponents Cliff Slater and Randall Roth told the "Town Square" audience on September 15th. The program contained inflammatory language, vague accusations and gave rail opponents an unfettered hour to blast the project. They offered no proposals to move people over, under or around the highway congestion that Oahu residents are finding increasingly intolerable.

All they had in their kit was opposition to rail as they filled their hour by essentially accusing city officials of lying. Mr. Slater’s key talking point yet again was the totally false accusation that the city has hid the truth about future traffic congestion.  His big "revelation," which he treats as proof of his investigative prowess, is that traffic congestion will be worse with rail in place than it is today.

We’ve taken pains over the past 16 months (see our "aggregation" site linked from the red copy at right) to show why (1) Mr. Slater is relying on a ludicrous and dumbed-down argument against rail; (2) traffic will of course increase with a couple hundred thousand more residents on the island, and (3) the city has been transparent in discussing rail’s intended effect on congestion – reducing it from levels it would grow to if rail were not built.

Mr. Roth spent his airtime scolding the city with hyperbolic statements: “Shame on the city for not making clear to the public…(that)…traffic congestion will be worse in the future with rail than what it is today without rail.” Mr. Roth clearly has swallowed Mr. Slater’s talking point hook, line and sinker with no proof of city malfeasance in his worked-up accusations about future traffic and alleged conflicts of interest. He offered no viable alternative to rail to provide congestion relief – probably because he has none. The law professor's suggestion that synching traffic lights might do the trick is embarrassingly naïve.

Today’s Talking Points

Online Civil Beat already has passed judgment on the anti-railers’ August op-ed piece. Its analysis of seven issues in the piece concluded that five were either false or half-false (CB politely termed them “half-true”) – a result so infuriating to the Gang of Four that it denounced Civil Beat today in yet another commentary, a sure sign the gang is desperate.

The anti-railers’ credibility is weak, and that can be a focus during at least part of today’s show:

• Accusations by Mr. Slater and Mr. Roth about city transparency were false. The city has always been open in describing the rail project’s goals, and reducing traffic congestion decades from now to 2011 levels is not one of them! It’s a preposterous suggestion that Mr. Slater in particular has been flogging in his campaign to confuse Oahu residents about rail.

• Cliff Slater is anti-mass transit – always has been and apparently always will be. His only idea to address Oahu’s highway congestion problem is to build more highways. Studies of metropolitan areas’ experience over several decades show that more highways don’t improve congestion. Rail travel completely avoids it.

• Mr. Slater’s preference for High-Occupancy Toll roads (see his quotes from the September 15th show) discriminates against people who don’t own and/or travel by car and those who can’t afford to pay the tolls. HOT lanes are another car-based idea that can’t possibly address Honolulu’s requirement for fast, frequent, reliable and safe transportation through the city.

• Rail’s goals are influenced by society’s 21st-century requirements to conserve time, money, resources and space in providing transportation for the masses. Building more highways was the 20th century's solution.

• One of rail’s goals is to provide for a rational means to develop the island throughout the decades ahead using transit-oriented development near rail stations. TOD will cluster housing and commerce and reduce the necessity for families to own multiple vehicles.

Here’s hoping today’s radio guests find 5 minutes to read the long quotes from the Slater-Roth show, linked in the bullet point above, or devote a whole hour to listening to the archived version. Doing so could only help prepare them for today’s terrific opportunity to tell rail’s story and blow away the anti-railers’ rhetoric.

Defying Predictions from Ardent Highway Lobby, Rail Ridership Continues to Grow on New Systems

Patrons line up to ride The Tide in Norfolk, VA.

Anti-mass-transit activists keep beating their anti-rail drums (see numerous posts at our “aggregation site” under the Slater and Prevedouros headings, linked from red copy at right), but the experience of new rail systems shows how readily commuters embrace the rail option.

The nation’s newest system in Norfolk, VA, began passenger service in August, and as these systems go, The Tide is small – just 7 miles long – and relatively slow due to its at-grade layout.

According to the local newspaper, The Tide’s daily ridership during its first month was 74 percent above expectations. Some rode out of curiosity – it’s “too convenient not to try” – but others already have incorporated rail transit into their daily commute. From the Virginian-Pilot:

“It takes Bobby Parks an extra 20 minutes to commute to work and an extra $50 for a monthly pass to ride The Tide. Still, he’s hooked. ’To me, not having to drive (interstate) 284 is worth it,’ he said. ‘It makes me cringe with the potholes and bumps…. Light rail is less stressful and, with traffic, it’s more consistent.'”

Fast and Reliable

Mr. Parks avoids the traffic hassle completely during his Tide ride and even is willing to go out of his way to take the train. Avoiding congestion is one reason why tens of thousands of Oahu residents are expected to choose Honolulu rail over the tedium of driving on the H-1 and surface roads that parallel the freeway.

Unlike The Tide’s relatively pokey at-grade pace, trains on Honolulu's system will exceed 55 mph between some of stations, so in addition to avoiding congestion, rail will deliver passengers reliably faster than other forms of transportation.

Reducing congestion-caused stress will be reason enough to ride for many future Honolulu rail passengers. Others will compare the per-mile cost of commuting by car – around $1 on Oahu at current gas prices – and conclude they can save thousands of dollars annually if they switch their commute to the train.

The Virginian-Pilot story and a similar posting by Metro Jacksonville summarize ridership increases by new rail systems in Phoenix, Charlotte, NC, Houston and Seattle. Honolulu likely will join that list once our rail system is up and running.

Something Else Rail Critic Wants You To Believe: More Highways Reduce Traffic, but It Isn’t True

Years from now, long after Honolulu rail transit has become an everyday convenience for scores of thousands of Oahu residents, social scientists might well wonder why it took so long to build the rail system. For their benefit, we’re offering a reason today that we think will stand up over time:

The leading opponent’s anti-rail campaign was essentially a misinformation effort that survived as long as it did because it went unchallenged far too long by far too many people, including the media.

Businessman Cliff Slater has fought mass transit projects on Oahu since at least the 1980s by employing the successful business advertising tactic of message repetition. Just drum it in over and over, and people start to believe it.

Yes2Rail yesterday showed irrefutably that Mr. Slater doesn’t tell the truth when he accuses the city of withholding information on future traffic congestion levels after rail is built. That’s one prime example – the flat-out wrong misrepresentation of fact.

Highways and Congestion

But there are numerous other false notes in Mr. Slater’s campaign that most citizens, including reporters and editors, could have noticed had they been as focused on rail’s critics as they usually are on government.

Mr. Slater wants you to believe building more highways will reduce highway congestion. That’s his focus in all his years of activism against transit projects. He’s a highwayman at heart and has spent years trying to convince Oahu residents that building more roads is the answer to relieving the road congestion we all hate.

His HonoluluTraffic.com website, in addition to its anti-rail propaganda, also is a repository of Mr. Slater’s many commentaries that claim highways are the way of the future.

One of many examples was his October 2006 “Second Thoughts” column in the Honolulu Advertiser under the oxymoronic headline “Other cities have shown that rail does not work”. Try selling that in cities around the country that rely on rail networks to move millions of travelers each day.

That particular column concludes: “We have a traffic congestion problem and that is a highway problem. It can only be fixed with highway solutions such as High-Occupancy Toll (HOT) lanes.”

Induced Traffic

Numerous studies and actual city experience all over America* show he’s wrong (go here for links to several of these studies; see also asterisk below). In perpetuating the myth that building more roads reduces congestion, he has either been blind to the facts or has willingly misled citizens and the media on this issue, too.

Building more highways to relieve congestion actually creates more congestion. It’s called “induced traffic” and is widely studied and understood across the nation – but obviously not in Honolulu. Mr. Slater’s less-congestion-with-more-roads myth is stuck in the 20th century.

Here’s one study’s finding:

“Metro areas that invested heavily in road capacity expansion fared no better in easing congestion than metro areas that did not. Trends in congestion show that areas that exhibited greater growth in lane capacity spent roughly $22 billion more on road construction than those that didn’t, yet ended up with slightly higher congestion costs per person, wasted fuel, and travel delay….”

Some actually advocate demolishing highways to reduce congestion; one concludes “spending lots more on roads increased the toll exacted by congestion. Building more highways intensifies the urban traffic mess.”

Tearing down the few highways already built on land-scarce Oahu isn’t the solution here, but it’s time Honolulu (and its news media) wake up to modern thinking.

Honolulu rail will restore mobility, improve travel times, provide transportation equity and spur economic growth through transit-oriented development without eating up more space for toll roads or other highways that likely would make congestion worse.

Those social scientists of the future presumably will use whatever replaces Google as the preferred search engine to research Honolulu rail's history and what delayed its construction so long. We can use it now to fact-check Mr. Slater and challenge his outdated thinking.

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

* This just in from a friend who lives in New Jersey: "Tell Slater that 20 years ago the New Jersey Turnpike was 8 lanes wide, and too much congestion caused it to be widened to 12 lanes. Still got heavy congestion. Today, it is 16 lanes, and the exit flyovers are unbelievable, and congestion is so bad that it will be widened to 20 lanes shortly. At least with rail on a single (elevated guideway), all one has to do is either lengthen the train or reduce the headways, and the city can quadruple the capacity without years of added construction."