Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Military Personnel: Check Out Your Service’s Newspaper Friday for Rail DEIS Information

Military service newspapers on Oahu will carry information this week on how military personnel can comment on the Honolulu rail project’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement. Army, Navy, Marine and Air Force papers are published on Fridays here, and all will have advertisements advising members they have until February 6 to comment on the document. Most of the service papers also will carry articles about the project.

Our post last week was the first to specifically invite military personnel to comment on the DEIS, which evaluates the various alternatives for the fixed guideway transit project now under consideration. That post discusses where, how and when to comment on the document.

A point of clarification that service personnel – especially those in the Navy – may appreciate relates to station locations vis-à-vis Pearl Harbor Naval Station under the three “build” alternatives.

Under the “Salt Lake Alternative,” the station adjacent to Aloha Stadium would be the closest one to Pearl Harbor. The “Airport Alternative” would place stations on the mauka side of Kamehameha Highway near its intersections with Ford Island Boulevard and Radford Drive near Makalapa Gate.

If the “Airport & Salt Lake Alternative” were built, the three stations closest to Pearl Harbor would include the one at Aloha Stadium and two others along Kamehameha Highway – one near the entrance to the Arizona Memorial and another near Makalapa Gate.

The Draft EIS, complete with detailed maps of all Build Alternatives, can be downloaded at the project’s website. The website also has a video guide to the Draft EIS with key facts, computer-animated fly-throughs of the Salt Lake and Airport alternatives and concept renderings of the proposed rail stations.

Look to your weekly service newspaper on Friday for additional details.

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