Earth Day Countdown—Honolulu’s Last Before Rail

On the first Earth Day in 1970, the idea of building a rail transit system that would give commuters an alternative to driving through an increasingly crowded Honolulu was shared by only a few far-sighted government leaders and transit officials.

By Earth Day 11 in 1980, Mayor Frank Fasi was pushing hard to build Honolulu Area Rapid Transit, but HART never got off the ground thanks to his surprising re-election defeat by Eileen Anderson, who promptly killed the project.

Ten years later on Earth Day 21, “Fearless Frank” was back at it again, and this time the effort to build an elevated fixed guideway between Leeward Community College and the University of Hawaii’s Manoa Campus was stronger than ever. It was derailed at the last minute by a switched vote on the City Council that denied an increase in the general excise tax that would have financed rail’s “local share.”

Nothing much was happening with rail transit on Earth Day in 2000, but 10 years later, Thursday April 22 should be the last Earth Day of Honolulu’s “pre-rail transit” history – at least since its streetcar era. If events unfold as expected, construction will have begun by Earth Day 2011 on Honolulu's 20-mile rail system, which will be one of the city’s most significant sustainability projects ever.

The Green Machine

The rail system’s name hasn’t been chosen, and The Green Machine isn’t a strong candidate, but why not call it that? Honolulu rail will be bright green by taking tens of thousands of cars off the road, eliminating all of their mobile pollution.

But what about pollution at the power plants to generate the trains’ electricity? There will be less of that, too, over the years as Hawaii continues its renewable energy revolution.

Honolulu rail will be a generations-long operation, and the goal of the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative less than a generation from now is for the state to get 70 percent of its electricity from clean sources, as shown in this chart:

That means Honolulu rail will be running on higher and higher percentages of electricity generated by wind, solar, refuse, biofuel and ocean power. This is the future the vast majority of Hawaii citizens and Americans want – reduced carbon emissions and lower dependence on foreign sources of energy.

The private automobile is still indispensable for most of us, but once rail is up and running, it will seem less so for a significant segment of our population. Transit-oriented development will become the logical way of community growth, with less sprawl driven by a 20th Century fascination with the car. That’s one reason why the national Sierra Club backs rail transit so strongly.

Earth Day 2010 is a good day to focus on Honolulu’s progress toward achieving its decades-long goal of creating fast, frequent, safe, reliable and energy-saving rail transit. More important is the need to recommit to that goal and do what it takes in the coming year to make Earth Day 2011 a day of celebration around Honolulu rail.

Rail Critic Serves Up Another Pro-Car Commentary

The man we’ve credited with being the chief obstacle to rail transit creation in Honolulu is at it again today with yet another column in the Honolulu Advertiser. The paper – soon to be acquired by the owner of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin – has been a platform for Cliff Slater’s views for literally decades. He even was given a recurring “Second Opinion” commentary slot in the paper from the early 1990s to around 2006.

To his credit, Mr. Slater has been able to fire off 500 or more words on just about any subject over the years (see his Second Opinion website) on Public Education, Governments & Markets, Labor & Privatization, and of course, Traffic & Transportation.

Living by the ABCs

It’s the latter category that defines him, however. Mr. Slater is a diehard believer in the private automobile. The tie that binds his commentaries into one whole body of work is the car. We started referring to him as A-B-C “Always By Car” Cliff as evidence of his car preference piled up.

Today’s commentary is another example. He writes glowingly about a toll road to be built by private investors in Oregon. They plan to build a $400 million pay-to-ride highway south of Portland that will have tolls sufficiently high enough to cover the cost of construction, financing and operations.

The rest of his commentary has examples of government’s inability to accomplish the same goal, no matter what it builds. His chief target is the current Honolulu rail project, of course, as was the City’s plan to build a similar grade-separated system two decades ago.

What Mr. Slater doesn’t dwell on today is the big difference between a toll road and a municipal rail project. Toll roads serve the well-to-do, leaving the less financially able to sit in traffic congestion the wealthy pay to avoid. Major City infrastructure projects like Honolulu rail and TheBus system naturally must serve everyone’s needs and therefore are more progressive than toll roads.

Restoring mobility to the masses – that’s what Honolulu rail will accomplish. It’s something Mr. Slater can’t claim for his toll roads, no matter how many times he tries.

Job Growth Yet Another Sign of Hawaii’s Recovery

The general excise tax surcharge collected since January 2007 to cover the “local share” of Honolulu rail’s costs is running at about 99.5 percent of initial projections, yet some continue to question the project’s financial viability.

That skepticism is a remnant of the worst days of the recession in the waning years of the past decade, but a week doesn’t go by now without encouraging news about the health of Hawaii’s economy.

The Honolulu Advertiser’s top story on the print edition’s front page today is headlined “More in Isles finding work.” The number of Hawaii residents with jobs grew in March for the second straight month after 20 straight months of declines.

Consumer Confidence Rebounds

Yesterday’s Star-Bulletin reported on First Hawaiian Bank’s assessment that consumer confidence is “clearly improving” as seen in car and store sales figures. CEO Don Horner said same-stores sales were up 5 percent in the first quarter from a year ago.

“We haven’t seen it get back to 2007 and 2008 levels, but it’s encouraging that we’ve found a bottom based on the confidence numbers,” he said.

As the positive indicators continue to accumulate, we can only expect Hawaii’s economic rebound to nudge the pessimistic assessments closer to the margins.

‘Bigger than an Average Humpback Whale’ Trains Attracting Higher Ridership Amid Safety Concerns

Comparing the size of Phoenix’s year-old light rail train with a humpback whale might not mean much to Arizona residents, so the safety video narrator continues:

“Do not – and I really mean – do not stop or park on the tracks! Bad idea. These trains can’t stop on a dime. They take a while to stop.”

That’s the warning in the “Our first stop is safety” video produced by Phoenix’s Valley Metro system to help drivers co-exist safely with the city’s at-grade rail system. Unfortunately, the message hasn’t gotten through to too many of them.

Metro racked up 52 crashes by in its first year of operation as drivers failed to follow instructions on how to navigate around these “humpbacks" on rails. We often mention safety here because there still are some on Oahu who think at-grade rail is a plausible option for Honolulu’s new system.

The comparative safety of elevated rail is just one reason to favor the existing plan for Honolulu – along with reliability, speed and increased mobility that also compare favorably with at-grade rail.

And Now, Phoenix’s Good News

Despite the accidents and service interruptions they cause, Valley residents continue to use METRO beyond expectations. The Arizona Republic reports today that ridership last year was 34 percent above expectations. Among its findings:

“Metro doesn’t experience a sharp drop in riders between morning and evening rush hours. Many people ride it off-peak to sporting events, museums and restaurants for riders typically shorter than 8 miles.”

City planners are now envisioning an expansion of Phoenix’s rail system to “define the city’s development goals.” They see light rail as a partner in spurring redevelopment of outlying urban villages.

The Republic’s story also reports on age group transportation preferences:

“…the Millennial Generation, those who reached adulthood after 2000, are coming to prominence. A recent in-depth study by the Pew Research Center showed that Millennials are eco-conscious and urban. Pew found that 32 percent live in central cities, compared with 23 percent of children of the Depression. They also don't want long car commutes.”

Phoenix’s 16-month-old rail system is worth watching for its “lessons learned” value for Honolulu and our own rail program, including how to meet the transportation needs of a generation that’s likely to be much less dependent on the family car than earlier ones.

But we’re already far ahead of Phoenix in some respects. Our grade-separated system will make car-train crashes impossible here, and that’s a difference we’ll continue to emphasize.

Highway Expert Offers Another Anti-Rail Critique

You can’t judge a book by its cover, and you can’t always be sure people are experts on a topic just because they write about it. Today’s commentary in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin by Dr. Panos D. Prevedouros is one such example, but there are others, as we’ll soon discuss.

Dr. Prevedouros is the University of Hawaii highway transportation expert, a conclusion to be drawn by reading his UH bio, which he presumably wrote and which doesn’t contain the words “transit” or “rail” or any evidence that he comes at the transit issue from anything other than a pro-highway perspective.

Although Dr. Prevedouros routinely writes unflattering assessments of the Honolulu rail transit project, there’s nothing in his bio to suggest he’s been involved with transit over the years except as a highway-preferring critic. We made the same point nearly two years ago.

In today’s piece, Dr. Prevedouros mentions the research of several university-based professors who also appear to have no particular transit expertise. Professor Bent Flyvbjerg of Oxford University is said by Wikipedia to have “written extensively about megaprojects, power and rationality in decision making, and philosophy of social science.” He has produced numerous publications and working papers, most written from a planning perspective.

One publication appears to be the source cited by Dr. Prevedouros: “Delusion and Deception in Large Infrastructure Projects; Two Models for Explaining and Preventing Executive Disaster.” Professor Flyvbjerg writes extensively about the relationship between truth and lying from a European perspective, but his list of transit-related articles seems to be less than a handful.

A co-author of that article was Massimo Garbuio, a “lecturer” at the University of Sydney, who also is mentioned by Dr. Prevedouros and who also seems to be an expert on decision making – but not transit, based on the publications he cites on his university webpage. The sole “conference paper” listed at that site is titled: “'A beliefs-preferences-attributions model of strategic decision making, Strategic Management Society SMS 29th Annual International Conference, Washington D.C., United States, 14th October 2009”

Dr. Prevedouros misspells the name of another co-author – Professor Dan Lovallo, not Lorvallo, also of the University of Sydney. Professor Lovallo is equally at home with decision making and less so apparently with transit systems. His website page says his research “is concerned with psychological aspects of strategic decisions…,” but there’s no mention of transit or rail on his bio page.

Consider the Source

Our point is this: You can find a hundred experts in management and decision making who’ve written papers critical of this or that project, but until you truly understand those projects and have heard from others familiar with them, drawing conclusions from those papers about a specific project like Honolulu rail is pointless.

Contrary to Dr. Prevedouros’s conclusions about the Honolulu project, there is no reason to believe the City has misrepresented future passenger acceptance or costs. Transit experts for decades have said Honolulu is the ideal candidate for a “transit spine” through its corridor – a long and compact urban area squeezed between mountains and the sea.

As for alleged low-balling the cost of Honolulu rail, the project has approximately 30 percent of its budget targeted for contingencies that haven’t even been identified yet – a level federal officials say may be unprecedented.

Dr. Prevedouros is a rock-ribbed rail opponent. It's therefore reasonable to view his commentary with the same degree of skepticism that he directs at the subject of his piece – the recent pro-rail commentary by a member of the American Council of Engineering Companies.

City Says Airport Routing Issues Are Resolved; Lagoon Drive Rail Station To Be Moved One Block

One of Honolulu’s two dailies devoted literally days and columns of news hole, commentary and editorial space in late March to an allegedly intractable problem for the rail project near Honolulu International Airport.

So much for intractable problems and months of delay. Mayor Mufi Hannemann today said the rail route will be moved one block mauka near Lagoon Drive to avoid a potential incursion into the Runway Protection Zone.

Most of the guideway near the airport will still follow Aolele Street, but beginning about 2,000 feet west of Lagoon Drive, it will shift one block mauka to Ualena Street. Importantly, the Federal Transit Administration has agreed to the mitigation, which removes one of the issues that’s been holding up the project’s Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS). The State Historical Preservation Division now will be asked to concur that the new alignment will not affect buildings deserving of historic preservation.

Alarmist reporting notwithstanding, the rail project is resolving the final remaining issues standing in the way of the FEIS’s presentation to the Governor’s office for its acceptance.

Pro-Rail Commentaries Provide One-Two Punch

Who would blame you if you swore off reading the “comments” sections below the newspapers’ online rail stories anymore. What’s the point? The same old pseudonyms trot out the same old pro- and anti-rail rants each and every time a story appears.

Take the two pro-rail commentaries in today's Star-Bulletin. They're like fingernails on a blackboard to the anti-railers.

Former City transportation director Joe Magaldi tops the two-page spread (in the print edition) by recalling his recent trip to the nation’s capital and its modern, grade-separated rail system.

“The only safe, convenient way to get around was riding the Washington, D.C., Metro system,” Magaldi writes. “As always, moving through the city was remarkably convenient, thanks to Metro.”

Following up with an engineer’s perspective was John Katahira, president of the American Council of Engineering Companies-Hawaii, who urges readers to respect the multi-year process involved in scoping and planning the Honolulu rail project. Says Katahira:

“Over the last five years, there have been many opportunities for public involvement. It is now time to trust the process, move forward — with our eyes wide open — and make the most of a project that will shape Honolulu's future”

The commentaries urge Honolulu citizens to embrace safe, effective, fast and convenient transit – all attributes of Honolulu’s future rail system.

Town Hall Meeting Tonight Will Focus on TOD

Illustration accompanying TOD article in today's Honolulu Advertiser

Honolulu’s anticipated economic benefits from transit oriented development (TOD) along the City’s rail transit route will be highlighted in a panel discussion this evening at Farrington High School.

The City has long extolled the value rail projects have for their communities. In addition to being a traffic-free method of commuting through congested urban areas, rail can spur renewal in the neighborhoods through which they travel.

Experts from around the country will describe how rail systems have positively impacted housing, business and employment. San Diego, Portland and Washington, D.C. are among the cities frequently mentioned as having enjoyed billions of dollars of positive investment, some of it stimulated by tax credits for developers who build affordable housing near rail transit stations.

Tonight’s workshop will begin at 6 o’clock in the Farrington High School auditorium. The TOD story in today's Honolulu Advertiser by Alan Yonan Jr. is the first rail-specific article we recall seeing written by the paper's assistant business editor. Perhaps it signals a change in rail reporting assignments at the paper; the most recent story by the paper's regular rail reporter was noteworthy for having buried its lead some 650 words into the article.

Community College Welcomes Rail ‘Gateway’

The media usually focus on negative “newsworthy” angles in their stories about the Honolulu rail project’s route, but Honolulu Community College has a different take.

HCC intends to incorporate a rail station into the campus’s building plans, as described in today’s Honolulu Star-Bulletin.

Nothing new has been built at the Dillingham Boulevard campus in 40 years, a generation ago. But now plans are being created for a six-story Advanced Technology Training Center, and most probably would agree that it’s about time.

While rail commuting will be convenient and traffic-free for everyone who decides to ride the train, nobody will find it more so than HCC students. They’ll be just minutes from class when they alight from the train and get to work in that new training center.

Return to Paradise

A business traveler writes in today’s Bulletin that she won’t return to Honolulu for pleasure and maybe not for business if she can help it. The problem? Traffic congestion made it a three-hour round trip between Waikiki and Waipahu.

Come back when the rail project is completed, Debbie Kipper of Shawnee Mission, KS. You’ll cut about two hours off that trip by riding Honolulu’s train.

Lingle Still Supports At-Grade Rail Despite Flaws; Doesn’t Fast, Frequent, Reliable & Safe Matter?

Maybe the most charitable thing to be said about the Governor’s rail-related comments on Insights PBS Hawaii last night is that she’s too distracted by other issues to fully understand the project.

Or maybe she understands it but as a Republican can’t bring herself to appear supportive of the pet project of a mayor who's a Democrat and who’ll likely run for her office.

Whatever, she asserted last night that building half of Honolulu’s rail project at ground level would save on construction and financing costs. She also said the federal government has strong reservations about the City’s plan to finance rail.

Shout-Back

Some rail supporters undoubtedly shouted back at their TV sets last night as the Governor glowingly supported putting half of Honolulu’s system at ground level. Host and Star-Bulletin reporter Richard Borreca not once challenged the Governor about her preference for slow, neighborhood-disrupting, costly, accident-prone and therefore unreliable at-grade rail.

For reasons described in great detail by federal and local officials, transit experts, citizens and plain old bloggers, at-grade rail can’t possibly provide the kind of transportation Honolulu commuters need – fast, frequent, reliable and safe service. (You’re invited to slog through any number of posts here at Yes2Rail to read about each of these grade-separated attributes.)

Information Under-load?

The most puzzling thing about the Governor’s comments last night was her apparent obliviousness to the reasons why building any part of Honolulu’s system at ground level would spell failure. For example, does she not know about the accidents that affect at-grade systems wherever they’re built?

It makes you wonder about whether important information is actually reaching the Governor. If her aides were doing their jobs right, they’d be exposing her to diverse views about the project, but she shows no sign of having been exposed to at-grade’s negatives.

Also, despite the several strong statements of support by Washington for Honolulu’s rail project, she continues to suggest federal officials have major reservations about rail's financing plan.

So maybe it’s not so much about the Governor’s views as it is about her distractions and the quality of her support system. That’s about as charitable as we’re prepared to be.

Transcription:

Question from a viewer: Re the Governor’s stand on the rail project, what alternatives does she have to avoid traffic if she doesn’t accept the rail EIS?

A: (after an aside about working hard to the end of her term....) This rail issue is an acute issue for the people of the island of Oahu and for the entire state for that matter. It’s the most expensive project ever undertaken in the state. It will create an amount of debt that will be very difficult for the people I think to withstand.

And I think it’s a fair question to say, OK, if it’s not the rail, then what? There have been some good suggestions made about making the rail system, instead of all above ground, make it half-way at street level and half above ground, and that would reduce the cost by $2 billion, and that would reduce the debt on people. So there’s a huge difference between what’s been proposed and what could be implemented, so I think that’s one response.

But we’re not going to wait for rail, because regardless of which system, It’s years down the road. We need to do things now, and we have, as you know, by getting North-South Road open. We’re now going to move forward with the pm contra-flow lanes.

And also, of course, is to create jobs out in the region, so you don’t have as many people making this long commute across the island. And we’ve been so supportive of the Ko’olina Resort project out there, and of course Disney will be opening in 2011. There will be at least 1,000 jobs there, so perhaps people who are commuting will be taken off the road that way. They won’t have to come into town to work. We’ve also been big supporters of UH West Oahu, which would be another way instead of people driving to Manoa, another way to keep people more in the region.

Q: If you could, would you stop the rail project now?

A; Well, that’s a decision that the City is going to have to make. But what I am going to do is the financial analysis, and if I feel that it’s something the people simply could not afford, if it’s something that doesn’t make financial sense, I won’t sign off on it and neither will the federal government.

As you know, they have raised an issue about the City’s financial plan, and they’ve said it simply doesn’t work now as it’s been presented. And one of the things that the federal government looks at very closely — and they made this point to me when I was with them in Washington — if the City or any city is going to take a lot of money away from the existing bus system, they don’t like that as a financial plan. And this plan has $300 million being taken away from the bus system to make the financial plan work for rail.

So that’s something that’s going to have to be looked at as well. You might be able to say rail can work, but would you degrade our existing bus system so much that it would just have a poor quality of service, so that also has to be looked at.

Honolulu Weekly Gets a Scoop on Draft FEIS, Says Content Is Consistent with City’s Statements

Taking a cue from movie ads and their selective quotes from film reviews, here's our summary of Honolulu Weekly's story today on its reading of the draft Final Environmental Impact Statement on Honolulu Rail:

“Amid political name-calling, sensational headlines and evasive officials offering little beyond canned quotations..., the (FEIS) document (is) consistent with what City officials have said.”

That pretty much clears it up, wouldn’t you say?

Of course, we did leave out about 200 words from the lead-in to the Weekly’s article on the FEIS, which the newspaper obtained (ahead of the Honolulu dailies) through a Freedom of Information Act request to the Federal government.

Going right to the essence: According to the Weekly, City officials have been saying exactly what’s so about the rail line’s routing near Honolulu International Airport. (See last week’s “view with alarm” Honolulu Advertiser coverage of this issue, which is linked from our Yes2Rail posts below.)

There’s lots more, of course. The paper highlights the major issues and compares the 2008 Draft EIS with the Final, which as summarized by HW comes across in a matter-of-fact way without a hint of obfuscation.

Now we wait to see how the dailies react to being scooped by Honolulu Weekly again.

No Apparent Urgency To Duck 'n Cover or Head for Hills: Revenue Picture Brightens for Oahu Hotels

Didn’t rail’s opponents say the economic slump would last forever and doom the project? “Look around! We can’t afford it!” they’ve been shouting for months.

What happened? What happened is what always happens. The economy is turning around in a cycle that’s as sure to happen as the tides. That’s the way it’s always been and always will be.

The latest news: Oahu hotels will see a healthy 7.2-percent increase in revenue per available room this year, according to a new forecast by PFK Hospitality Research.

The hyper-active opponents will be creative in spinning this, of course, and we’ll all do well to ignore them.

Airport Space Plan Was Years Out of Date

Today’s Sean Hao special has over 750 words in it, but you have to read about 650 of them before you come to this:

"According to the state DOT, the city based its initial analysis of the impacts of rail on an outdated airport layout plan. That plan was drafted in the mid-1990s and had not been updated to reflect a 1994 change in runway protection zones."

That seems to be more than a little interesting. Several questions:

• Exactly how long had the plan been out of date?

• Who is responsible for updating the plan?

• What is the requirement to update the plan?

• Did the outdated plan leave safety issues unaddressed?

• When was the plan eventually rewritten?

• What does the FAA say about the failure to update the plan?

• Is the failure to update the plan responsible for the current confusion about rail's alignment near the airport?

Based on the buried lead of this story, maybe this is a better headline: Airport space plan was years out of date

The State Department of Transportation presumably is responsible for the plan's upkeep, but we don't know for sure, because the Advertiser's reporter apparently didn't ask these questions and seems not to care.

Advertiser Strains to Headline Unremarkable Fact In Another Story that Models Seinfeld’s Puffy Shirt

“State: City must pay to move runways” is the headline on the Advertiser’s rail story today. It looks like a front-runner for the Unremarkable News of the Year award.

Isn’t it obvious the City will pay for rail-related costs? It’s a City project!

The story’s play is another example of a pattern that’s pretty clear. Advertiser news editors and reporters are going out of their way to cover rail with a “view with alarm” style of journalism that we've noted here repeatedly (keep reading below this post).

Unremarkable facts are played on page one in overly long stories that often quote only rail critics, as this one does. How hard could it be to find a pro-rail source within the City Council or administration to add balance?

And what are we to make of the Star-Bulletin? The paper’s rail coverage rarely approaches the Advertiser’s tone. Is that evidence of lazy journalism, or is it be a sign of professionalism?

Which brings us to Seinfeld’s puffy shirt. This isn’t the first time we've thought the Advertiser’s rail stories often seem overblown, as famously described by Elaine in a Seinfeld episode: “You’re all puffed up!”

Gather a few unremarkable facts, string them together and slap the story on page one, and that’s what you get.

Shapiro Column Tightens Paper’s ‘Closed Loop’

First came Saturday’s incomplete view-with-alarm story on the rail route’s temporary issue near Honolulu International Airport. City Transportation Services Director Wayne Yoshioka’s letter to the editor in today’s Advertiser calls that story “inaccurate.”

Next came yesterday’s editorial, which was based on Saturday’s story and therefore mirrored its view-with-alarm assessment. We described this process as a “closed information loop” – an editorial based entirely on the paper’s inaccurate news story.

Dave Shapiro’s Volcanic Ash column today tightens that loop and slams the City while giving the Governor a free pass – even though his last paragraph seems to refute what he wrote in the preceeding graf. (She's moving "briskly" in starting a financial review now even though she's had the Draft FEIS for three months?)

For an accurate assessment of what’s going on with the rail route at the airport, read Yoshioka’s letter -- and step out of the Advertiser’s closed loop.

Old Computer Problem Infects Paper’s Editorial

You don’t hear it much anymore – “garbage in, garbage out.” It’s so 1980s.

But that’s what you get when an editorial writer relies on coverage by the newspaper’s own agenda-driver reporter to build its opinion piece. Such seems to be the result in today's Honolulu Advertiser lead editorial.

We’ve previously noted reporter Sean Hao’s inaccuracies, narrow fact selection and “view with alarm” style of journalism here. His most recent gotcha article attempted to show that the City was slow to recognize a potential rail route problem near Honolulu International Airport.

We suspect there’s much more to this story that Hao has selectively chosen not to report or didn't try hard enough to learn – information that will show no such thing. We may not read it in the Advertiser, however, since the City's effort to shed more light on inter-agency dialogue could make negotiations on the airport issue even more difficult.

The bottom line: By sole-sourcing information for its editorial today, the Advertiser is operating in a closed information loop – basing its editorial viewpoint on a shaky reporting foundation. The old advice is still relevant: Let the buyer – and reader – beware.

Airport Rail Route Subject of Talks with FAA

We’re reminded in a front-page story in today’s Advertiser that the rail line’s routing near Honolulu International Airport may require some adjustments due to the proximity of two runways that end a thousand feet or less from the alignment.

In typical “view with alarm” style, the story casts a shadow over the project, but as usual, reading deep into the story reveals the situation to be far less alarming.

One of our posts in January 2009 noted the City Council’s vote to redirect the route to the airport. That same post also said the comment period on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement would be open for another week.

Personally, I’m looking forward to seeing what comments were submitted about the near-airport route after the City Council’s decision, and by whom.

Houston Bus Crashes into At-Grade Train -- Again

Bus meets train today in Houston.

There’s been yet another bus-train crash on the Houston, TX at-grade rail system (video available here). It happened this afternoon at the same intersection where a bus ran a red light in early February, sending 9 to the hospital. Today’s crash more than doubled the number of injured.

Continuing the thought we started in our earlier post today, Honolulu’s elevated rail system will restore mobility to our citizens. But as today's crash shows, Houston’s citizens don’t enjoy the same assurance of mobility that we will have when our rail system is built.

That’s because their mobility evaporates with every crash. Just ask the riders of Houston’s rail system if they reached their destinations on time today. They most assuredly did not if their trains were halted by the crash.

Unfortunately, the 19 injured passengers lost more than their mobility.

This Just In: 4 Angels Can Dance on a Pin, and Advertiser Is Still Focusing on the Wrong Thing

Reading today’s rail story in the Advertiser reminded us again of the question asked by medieval scholars: “How many angels can dance on the head of the pin?”

Thanks to the Internet, we have the answer: Formerly there was no limit, but new OSHA regulations set the number at four and require twice-annual inspections of the pin to detect structural defects.

Nowadays people on a quest for knowledge can ask questions like, “How many jobs will be created by the Honolulu rail project?” I suppose that’s important to economists and number crunchers, but getting stuck on that question is as crazy as counting angels.

It’s About M-O-B-I-L-I-T-Y

Rail detractors say the project is just about unions, campaign contributions and jobs, so an overly long story on somebody’s lower prediction of the job total plays right into their hands.

Let’s keep the focus on rail’s true purpose – restoring mobility to our community. We’ve lost our mobility. It’s no longer possible to move through our community and be certain we won’t be impeded by traffic congestion.

Only grade-separated transit offers that certainty, and grade-separated projects – elevated or underground – have restored mobility to cities around the world.

Honolulu’s elevated rail system will do the same here. Yes, of course, naturally, without a doubt: Jobs will be created, and if you bother to read far enough into today’s Sean Hao Special, you’ll see that the deputy project manager believes the number will be in the same 10,000 range that’s in the Draft EIS.

So can we please stop fixating on how many angels will be employed on this project!?

Rail’s FEIS Issues Coming to a Head This Week

This blog’s five-day break since the most recent post mirrors the delay of the Final Environmental Impact Statement for the City’s rail project. Both can be explained (charitably) by circumstances almost beyond the control of the participants.

Preparations for the March 28 memorial service for Cec Heftel, former Hawaii congressman and broadcaster extraordinaire from coast to coast and beyond, have eaten up quite a few of our hours, but at least there’s a future date certain when everything will come together.

That isn’t the case for the City. It seems the Federal Aviation Administration has held up review of the FEIS, as described in today’s Advertiser.

Federal officials will be in Honolulu this week to focus on the statement’s status, and the public undoubtedly will learn the “true facts” about the holdup that apparently involve the FAA.

Even after adjustments to the rail plan that will satisfy that agency, then there’s the approval process involving the Governor. It’s anybody’s guess how long that will take.

It’s also anybody’s guess how long the commute during rush hours will take a decade from now if the rail project isn't built. With rail, the travel time will be explicitly known each and every time a commuter boards the train. Without it, the delays could be grossly greater than today as both the population and vehicle numbers grow.

We trust the Governor’s concerns about the project’s finances will be satisfied and we won’t have to experience what travel would be like in this city without an alternative to traffic congestion.

City MD’s Response Covers Elevated Rail’s Pluses

Blogger Ian Lind seems surprised the City would want to respond to his commentary on Hawaii Public Radio lauding at-grade rail. Of course a response was indicated, inasmuch as Lind appears to have swallowed the AIA’s transit stance hook, line and pole.

Managing Director Kirk Caldwell’s equal time response was aired yesterday in the same time slot on KHPR. Listen to the entire commentary (less than 2:30) if you have time, but if you’re pressed, focus on this:

"Elevated rail will deliver commuters to their destinations far quicker than trains running at ground level in the mix of other traffic, red lights, pedestrians and cross streets. A faster train will be more successful, because it will be more attractive to potential riders than slower surface rail."

If the City doesn’t build a system that attracts riders, it truly will be stuck with the white elephant the AIA fears so much. It’s ironic that the chapter's self-described urban planners have fallen so hard for a concept sure to fail.

That’s why the City has relied on transit planners to design its transit system.

And the At-Grade Rail Crash Video Nominees Are:

It’s Oscar weekend, so let’s settle back and watch some short subjects – videos of at-grade rail crashes over the years. This compilation focuses primarily on systems in Houston, TX and Phoenix, AZ, cities that dominate the category, although they’re not alone.

It’s a sobering subject, and we’re not making light of the property damage, injuries and deaths that occur when light rail transit at ground level interacts with vehicles and pedestrians.

Some in Honolulu continue to propose the at-grade concept, so it’s entirely appropriate to highlight this significant safety deficiency of at-grade rail.

Both Phoenix and Houston are still working on how to avoid collisions with their at-grade trains, so don’t be surprised if these cities are among next year’s nominees, too.

Ever Notice How Critics of the City’s Elevated Rail System Never Stand Up to At-Grade Rail's Issues?

You can write about the deficiencies of at-grade rail until your fingers bleed, and some vocal proponents of ground-level service will never even respond to the challenge to debate them.

They can’t be drawn into discussing at-grade rail’s slow pace compared to elevated rail, its less frequent and less reliable service and, yes, its relatively poor safety record.

Point them toward the crash-a-week experience of Phoenix’s at-grade system in its first year and their reaction is, “Phoenix? I know nothing about Phoenix.”

Mention the higher operating costs of at-grade rail due to the driver requirement (unlike automated elevated rail) and they’ll feign deafness. Or remind them at-grade rail has tremendous impacts on the neighborhoods it passes through and they’ll ignore that, too.

Tell them less frequent and slower at-grade train service won’t be successful in pulling people out of their cars and they’ll change the subject.

What Conflict?

For example, they’ll complain backers of the City’s elevated plan (like this blogger) have a "conflict of interest" without explaining what that conflict is. (See some of the comments below Yes2Rail’s March 1 post or at the link in the first graf above.)

What kind of a “conflict” can there be when my consultancy to the City to promote Honolulu's proposed rail system is displayed clearly at the top of this page and every new post? The critics' reasoning seems obtuse, and maybe it's because they just don’t understand the "conflict of interest" concept. ("We disagree; therefore, you conflict with my interest." Is that it?)

So here’s an open invitation to critics of the City’s rail system: Address the above deficiencies of your so-called at-grade alternative one by one. Try to convince someone in the middle of this argument that you’ve got it right and we proponents of elevated rail have it wrong. Tell us exactly why relatively slow, relatively inefficient, relatively unreliable and relatively crash-prone rail is what Honolulu needs.

It’s a simple challenge. Accept it, and for once, don’t change the subject.
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7 pm Update: It's been 14 hours since we issued this challenge, and not one at-grade proponent has seen fit to respond. No surprise.

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7 am 3/5 Update: 26 hours later and still no takers.

Blogger’s Rail Commentary Just an AIA Rehash

Where have you been, Ian Lind? Perhaps the most successful blogger in Hawaii (his blog’s counter reports nearly 1.8 million visitors), Lind’s commentary on Hawaii Public Radio this morning was surprisingly naïve (it's available at HPR's website).

That’s his word, as in the “Perhaps I’m naïve….” phrase in his commentary. But we have to agree; Lind’s piece seems “fresh off the boat” and suggests no exposure to why the American Institute of Architects Hawaii chapter's at-grade rail proposal won’t serve Honolulu’s needs.

For example, Lind asked in his piece why flexible light rail couldn’t be built elevated where appropriate and at-grade elsewhere. The reasons have been exhaustively discussed in the Draft EIS at the project's website, in community meetings, in the mainstream media and in numerous online sites, including Yes2Rail.

At-grade wouldn’t be as fast, wouldn’t be as reliable, wouldn’t be as safe and wouldn’t be nearly as successful as an elevated system. We won’t go into the details in today's post, but they’re covered here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here, among other posts.

More Like Propaganda

Asking the question in the manner he did is almost inexplicable for someone who enjoys a reputation as an investigative journalist from when he reported for the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. It’s somewhat shocking for his commentary to come off as AIA propaganda.

The material covers the same old AIA territory – the ridiculous assertion that architects were denied the opportunity to provide input on rail both early and late (a cover story for being asleep at the switch), the City’s alleged bullying and ramrod mentality, politics driving the project, the selection of “old” steel-on-steel technology, etc.

We doubt Lind reads Yes2Rail, but if he does now, let’s hope he takes time to read these three lengthy posts that essentially accuse the AIA of deliberately misleading the public on the environmental impact process, the relative speed of at-grade rail vs elevated and the safety issue.

Lind seems cozily in bed with a minority of local architects who see the rail project only through their visual aesthetics filter. That’s too narrow a perspective to guide the planning for a vital transportation project that will provide an alternative to traffic congestion for decades to come.

Just As Honolulu Rail Coverage Seems Balanced, Honolulu on Brink of Having Just One Daily

As we said here five days ago:

“Rail coverage by Honolulu’s two newspapers reminds us once again why it’s so important to be a two-newspaper city. One continues to splash rail stories that have remarkably little heft to them, while the other seems content to report on the process without contributing hysteria.”

Guess which one looks almost certain to go out of business.

Shock is the most common reaction we’ve heard to the news that the Honolulu Star-Bulletin is acquiring the Honolulu Advertiser from Gannett Corporation. Honolulu has been the country’s only major city with competing daily newspapers, but that seems about to change.

Both papers treat the news as the blockbuster it is in today's editions, and dozens of employees in the newspapers' newsrooms, back shops, advertising and circulation departments now face troubling days ahead about whether they’ll have jobs much longer.

What of Rail Coverage?

Their concerns trump just about any others, but we can’t help comment here that the implications for the Honolulu rail project are not inconsequential. Our February 21 post focused on the “all puffed up” stories (think Jerrry Seinfeld’s puffy shirt) on page one of the Advertiser, whose news hole (unlike the editorial page) seems devoted to the “view with alarm” school of journalism.

Like many other days, the Star-Bulletin carried nary a word about that which bothered the Advertiser so much last Sunday – concerns that seem laughable when you take time to think through those stories' topics.

Even if the Bulletin is purchased by an outsider and survives, we’ll be watching to see whether the Advertiser’s coverage of rail becomes more rational, more accurate and less alarmist about rail issues in general under its new ownership – which under the sale's terms will be the current Star-Bulletin’s management. One can hope.

AIA ‘Spinning’ Extends to its Own Internal Survey; More Said They Favor Elevated Rail than At-Grade!

We focus so much attention here on the American Institute of Architects Hawaii Chapter’s credibility because Governor Linda Lingle seems to be relying on the AIA so much. Her official website devotes considerable space to the AIA presentation on January 18 that she hosted in the State Capitol. (The links to Governor Lingle's website became obsolete when her successor took office.)

Should the Governor be concerned about the AIA’s representations? We think so and have posted three times in the past week on statements made on a local public television program by an AIA member a week ago tonight.

We called attention to apparent willful misrepresentations about the environmental impact process, the speed of at-grade trains and the dangers to other vehicle traffic when rail is built at-grade.

Today we’re going back to perhaps the biggest AIA misrepresentation of them all. The local chapter surveyed its membership last June with an emailed poll. To bolster the chapter’s campaign against Honolulu’s planned elevated rail system, here’s how its website spins the results:

“A total of 90/144 member responses (62.5%) favored either at-grade or below grade through the downtown urban core. A total of 41/144 members (28.4%) indicated their preference for elevated rail through the urban core.”

What the summary doesn’t tell you – but clicking on the actual survey results does – is that more AIA members said they favored elevated rail than at-grade rail – 28.5% for elevated and 24.3% for at-grade. And if “spinning” is the issue, you can make the case that 68.7% favor a grade-separated solution over ground-level rail.

Using this survey's results, the AIA chapter has gone to the public with a misinformation campaign favoring at-grade rail (see referenced Yes2Rail posts, above) even though the poll showed lower support for at-grade rail than the other two alternatives!

That's why the Governor is urged to use caution in evaluating what the AIA chapter is communicating to her and the community. More than ever, it’s obvious the at-grade campaign is championed by a small minority within the chapter that is intent on confusing the public about the most important construction project in the state’s history.

AIA Once Again Misrepresents and Ignores Higher Danger to Street Traffic Posed by At-Grade Transit

Today’s post continues the dissection of last Thursday’s “Insights on PBS Hawaii” television panel discussion on Honolulu’s rail project. We previously looked at the American Institute of Architects (AIA) representative’s statements about the Environmental Impact Statement process and how he was contradicted by three others on the panel. Yesterday's post concentrated on the implausibility of the AIA claim that its proposed at-grade system could carry as many passengers and do so nearly as quickly as the City’s elevated plan.

Today’s issue is safety, which we’ve previously noted has been ignored by the AIA. We’ll pick up with host Dan Boylan reading a question sent in by a viewer:

Boylan: “Commaaina wants to know via Twitter, Peter: 'The AIA ignores the poor safety of at-grade systems. Phoenix had 52 accidents in its first year. It mustn’t be built here.'”

Peter Vincent: “And the City has ignored the accidents and the safety record of, say, the model Vancouver SkyTrain system, and Mr. Okino has said to me personally that there’ve been no accidents there….”

Council Member Gary Okino: “I didn’t say there have been no accidents, but it’s not….”

Vincent: “…when Sean Hao’s Advertiser article upon research indicated there have been 10 accidental deaths in Vancouver, OK, so there are unfortunately accidents with any system. The good news, and being for a rail system here, rail has a very low incident rate compared to other modes of transportation. So rail, being elevated (or) at-grade is a much safer way to travel than most other ways.”

Upon Closer Examination

The viewer’s question specifically addressed at-grade’s relatively poor safety record by noting the Phoenix system’s accident-a-week rate in its first year of operation. How does the AIA’s Peter Vincent respond?

He completely avoids the obvious thrust of the at-grade safety issue and then obfuscates it by protesting that “there have been 10 accidental deaths in Vancouver….” His source is Honolulu Advertiser reporter Sean Hao, whose inaccurate reporting on rail and selective use of quotes has been noted in this blog.

We’ve made our own inquiries about Vancouver’s safety record. Doug Kelsey, president and chief executive officer of British Columbia Rapid Transit Company, Ltd., which operates and maintains the Vancouver SkyTrain, says there have been “zero accidents caused by the technology” on the system.

Kelsey says SkyTrain has learned from the few regrettable incidents on its system and installed an intrusion system that triggers an alarm when it detects someone falling off the platform. (SkyTrain was recognized late last year as “Best Organization” at the Fifth Annual Lieutenant Governor’s Awards for Public Safety – British Columbia’s highest safety honor.”)

What also comes through is that Vancouver's accidents have been "personal" in nature and not collisions, which is the major issue with at-grade transit. As City Transportation Services Director Wayne Yoshioka said at a January press conference:

“Let’s go back logically and look at this. You’re elevated. You’re totally separated from the roadway. You’re in a protected environment and completely separated out… What cars are flying at that level above the ground? And what people are flying through the air at that level above the ground? As opposed to an at-grade transist that’s crossing active streets with active vehicles turning in front of the train, with pedestrians crossing in front of the train?”

Perhaps the AIA’s representative thinks he’s doing his organization’s bidding well by sidestepping the obvious fact that no cars, no trucks and no buses have crashed with SkyTrain, but it’s even more obvious that he’s selling something that’s not true.

At-grade transit systems are much more prone to accidents than grade-separated systems. By rolling at-grade and elevated into the same broad “rail” category, Vincent blatantly misled the viewing public during last week’s program.

And that unfortunately characterizes the AIA’s campaign for at-grade rail here. As noted in yesterday’s post, the AIA pooh-poohed the time difference between an elevated system’s speed and that of a relatively slow at-grade experience.

But there is absolutely no way a train operating on the ground and traveling on this map’s red route can move through the heart of Honolulu at anything close to the speed of an elevated train using the blue route on the map. There’s just isn’t.

The AIA would do us a public service by ending its semantic tricks about the speed, safety, reliability and capacity of its proposed at-grade train. One small group of architects apparently holds aesthetics above all other considerations. (See our January 29 post for the AIA’s internal poll’s remarkable results showing that elevated actually received more support from the AIA’s membership than at-grade!)

The rest of us surely want safety to rank much higher on the priority scale than how the rail system “looks.”