Rail Opponents Take Their Show on the Road, so Preparing Questions for Them Only Makes Sense

If the end of the world actually happens on Friday as Harold Camping now predicts, it really doesn’t matter that two opponents of the Honolulu rail project are making numerous stops in their anti-rail crusade that began in August.

We’re surmising that Mr. Camping will be proven wrong again and that Cliff Slater will be undeterred in his role as leader of the road show. He and three fellow plaintiffs on a lawsuit that they hope will kill rail made a stop at the Rotary Club of Honolulu last week. Mr. Slater and Ben Cayetano followed that up two days later on public TV, and there’s no telling where they'll show up next.

When they do, it seems only right that they should answer some questions. We created the TEN QUESTIONS project for their TV appearance, but since none of them were used by the program’s host, these questions are still ripe for asking if the occasion arises anywhere along the way.

If Mr. Slater actually gains the floor somewhere, we can predict now with a high degree of confidence what he’ll say in any venue. First, he’ll tell his audience the cost of the Honolulu rail project, and then he’ll say traffic congestion will be worse in the future with rail than it is today – and then he’ll sit down.

No Deviations

That’s Mr. Slater’s routine, and he rarely if ever deviates from it. It’s how he conducted his now infamous Civil Beat interview in July 2010, and it’s exactly what he said and did last week at the Rotary club.

What’s the significance? Simply this: Mr. Slater wants his audiences to believe rail shouldn’t be built if it won’t dramatically reduce traffic congestion. He’s a highwayman at heart, so it doesn’t matter to him that Honolulu rail is a mass transit project that has four perfectly reasonable and attainable goals that will benefit Honolulu residents.

If rail won’t slash congestion in 2030 to less than we have today, it would be a failure in Mr. Slater’s book. Of course, his book is a work of fiction. With 200,000 more residents living on Oahu in 2030 than in 2005, congestion will of course be greater than today. Couples will start families, and people will continue to move here, and unless Mr. Slater has some schemes up his sleeve to prevent that from happening, both the population and traffic congestion will grow.

So if there’s an opportunity to ask Mr. Slater questions at any upcoming event, the questioning might begin with this one – an adaptation of Question #5 in our TEN QUESTIONS project:

“Mr. Slater, you continue to suggest that Honolulu rail will be a failed project if it doesn’t reduce traffic congestion decades from now to less than what we have today. That seems like an illogical assertion, since with two hundred thousand more people living on the island in 2030 compared to 2005, congestion is bound to increase, as I’m sure you’ll agree. This is a two-part question: At your core, isn’t your motivation solely to reduce road congestion and you don’t care much at all about building rail, which will offer a congestion-free way to travel through the city? And second, why do you persist in accusing the city of withholding information about future congestion when you know that accusation is false?”

He knows his accusation is false. There’s plenty of evidence that the city has been transparent about future congestion, including the radio program that Mr. Slater and the city’s Wayne Yoshioka appeared on about this very subject – future traffic congestion. You can’t be much more transparent than to be conversing on the public airwaves. (You can read a revealing quote by Mr. Slater while on that program here.)

If you happen to be at an event where Mr. Slater says why he’s against Honolulu rail, please let us know if our prediction came true by adding a comment, below.

Rail Jobs ‘Plentiful’ if Project Is Not Delayed, but Four Rail Opponents Are Fighting To Kill Project

Mayor Peter Carlisle will meet Tuesday with the Rotary Club of Honolulu, whose members probably have as much to gain as anyone else from an improved Hawaii economy. It’s the oldest club in the state – founded in 1915, club #170 out of more than 34,000 worldwide today – and therefore the club for senior business executives to join.

One wonders how they’re reacting to today’s page-one story in the Star-Advertiser beneath the headline “Rail jobs plentiful regardless of who’s counting.” The story (accessible only by subscription) says that although the number of jobs created by building the Honolulu project varies according to the computer model, the project’s positive impact on the economy can’t be understated.

“There is no ‘shovel-ready’ project, public or private, that will have the kind of immediate impact on the jobs market and the economy as a whole, as the rail project,” the story concludes.

So maybe “politeness” combined with Rotary’s Four-Way Test explained the reception the anti-rail “Gang of Four” received at last week’s meeting. Nobody challenged Cliff Slater’s observation that traffic congestion in the future with rail will be worse than it is today – and then he sat down, as if that fact is all one needs to oppose the project.

Nobody challenged Randall Roth when he insinuated something illegal is happening in City Hall because the wife of city transportation director Wayne Yoshioka works at PB, the city’s prime rail contractor.

Nobody questioned Walter Heen’s characterization of the City Council’s handling of the rail project as the “silence of the lambs,” suggesting he somehow missed the years of contentious Council debate over rail.

And nobody asked Benjamin Cayetano what he has in mind instead of rail to help commuters who battle highway congestion twice a day and waste hours a week on our roads.

Is It the Truth?

Honolulu club Rotarians certainly are sharp enough to know a shallow performance when they see one, and last week’s presentation by the plaintiffs on a lawsuit intended to kill rail qualified.

Calling them on it, though, might have been unseemly in light of the Four-Way Test of the things Rotarians “think, say or do.” The Test emphasizes fairness, good will and mutual respect for all concerned, including speakers.

Most of all, the Test values the Truth, and it’s by emphasizing the Truth of Honolulu rail that Mayor Carlisle can have the greatest impact with the Honolulu club tomorrow.

He can point out that Mr. Slater’s quip about future traffic congestion after rail, while factual, is no reason to oppose the project. Of course traffic will grow along with Oahu’s population – a solid reason to support rail, not try to kill it.

The truth of Mr. Roth’s presentation is that it failed the Four-Way Test by insinuating corruption by city officials without offering any proof whatsoever. In fact, just about everything in the Gang’s presentation – a disjointed combination of observations and accusations – failed Rotary’s Four-Way Test.

We hope that’s how the Mayor approaches his encounter with Rotarians who believe job growth on Oahu will be beneficial to all concerned. He can describe how riding the train will allow patrons to build goodwill and better friendships within their families and associates using the hours they’ll save each week by avoiding traffic on our roads.

The truth about Honolulu rail is that it will be the only way to completely avoid the traffic congestion that’s sapping the vitality out of our economy. Build it and riders will come – and so will the jobs.

Last Look at Disappointing INSIGHTS Show; New Opportunities Lie Ahead To Refute Anti-Railers

Supporters of the Honolulu rail project waited for the question to be asked during Thursday night’s INSIGHTS show on public TV. Some might have even shouted at the screen demanding to hear it: “If not rail, what?!”

But former Governor Benjamin Cayetano and anti-mass transit activist Cliff Slater didn’t hear that question and relied on their usual anti-railer rhetoric, which isn’t good enough. Opponents shouldn’t be allowed to get away with offering commuters no viable alternative to wasting hours each week in traffic congestion.

Instead, Messrs. Slater and Cayetano stuck to their usual sideshow issues that they rely on in their public appearances, including at last Tuesday’s Rotary Club of Honolulu meeting. Mayor Peter Carlisle will have his opportunity at this week’s meeting to give a point-by-point refutation of everything the Gang of Four said, especially Mr. Slater’s principal reason for opposing rail.

Mr. Slater used the TV show to flog the low percentage of rail transit ridership compared to private car use. Apparently that fact of life (roads were built everywhere in the car-centric 20th century) trumps everything in his universe, including building a congestion-free mode of travel for those who wish to avoid sitting in traffic.

Paying the Price for Congestion

Glen Astolfi of Faith Action for Community Equity responded:

“You can’t argue with the family out in Kapolei losing dinner together almost every night because they’re stuck in traffic trying to get home. Can you put a price on that? And when we get into this kind of back-and-forth, you lose this larger point, which is, our families are hurting because of this traffic. It does actual damage to actual people every single day, and it doesn’t have to.”

Mr. Cayetano slipped that direct argument in favor of traffic-free commuting by arguing that when money is spent on an expensive rail project, government’s ability to provide social programs is restricted – a curious argument since the people, through their taxes, are paying for the rail project, not some government program.

Speaking like the full-time politician he was, the former governor said: “You guys are so focused on this one issue (which, of course, was indeed the focus on the INSIGHTS program) as if it’s the only issue that’s important to any government. In my book, this is maybe three or four issue of importance to any government.

“You know, people will not die because of traffic congestion, but I tell you what. People will die if government can’t fund programs for spouse abuse and things like that. That’s the biggest problem with this project that I have. It’s gonna suck money away from the government to do things we gotta have….”

Standing Up for Government

And there it is – straight from a man who speaks for government programs. Former City Council member Gary Okino immediately responded that the local share for the rail system is being collected separately through the tax mechanism and that money is not being taken from other programs.

Moderator Boylan moved the discussion back to what rail will be – an alternative to driving. “Wouldn’t we be in better shape,” he asked, “if we had something that worked that well (as Washington’s Metro) running every three minutes?”

That was close to the “if not rail, what?” question, but not quite there. Rather than answer it, Mr. Slater said Honolulu can’t be compared to larger cities, but Mr. Okino jumped in to remind the audience of Mr. Astolfi’s previous description of Honolulu as uniquely suited for rail due to its thin east-west geography between the mountains and the sea.

Somebody might actually ask the leading anti-railers in one of their public appearances to explain themselves in ways they routinely refuse to do. Just maybe that’ll be Mayor Carlisle’s starting point on Tuesday.

With a State-Wide Audience and a Chance To Give Their Alternatives to Rail, Two Opponents Blinked

Some show-and-tell was on display during INSIGHTS.

Last night’s “INSIGHTS on Hawaii PBS” hour-long public television show had the potential to reveal what rail opponents Ben Cayetano and Cliff Slater think would be a better way for west Oahu residents to commute to and from downtown Honolulu, the employment center of the island and state.

That seemingly should have been a subject ripe for considerable discussion, wouldn’t it? Messrs. Cayetano and Slater and a few others are plaintiffs in a lawsuit that they hope will kill rail. At a minimum, it seems likely to delay the start of major construction.

So knowing what they prefer as an alternative to a grade-separated, traffic-avoiding transportation mode was something we expected to hear on this program.

It didn’t happen. The anti-railers didn’t go there. They blinked and flat-out refused to discuss their preferences. One can imagine a pre-program huddle in KHET’s parking lot between the two:

Mr. Cayetano: “Cliff, listen. Do not under any circumstances discuss high-occupancy toll roads on this program. I know you think they’re great, but they’re TOLL roads, Cliff. We don’t have any toll roads in Hawaii for a good reason: nobody wants them aside from you and a few of your supporters. I’ve not met a single person here who wants to pay a toll and add to their cost of living.”

Mr. Slater: “OK, I understand, Governor, and I won’t say a word about HOT lanes, but I’m imploring you to not say anything about your favorite – at-grade transit. If you start promoting slow, unreliable, accident-prone at-grade rail or whatever you have in mind, Dan Boylan will bore in and you’ll be on the defensive for the rest of the show. Just don’t go there.”

Get to the Point!

And he didn’t, neither did Mr. Slater and there wasn’t much boring in on the show. Messrs. Slater and Cayetano had absolutely nothing to say about their preferred alternatives when former City Council member Gary Okino tried to move the discussion away from sideshow issues that were bogging down the discussion.

“You’re missing the point,” Mr. Okino said. “We need an elevated system. That’s the only thing that’s gonna work, and you gotta accept some of these tradeoffs – the aesthetic, the view planes, whatever – because only an elevated, grade-separated system that doesn’t mix with traffic will move commuters. Everything else will be stuck in traffic. With two hundred thousand more people living out in ewa in the next twenty-five years, can you imagine how many more cars will be on the freeway? The only thing that’s gonna move is something that is not mixed in with traffic.”

Disappointingly, nearly everything else discussed on the show amounted to side issues or flat-out obfuscation – sideshows about computer modeling, cost overruns in other cities, comparing cities for the comparables as if this were a real estate transaction.

Drew Astolfi, director of Faith Action for Community Equity (FACE), noted that Honolulu’s long and narrow geography is perfect for a rail system and one reason federal authorities are so supportive of the project. Like Mr.Okino, he wanted to discuss the real issue – traffic.

“This project promises to fix that for every single rider. It ends traffic for every single rider, and that point has been lost as we’ve gotten into the weeds and computer models and different cost projections. I think this does cost a lot, and I think it’s worth what we’re paying for it because we’re buying a sustainable, livable city for the next hundred years. That’s how long a transit system lasts….”

The No-Car Option

Mr. Cayetano’s response to that line of thought was to pose a question to Mr. Okino, who lives in Pearlridge: “This is a question that should be asked of everyone who lives in the corridor,” the former governor said. “Are you gonna go and walk to the bus stop, catch the bus to get to the rail station and take it into town.”

Mr. Okino: “At some point, traffic congestion is gonna be so terrible, you’re gonna have to make a choice….. (Mr. Astolfi) said you’re gonna end congestion for people who get on the train. There will be no congestion if you take the train. Now if you have a train that can get to town in a half an hour, congestion out there is gonna get worse, and the projections are going over an hour. It’s 65 minutes already. So the choice of the people will be, 30 minutes on the train (or) two hours in traffic on the freeway. I guarantee you there will be a whole bunch of guys getting outta their cars.”

Mr. Cayetano: “Behavior is a big part of the failure of these rail systems throughout the country…. Are you gonna walk out from your house to a bus stop, wait for the bus, take the bus down to the rail station and then wait for the rail and get on it to get downtown?”

Mr. Okino: “If it takes me two hours to commute by car, of course!”

That exchange pretty much sums up the pro-car mindset of Mr. Cayetano, Mr. Slater and their fellow anti-rail friends. They’ve been dependent on their private automobiles so long they simply cannot imagine using public transit and leaving their car at home – something hundreds of millions of people do every day around the world. Their August 21st newspaper op-ed asked plaintively, “Where will commuters park their cars?”

Mr. Boylan might have asked Mr. Cayetano to describe a present-day or future commute by car from the ewa plain. He didn’t and Mr. Cayetano didn’t offer one. Messrs. Cayetano and Slater were silent on their at-grade transit and HOT lane preferences, so instead of extracting obvious differences between the lawsuit plaintiffs’ vision for the future and the vision shared by Messrs. Okino and Astolfi, the program sat there “in the weeds.”

Despite the disappointing outcome, we’ll have more observations about last night’s INSIGHTS show in future Yes2Rail posts.

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

Question #10 Is for Anti-Rail TV Guests Tonight: ‘If Not Elevated Transit, WHAT DO YOU WANT?!’

Project TEN QUESTIONS winds up today, just in time for Hawaii Public Television’s INSIGHTS public affairs program tonight (KHET, 8-9 o’clock) with rail opponents Cliff Slater and Ben Cayetano. Rail supporters Gary Okino, a former City Council member, and Drew Astolfi of Faith Action for Community Equity also will be in the studio with host Dan Boylan.

As with eight of the first nine questions, #10 is aimed at Messrs. Slater and Cayetano, members of the so-called Gang of Four rail opponents who launched a public relations campaign in August to drum up financial support for their lawsuit that intends to kill rail.

ThE campaign kicked off on August 21st with a commentary in the Star-Advertiser that might as well have accused city officials of lying to the public. It’s all shibai, of course, and as we noted the same day, there was absolutely nothing new in the piece.

There was nothing at all about what the Gang's three attorneys and one businessman want instead of elevated rail – no answer to the question, “If not rail, what?!” So much for the Set-Up; here’s our final suggested question for INSIGHTS host Boylan:

Question #10

“Governor Cayetano and Mr. Slater, you are plaintiffs on a lawsuit that was filed to kill the Honolulu rail project. As it stands right now, this project has progressed further toward actual launch than all the previous attempts to build grade-separated transit in Honolulu. We know what you’re against. What are you for? What are you proposing to provide relief to leeward residents from the gridlock they face twice a day driving into Honolulu and back home again? If not rail, what?”

And when Mr. Slater says he wants to build a High-Occupancy Toll (HOT) road, Mr. Astolfi might pounce on HOT lanes for the non-equity issue, and Mr. Boylan could pounce with a shorter version of Question #3:

“Isn’t it true that traffic would be worse in the future than it is today even if HOT Lanes were built? And since that IS true, Cliff, you don’t have an option to rail that would reduce congestion, treat all citizens equally and restore true mobility to our community, do you?”

It could be a lively program, and rail supporters might well make a point of calling in, emailing or using social media to suggest questions to the show. Feel free to use any of the ones we’ve suggested over the past 10 days. Here are links to Questions 1 through 9 in our TEN QUESTIONS project:

• 10 Questions: Rail Critics' TV Gig Could Be Their 'Waterloo' if Host, Public Ask the Right Questions
• Houston Truck-Train Wreck Prompts Question #2: 'Governor, Why Do You Favor Crash-Prone Rail?'
• Question #3 Is about Traffic Levels: 'Mr. Slater, HOT Lanes Don't Reduce Congestion, Do They?'
• If Not Rail, Ex-Governor Owes Us an Explanation; Question #4 Wants To Know Why He Prefers BRT
• Question #5: 'Mr. Slater, You Know the Truth, so Why Did You Ply Your Team with Falsehoods?'
• Inquiring Minds Want Answer to Question #6: "Where's the Evidence Rail Rail Is 'On the Ropes?'"
• Questions Are For Discovering, so Question #7 on Holiday Delves into Decades-Long Rail Dissing
• Pro-Rail INSIGHTS Guest Deserves Question #8: 'Why Do You Support Building Elevated Transit?'
• Would Rotary Venue Bring Out Rail Critic's Best? Not a Chance -- which Leads Us to Question #9

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

Would Rotary Venue Bring Out Rail Critic’s Best? Not a Chance – which Leads Us to Question #9

Wouldn’t have believed it if we hadn’t been there. Cliff Slater appeared with the entire Gang of Four at the Rotary Club of Honolulu yesterday in a continuation of the group’s PR campaign they're hoping will build opposition to the Honolulu rail project.

You'd have thought this audience – highly educated and accomplished Rotarians – would have brought out a pumped-up and polished presentation from the anti-railer-in-chief, something new and thought-provoking. It didn’t happen.

Incredibly, Mr. Slater used exactly the same anti-intelligent, pro-obfuscation material that was in his Civil Beat interview in July 2010 for his brief remarks to the Rotarians. If you weren’t at the Rotary meeting, you can still get the essence of his opening remarks, because what Mr. Slater told John Temple of Civil Beat 15 months ago was exactly the same thing he told the Rotarians. (That linked post was the first of our many reactions to this train of thought; another that examined Mr. Slater's "whole argument" came one day later.)

The Set-Up

We’ve repeatedly called attention to Mr. Slater’s dumbed-down anti-rail rhetoric because it suggests his campaign has a problem at its core. As he did in July 2010, Mr. Slater yesterday told his audience that rail will cost X billions of dollars to build, then said traffic will be worse in the future after rail is built than it is today – and then he sat down!

We don’t know if this routine reveals Mr. Slater’s supreme confidence in the virtue of his anti-rail crusade or a total disdain for his audience’s intellect. Of course traffic will be worse in the undefined future! Pick a year – any year – and Oahu will have more traffic congestion than it does today. It’s the logical result of population growth.

By shrouding his anti-rail logic in a fog bank of words, Mr. Slater wants his audiences to believe the rail project is supposed to reduce congestion from current levels. He wants you to believe that because that’s what he believes.

Monday’s Set-Up to Question #7 quoted one of his columns from 2008: “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.”

There it is in black and white: Cliff Slater wants more highways to move cars, not an efficient multi-modal transportation system that will give commuters an alternative to congestion on highways – an alternative that will save them time and money each day they ride the train.

We’re nearing the end of our TEN QUESTIONS project with suggested “interrogation points” that the host of KHET’s INSIGHTS program can use if he chooses on guests Cliff Slater and former Governor Benjamin Cayetano. Because it's apparently necessary, today’s question bears a strong resemblance to others in this series.

Question #9

“Cliff, two days ago at the Rotary Club of Honolulu, you had one of the most engaged and potentially powerful audiences you’ll ever face. The largest Rotary club in the state probably has the highest percentage of corporate leaders among its membership than any other club. Yet on that occasion you rested your entire anti-rail case on a train of thought that some people have come to conclude is bizarre. In essence, you suggested to the Rotarians that rail should not be built because it won't reduce future congestion to levels lower than we have today. Cliff – people are gonna move here! Couples are gonna have babies! Traffic will grow! Why have you dumbed-down your anti-rail rhetoric to the point that YOU have become the issue?”

We really don’t think INSIGHTS host Dan Boylan will ask that, but we can hope. Whichever way Thursday’s show goes (8-9 pm on KHET), this is a question Oahu citizens need to ask – even if only in the silence of their own thoughts – of the man who is more responsible than any other for blocking rail transit on this island. Maybe what we saw yesterday was his best.

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

Pro-Rail INSIGHTS Guest Deserves Question #8: ‘Why Do You Support Building Elevated Transit?’

We’ve been proposing questions for the past week that reasonably could be asked on Thursday’s “INSIGHTS on Hawaii PBS” TV show. All seven questions so far are aimed at the two anti-rail guests, but the other two are rail supporters – Drew Astolfi, director of Faith Action for Community Equality (FACE), and former Honolulu City Council member Gary Okino.

In creating questions for them rather than the opponents, we’re tempted to mirror the old joke: “Enough of this talk about me. What do you think about me?” The rail opponents’ positions are so vulnerable to probing questions in a “live” TV format that we’d just as soon finish the list with more of them for Cliff Slater and former Governor Benjamin Cayetano. But fairness demands we make a sincere effort to draw out Messrs. Astolfi and Okino on rail-related issues.

The Set-Up

Today’s set-up relies on former Council member Okino’s appearance on an INIGHTS show in February 2010. His comments then showed he’s in complete opposition to the transit preference of Mr. Cayetano, a fellow INSIGHTS guest on Thursday who favors at-grade transit. Here’s Mr. Okino’s quote from 2010:

“…If you put a system on the ground, you dramatically change the benefits of a system. You put a train on the ground, you change the speed of the thing. You can’t put a train on the ground and go 60 miles an hour (as if it were) elevated. So it changes the capacity. The cost. They (at-grade advocates) downplay the cost of putting something on the ground as being cheaper. That has to go through a total analysis. I disagree that it’s gonna be cheaper, not in Honolulu. It’s gonna change all the factors. It’s gonna change operating costs of this thing, because now you gotta put drivers on the train. I mean, there’s a whole bunch of things. It’s practically a new project once you make it touch the ground.”

Question #8

“Mr. Okino, you supported rail throughout your terms on the City Council, including your vote to shift the system’s route from Salt Lake to the airport. You were subjected to all the arguments raised by rail opponents, including Cliff Slater, and you rejected them all. My question has two parts: Why did you consistently vote for rail and dismiss Cliff’s objections to building rail, and why do you still favor an elevated system instead of at-grade transit, which Governor Cayetano prefers?”

Yes, that question does have a “what do you think about me” quality to it, but it would produce a lively exchange between Messrs. Okino, Slater and Cayetano. Isn’t that what “live” TV is all about?

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

Questions Are for Discovering, so Question #7 on Holiday Delves into Decades-Long Rail Dissing

It may be Columbus Day in most of the 50 states, but it’s Discoverers Day in the USA’s only island state, which was discovered by Polynesians about a millennium before Columbus sailed the ocean blue.

So today’s question of discovery in our TEN QUESTIONS series is about chief rail opponent Cliff Slater’s anti-mass transit views over the years. Even relative newcomers to Hawaii with only two decades of Honolulu residency will recognize his name as the leader of the effort to block rail transit here in the early 1990s.

Mayor Frank Fasi’s proposed elevated system would have been nearly 16 miles long, with 22 stations along the route between Leeward Community College and UH Manoa, with stops at Pearlridge, Aloha Stadium, Pearl Harbor, the airport, downtown and other locations along the way.

Since the system would have offered a viable alternative to Manoa-bound students, traffic on streets and highways would have been attracting many of them since 2003 had it been built, a fact rail opponents can ponder as they complain that the current project doesn’t go to the Manoa campus.

Question #7 wants to shed some light on Mr. Slater’s assertions that mass transit projects must be resisted in Honolulu because of their alleged failures across America. Fortunately for our purposes, Mr. Slater has compiled quite a record in the digital age, so we can get to the bottom of his anti-transit reasoning with ease.

The Set-Up

You can look up Mr. Slater’s opinions using today’s wonderful search engines, and when you do, you’ll discover his recurring theme about why mass transit allegedly is a failure. Boiled down to its essence, it’s because transit’s percentage of commuter trips doesn’t grow after new systems are built. It almost always either stays the same or shrinks.

That’s not surprising since every American alive today has been on the receiving end of an automobile industry advertising juggernaut preaching the values of car and suburban home ownership, an idealized lifestyle that has only recently lost some of its luster. Most of us prefer driving our own car if we have one, but the facts of life -- literally -- make it uncomfortable much of the time to do so.

Mr. Slater publicizes what he calls the 8/80 principle as if it were some kind of proof in support of his core belief that big government transportation projects must be opposed. It’s the same way he specifically attacks Honolulu rail, as we’ve pointed out too many times to count since we first discovered his tactic in July 2010.

First Mr. Slater states what appears to be a fact, then draws a conclusion not supported by facts or logic, such as, "Traffic congestion grows in urban areas that have built rail transit systems; therefore, rail systems are failures."  That's how it works.

What we learn in reviewing Mr. Slater’s many on-line commentaries is that his primary goal is reducing traffic congestion. If a project doesn’t do that, don’t build it, he says, and he attacks Honolulu rail because it won’t reduce traffic congestion enough to suit his personal tastes.

Here’s a quote from one of his “Second Opinion” columns in The Honolulu Advertiser in October 2008: “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.”
 
Question #3 in this series , if asked on "INSIGHTS on Hawaii PBS" Thursday night, would evoke an admission from Mr. Slater that HOT lanes don’t do anything to relieve congestion on regular streets and highways and serve only those who can afford to pay the toll – the wealthy or well-to-do.

Two months earlier in another “Second Opinion” column, Mr. Slater slammed home another unremarkable fact: “PB (the city’s prime contractor) cannot forecast traffic congestion relief from rail. That is because every single metro area in the U.S. with rail transit has seen an increase in traffic congestion in the last 20 years – every one.”

We hope the host and producer of Thursday’s INSIGHTS show see the pattern by now if they’re reading these posts. Mr. Slater’s singular goal is traffic congestion reduction – and by his own words he admits that’s simply not possible. Traffic congestion growth is the natural result of population growth. Opposing rail because it can’t stop the inevitable result of population growth would be hilarious if it weren’t so debilitating to the well-being of Oahu’s commuters.

Question #7

“Cliff, you’re a master at throwing around statistics to attack virtually any mass transit system you come across. Your favorite stat is the relatively low one mass transit ridership holds compared to car trips. You opposed Mayor Fasi’s plan for an elevated guideway 20 years ago because it wouldn’t reduce traffic congestion to your liking. You opposed Mayor Harris’s bus rapid transit project because you said it would increase congestion, and now you oppose the current rail plan for one primary reason – highway congestion wouldn’t be reduced dramatically to your liking if rail were built. Isn’t it true that the main reason you oppose transit is the simple reason that you first and foremost prefer cars to transit? You constantly mischaracterize rail’s goals by claiming that one of them is dramatic congestion reduction rather than be a way to avoid that congestion. YOU’LL never ride transit and you therefore can’t support rail even though scores of thousands of others WILL ride the train to avoid traffic congestion completely. At your core, you’re a highwayman, aren’t you?”

Discovering Mr. Slater’s true motivation in denying transit’s advantages for the masses is a good endeavor on any day.

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

Inquiring Minds Want Answer to Question #6: “Where’s the Evidence Rail Is ‘On the Ropes?’”

We’re on the downhill slope of our TEN QUESTIONS project just in time for the (mainland) ski season as we roll into Question #6 today. All 10 are suggested as “interrogation” material for PBS Hawaii’s INSIGHTS show this Thursday (8-9 pm on KHET).

The four guests will include anti-railer-in-chief Cliff Slater and one of his three recruits in his new/old campaign against the Honolulu rail project – former governor Benjamin Cayetano. We can only hope they’ll be asked at least one of the 10.

The quartet’s campaign has been touching all the media bases since their August 21st commentary in the Star-Advertiser that as good as accused the city of lying to the public about Honolulu rail. That op-ed piece has been followed by radio, TV and Rotary club appearances. Three of Mr. Slater’s team will be at the Rotary Club of Honolulu on Tuesday talking on “How the City Misled the Public on Transit Issues.”

Questions 1-5 addressed aspects of their campaign, including the alleged misleading (see Questions 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 posted over the past five days), but today’s Yes2Rail post tries to get to the campaign’s underlying theme – that Honolulu rail somehow is in trouble.

The Set-Up

This premise seems to rest on nothing more than the team members’ own convictions and maybe those of their media advisers, if they have any (something Honolulu’s “investigative journalists” might look into). The quartet just keeps saying it, and compliant websites like HawaiiReporter.com fashion their own version of the mantra. A recent rail-related post at HR.com is headlined “Honolulu Rail on the Ropes.”

On the ropes? Where’s the evidence of that? Is the simple filing of a lawsuit to kill rail enough to put the project on the ropes? Is the multi-media campaign the opponents are waging – with virtually nothing new in it that the public hasn’t already heard – giving the rail project rope burns?

Beyond the quartet – lawsuit plaintiff Randall Roth is even following Yes2Rail’s lead in calling it the Gang of Four – and a few anti-rail websites, there is no outcry against rail. Not a single letter to the editor in every Star-Advertiser edition since last Monday, including today, mentioned the project. If there’d been a deluge of anti-rail letters into the paper, you can be sure at least one would have been printed during the week.

Question #6

“Governor Cayetano, you’ve been a close observer of the local transportation scene for decades, and now you’re one of several lawsuit plaintiffs who want to kill rail. You’ve presumably seen and heard it all over the years, so please tell our audience exactly what is new about this latest anti-rail campaign that’s obviously led by Cliff Slater. Give us your evidence that the ‘city has stacked the deck' in favor of rail and has lied to the public, as your fellow plaintiff Randall Roth strongly suggests. Exactly what was flawed in the Alternatives Analysis and Environmental Impact Statement process that’s been overseen by federal agencies? You personally have benefited from the principle of majority rule in all your election campaigns – you’ve never lost a race – so why doesn’t it matter to you now that most Oahu residents want to build rail?”

Thursday’s show will be “live,” so get your tweets and emails ready.

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

Question #5: ‘Mr. Slater, You Know the Truth, so Why Did You Ply Your Team with Falsehoods?’

Next Thursday’s “INSIGHTS on Hawaii PBS” public TV show (KHET, 8-9 pm) could be something else if the questions for guests and rail opponents Cliff Slater and former Governor Ben Cayetano are probing enough, direct enough and unforgiving enough.

These two, along with UH law professor Randall Roth and retired judge Walter Heen, are leaders of a media-based campaign against the Honolulu rail project – something polls show most residents want built – so the questions should be all that and more.

The INSIGHTS audience can email their questions to insights@pbshawaii.org and tweet them to @pbshawaii. We’ve already posted four questions that might find their way onto the show via its producer and host and have six more to suggest based on years of watching Mr. Slater’s anti-rail tactics. Let’s get started with #5.

The Set-Up

Cliff Slater’s decades-long effort to block mass transit on Oahu has failed to convince a majority of Oahu residents, so he has recruited three attorneys to bring some name recognition to his flagging campaign – Mr. Cayetano, former judge Heen and Professor Roth.

Mr. Slater is this group’s brain trust, and everything they say and write about Honolulu rail has his mark on it. That includes his outrageous allegation that the city hasn’t been truthful about rail’s goals and the fact that traffic congestion will continue to increase after rail is built. (See Question #1.)

With the exception of former Governor Cayetano, who once chaired the Senate Transportation Committee (see Question #4), Mr. Slater's team members have evidenced no obvious interest in transportation issues over the years. Mr. Heen is the silent partner in Mr. Slater’s new/old media-driven anti-rail campaign, but not so with Mr. Roth.

The professor has one-upped Mr. Slater’s tutoring and stops just short of accusing city officials of lying the way he carries on. “Shame on the city” he scolded in a radio interview on September 15. “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 keeps returning to this point, as he did in a YouTube video posted on September 30th in a discussion on Honolulu rail with opponents Panos Prevedouros and Malia Zimmerman. "They (city officials) gave people the impression that this was about traffic congestion, that we want to relieve the current level of traffic congestion, and yet in the fine print that they weren’t mentioning to the public, they’ve acknowledged that traffic in the future is gonna be worse with rail than what it is right now."

What makes Mr. Roth’s accusation so outrageous is that Mr. Slater knows none of it is true. He knows the city has not withheld the truth about future congestion. How do we know he knows? Because he himself has said so. Here’s his quote from a November 4, 2008 discussion on the radio about future traffic congestion:

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

Despite the city’s totally transparent handling of this issue, and despite Mr. Slater’s first-hand knowledge that the city has withheld nothing about future traffic congestion under penalty of having the whole rail project rejected by the Federal Transit Administration, Mr. Slater continues to spin his web of falsehoods and has recruited Mr. Roth into repeating the same nonsense.

Question #5

“Mr. Slater, you know for a fact the city has not misled the public about future congestion levels. You agreed with city transit official Wayne Yoshioka on a November 2008 radio program that congestion will continue to grow on our streets and highways after rail is built. You’ve read the Alternatives Analysis and Environmental Impact Statement documents that openly addressed future congestion issues. You’ve heard Mr. Yoshioka and other rail officials speak openly at City Council meetings. Yet you have continued to ply this falsehood that the city has withheld information from the public, and beyond that, you’ve managed to fool people like law professor Randall Roth into saying the same thing. You’ve misled your fellow anti-rail campaigners, and they also now make false statements – some might call them lies – as they accuse city officials of lying. Is there no limit to the depths you’re prepared to go to kill rail?”

INSIGHTS host Dan Boylan is too much a gentlemen/host to go that far with his questions next week, but at a minimum, Mr. Boylan presumably will take some new knowledge about the Slater-led dubious anti-rail campaign if he’s reading our TEN QUESTIONS series.

And when his guests boldly march into their fictional Neverland during the show as they surely will, he’ll have the background to call them on it.

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

If Not Rail, Ex-Governor Owes Us an Explanation; Question #4 Wants To Know Why He Prefers BRT

We’re alternating between Cliff Slater and former Governor Benjamin Cayetano in our series of 10 questions that we hope will be asked of these two men when they appear as guests on “INSIGHTS on Hawaii PBS” next Thursday night. Our list began on Tuesday with an inquiry for Mr. Slater, then Governor Cayetano and then yesterday to Mr. Slater again with a question that might drag an admission out of him.

We noted on Wednesday that Mr. Cayetano favors at-grade transit, and an “Old Friends” profile in the September 21st edition of MidWeek narrowed his preference to bus rapid transit, or BRT. According to the article, Mr. Cayetano said BRT “would do substantially everything that light rail would do, but at substantially less cost.”

His reference to “light rail” is a little puzzling; two of his fellow anti-rail lawsuit plaintiffs – Mr. Slater and Professor Randall Roth – like to use the term “elevated heavy rail” when discussing Honolulu’s rail project (they used the term 25 times in a recent one-hour radio talk show). The city itself calls the project “light metro,” so what Mr. Cayetano was referring to isn’t known.

Maybe he was talking about some kind of at-grade rail transit project, and if that’s the case, we’d have to agree with him that one slow at-grade system is probably as bad as the next. But that’s not what Yes2Rail is all about, and we suspect whatever Mr. Cayetano was thinking, it probably wasn’t something nice about Honolulu’s future elevated light metro system.

The Set-Up

Today’s question, like all of them in this series, is principally intended for the eyes of two people who work on the INSIGHTS show – its producer and its host. The latter is Dan Boylan, an avid observer of local politics who also writes a weekly column for MidWeek.

Mr. Boylan’s column in the July 15, 2008 issue was headlined “Rail Debate Lacks Leeward Voices.” Here are three paragraphs lifted from near the end of Mr. Boylan’s column:

“I would feel more comfortable…if the voices opposed to building rail came from my part of town. I remember one morning in 1978 riding to the Capitol from Pearl City with a Leeward legislator who would one day chair the Senate’s Transportation Committee.

“Traffic crawled along the H-1 Freeway that morning, and that state senator said: ‘Look at this. If Governor Ariyoshi had to drive to work in this every day, he’d support mass transit.’

“His name was Ben Cayetano, and he’s written that his investigation of mass transit resulted in his changing his mind about rail – that his research convinced him that it was unsuitable for Hawaii.”

Question #4

“Governor Cayetano, back in 1978 you told me – quote – if Governor Ariyoshi had to drive to work in this every day, he’d support mass transit – close quote. By ‘this’ you meant traffic on the H-1 freeway between west Oahu and town. The island’s population then was about 750,000. The 2010 Census put Oahu’s population at 953,000, and the vast majority of the new 200,000 residents are living in Honolulu’s urban core – especially out west on the ewa plain. They’re the ones who are caught in Oahu’s major traffic problem twice a day. You say you’ve changed your mind and that rail transit is unsuitable for Hawaii. If you think rail is unsuitable, Governor, do you favor any kind of mass transit, and if so, what kind of mass transit do you believe is suitable for Oahu?"

Based on Mr. Cayetano’s recent comments, we know the answer to that question – buses – but it’s not a bad thing to know what he’s likely to say, because every question on INSIGHTS needs to be backed up by follow-up questions. Here’s another suggestion:

“Governor, bus rapid transit was a Harris Administration idea a decade ago, and your friend Cliff Slater, who like you is a plaintiff on the federal lawsuit intended to kill rail, fought bus rapid transit tooth and nail. He wrote in 2004 that BRT was a farce and that BRT – quote – would wreak havoc with traffic congestion. It will not save time, except under limited circumstances – close quote. Governor, why do you favor a transit system that your fellow lawsuit plaintiff says would create a traffic nightmare?”

As a survivor of many battles with the media over the years, Mr. Cayetano is savvy enough to change the subject if these questions are asked, and he’d probably do his best to focus on rail’s elevated structure and its potential to affect view planes at various spots along its 20-mile route.

We hope Mr. Boylan wouldn’t let up in his role as host/interrogator and would press Mr. Cayetano on how much taller existing high-rises and another dozen or more planned tall buildings will be compared to rail.

You can participate in next Thursday’s INSIGHTS show by emailing your questions to insights@pbshawaii.org and tweeting to @pbshawaii. KHET says there’s been a change in the schedule, and INSIGHTS will air from 8-9 pm next Thursday. Be there. Aloha.

This post has been added to our “aggregation site” under the heading Mr. Cliff Slater (and friends).

Question #3 Is about Traffic Levels: ‘Mr. Slater, HOT Lanes Don’t Reduce Congestion, Do They?’

If you find yourself in a conversation with Cliff Slater, leader of the rail opposition, you’ll likely soon be talking about traffic congestion. It’s Mr. Slater’s favorite topic, and he’ll want to convince you that HOT lanes – high-occupancy toll roads – can reduce overall traffic congestion on Oahu and Honolulu rail can’t.

We started a series of 10 questions two days ago as a lead-in to the October 13th “INSIGHTS on Hawaii PBS” television program on public TV. Mr. Slater and former Governor Benjamin Cayetano will be guests on that show as they continue the anti-rail PR campaign they launched in August. They’re so intent on trying to kill rail that they’re plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit that aims to do so. (If the city doesn't participate on this particular program, that's why.)

As usual, today’s post has a primary audience of two people – the INSIGHTS show’s host and producer – but all Yes2Rail visitors are invited to start thinking of your own questions that you can email, tweet or phone into the “live” program.

The Set-Up

Question #3 in our series of 10 questions builds on #1, which was posted here two days ago. To review, Mr. Slater believes rail isn’t worth the effort because there will be more traffic congestion in Honolulu after rail is running than there is today.

He makes a big deal out of this and uses it as a cudgel to attack rail. Build HOT lanes instead, Mr. Slater says, implying that a new highway with reversible traffic flow during the morning and afternoon rush hours would reduce overall road congestion in urban Honolulu.

When reduced to its essence, Question #1 wants Mr. Slater to admit that traffic congestion growth is inevitable no matter what is built. Tens of thousands of new residents living on Oahu with tens of thousands of new vehicles on the island will add up to more congestion for all of us. The math is simple.

Question #3

“Mr. Slater, you seem to think highway congestion is a problem that can be eliminated by simply applying the right solution. Build the Honolulu rail system and congestion will be worse than today, you say; build HOT lanes and it’ll go away. But I’d like you to agree here on ‘live’ television tonight that congestion will be worse no matter what transportation ‘solutions’ we apply. You’ve said it before on radio, so please say it here on INSIGHTS. Isn’t it true that traffic would be worse in the future than it is today even if HOT Lanes were built? And since that IS true, you don't have an option to rail that would reduce congestion, do you?”

This congestion issue takes a little more thought than Mr. Slater typically wants Oahu citizens to exercise. The simple fact is this: Highway congestion will be with us forever as long as the population continues to grow and there are no restrictions on the number of vehicles on the island.

Mr. Slater’s anti-rail presentations to community groups acknowledge that fact only as it relates to the rail project, but then he stops short and never says the same would be true if HOT lanes were built instead.

On the Prowl

People switch from driving their own cars – their preferred travel option – to transit when they can see a benefit from doing so to save time or money or both. Honolulu rail anticipates 40,000 fewer daily car trips in 2030 when the rail system is operational. The removal of that many cars from streets and highways will free up road space.

What happens next is why congestion is and will be a fact of commuting life for the foreseeable future. Experience across America tells us that highways, like nature, don’t like a vacuum. Commuters rush in to fill any space that opens up when enough people start taking transit or drivers start taking a different route.

We all know this is true from personal experience. Commuters are always on the prowl looking for ways to avoid the congestion we hate. If there’s an accident ahead on the freeway, we’ll jump off the freeway to take a surface route instead if we think we can save time.

With 40,000 fewer daily vehicle trips by 2030, road and highway space that would have been occupied by those former drivers will be filled by others. That’s just the way it is, and that’s also just what would happen if a reversible high-occupancy toll road were built here instead of rail.

Imagine an Oahu future with both HOT lanes – which charge a toll – and surface streets with no toll operating in parallel. If drivers perceived that traffic were flowing just as freely on the surface roads as on the HOT lanes, they'd stay off the toll road and save their money. The inevitable condition in such a future is that the surface roads would be congested no matter what were happening on the roll road.

Drivers able to afford the toll would take the HOT lanes, freeing up (temporarily) space on other streets and highways. That “vacuum” would be filled quickly enough, and we’d have the same levels of congestion as existed before the highway was built – levels that could only grow with the population.

Essential Differences

Congestion will continue with rail in place, and it would do the same if HOT lanes were built, but that’s where the similarity ends. People who can’t afford to pay the tolls necessary to access managed lanes and those who don’t own a car would get no benefit from them. Rail will be affordable by virtually everyone who chooses to ride the train.

Buses presumably could access HOT lanes, but there would be few if any on- and off-ramps along the elevated reversible highway. Residents living in communities between the start and end of the lanes would have no access. The rail system will have 21 stations along its 20-mile route. TheBus system will feed passengers to and from those stations in an integrated transportation network.

And wherever there are highways, there are accidents. There’s no guarantee vehicles on managed lanes would be accident- and breakdown-free, so they’d be prone to congestion caused by unforeseen incidents.  Additionally, the rail project’s FEIS also says bottlenecks would occur at the beginning and end of the managed lanes for the obvious fact that vehicles using them would eventually be right back in surface congestion at their exits.

Elevated rail will be completely separated from that congestion – which we can only hope Mr. Slater will be forced to admit on “live” television one week from tonight, 7:30 to 8:30 on KHET. It could be quite a show.

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

Houston Truck-Train Wreck Prompts Question #2: ‘Governor, Why Do You Favor Crash-Prone Rail?’

MetroRail passengers were thrown around the car during yesterday's crash.

This is Day 2 in our countdown to the October 13th “INSIGHTS on Hawaii PBS” public TV show, with guests Cliff Slater and Ben Cayetano, two prominent opponents of Honolulu rail. As with yesterday's post, today’s is written primarily for the benefit of only two people – the host and the producer of the TV show – but we hope you'll read through it, too.

We’re posting a new question each day that might reasonably be asked of the two guests, since what they’re attempting to do with their federal lawsuit is kill rail, the biggest project ever undertaken in Hawaii. Yesterday’s question was intended for Mr. Slater, and we’re turning today to former Governor Cayetano, a proponent of at-grade transit. He made that clear during his speech in late June to a Honolulu venture capitalist group.

Since safety is a top-most consideration in planning any transit system, we’re going to address safety in our question for Mr. Cayetano, a topic that’s most timely indeed.

The Set-Up

Female Passenger: “Everybody started screaming and people just flew everywhere.”
Male Passenger: “I ended up about 10, 15 feet from where I was. There was no warning at all….One thing, I was doing this. The next thing, I was on the ground."

A Houston TV station broadcast those interviews yesterday after one of the city’s at-grade MetroRail trains broadsided a dump truck in a busy downtown Houston intersection. Video footage shot from on-board cameras inside and outside the train captured the moment of impact. The exterior cameras showed a dump truck approaching from the left and, according to authorities, running a red light directly into the path of the onrushing transit train.

The collision sent the truck plowing into the side of a nearby restaurant, narrowly missing a pedestrian. The train’s lead car was knocked off its tracks. Passengers were slammed against railings and seats inside the cars (as the image at the top of today’s post shows). According to media reports, 15 passengers were hospitalized following the accident, including the passenger shown being treated here.

Houston’s trains have had too many of these collisions, and so have other cities with at-grade rail systems. Phoenix, AZ recorded 52 accidents in the system’s first year of operations. In February 2010, a Houston city bus ran a red light and plowed into a MetroRail train that had the right-of-way. The collision injured a dozen passengers and, like yesterday’s truck-train crash, disrupted public transit and vehicle traffic alike.

Question #2

“Governor Cayetano, Honolulu’s elevated rail system will be completely separated from cross streets and all surface traffic – including cars, trucks and motorcycles that routinely run red lights on Oahu. We both know it’s true. And even when they’re not running red lights, vehicles that demand their share of green lights would require at-grade trains to slow and stop at intersections. Elevated rail will be a fast, frequent, reliable and safe mode of transportation through Honolulu’s urban core. In light of the dismal safety record at-grade rail transit is racking up around the country combined with Honolulu’s dense neighborhoods and a population much older than most cities, building at-grade in Honolulu would be a disaster, so why are you so insistent Honolulu needs trains at ground level?”

INSIGHT’s host should be prepared for Mr. Cayetano to mention his concern for preserving Honolulu’s “view planes,” and should he do so, the host’s follow-up question could be something like this:

“Seriously, Governor – do you really believe an elevated rail guideway 30 feet above the street with stations that might add another 30 feet to the structure’s height are more disruptive to view planes than 300-foot-tall high-rise buildings? You’re probably aware that another dozen or more high-rises are planned for Kakaako right now. They’ll dwarf the rail system’s guideway, so I ask again, is there perhaps another reason for you to oppose fast, frequent, reliable and most particularly safe elevated rail transit in Honolulu?”

Direct and probing questions are required for this particular INSIGHTS program, since the lawsuit’s plaintiffs are attempting to thwart a project that will deliver desperately needed construction jobs in the short term and generations-long safe and reliable travel for all ages of Honolulu citizens for all of the 21st century.

Yes2Rail readers are invited to leave your own questions for the show’s guests in the Comments section by clicking the link below. Tomorrow’s post will feature Question #3.

Car and transit travel both are disrupted in accidents like this.

This post has been added to our "aggregation site" under the headings Elevated vs At-Grade and Mr. Cliff Slater (and Friends).

10 Questions: Rail Critics’ TV Gig Could Be Their ‘Waterloo’ if Host, Public Ask the Right Questions

Today’s post is written primarily for the presumed benefit of only two people -- the host and the producer of Hawaii Public Television’s “INSIGHTS on Hawaii PBS” show. But don’t go away; the post’s secondary audience is everybody else, and you could make a contribution, as described at the end of today’s post.

Rail critics Cliff Slater and Ben Cayetano will be the INSIGHTS show’s guests 10 days from now (counting today) on October 13th. Starting today, we’re going to post 10 questions here at Yes2Rail that we believe quite reasonably should be directed at Messrs. Slater and Cayetano.

The two are among the plaintiffs of a federal lawsuit that intends to kill Honolulu rail, a project supported by the majority of Oahu citizens as revealed in public opinion surveys and in election results. They, too, deserve to have their feet held to the fire – the proposed fate for city officials that was suggested by a resident in a rail town hall meeting last week.

That’s especially true for Mr. Slater, who has been a public figure continuously over the past two decades for his opposition to public transit projects – elevated rail in the early ‘90s, bus rapid transit early last decade and elevated rail again now.

Mr. Slater also is the presumed “brain trust” among the four rail opponents who launched a new anti-rail campaign in August with a newspaper commentary and who are making the media rounds with their new/old arguments that all were heard, analyzed and dismissed years ago during the federally overseen rail process.

The Set-Up

The questions require a bit of background, and regular visitors to Yes2Rail know where we’re going with this. Mr. Slater has used one issue as his primary “attack line” in his campaign against rail. If you haven’t watched the interview with Mr. Slater conducted and posted by Civil Beat in early July 2010, you really should to get the full effect of his rhetoric.

Our July 13, 2010 post summarized that rhetoric under the headline “A Closer Look at Cliff Slater’s ‘Whole Argument’”. If you don’t have time to view Civil Beat’s video of the interview, here’s the essential quote:

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

Question #1

“Mr. Slater, your anti-rail campaign clearly implies that rail is not worth building it if does not end highway congestion in our time. That’s the implication when you pointedly tell your audiences that highway congestion will be worse many years from now than today’s congestion level even after Honolulu’s train project is operating. Given the obvious – that more people will be living on Oahu 10 and 20 years from now and those people will own more vehicles than are present today – why do you insist that rail accomplish the impossible? Aren’t you misleading the public, and haven’t you done so in a deliberate attempt to confuse the public on the obvious fact that congestion inevitably will increase through no fault of the rail system?”

That’s obviously more than one question, but taken as a whole, they amount to an interrogation of Mr. Slater about the bedrock of his anti-rail campaign.

Background for INSIGHTS

Mr. Slater likely will attempt to shift the focus of your interrogation away from his obviously distorted message and attach blame to the city. He will assert that he had to nearly water-board (his word) city officials to wring a confession out of them that traffic congestion will be worse after rail than it is today.

That, of course, is another misleading statement. The city has never explicitly stated or implied that rail will reduce congestion below current levels, and that certainly is not among rail’s goals. Rail will be an alternative form of transportation that will completely bypass streets and highways and the congestion that clogs them during the morning and afternoon rush hours and often throughout the day.

Mr. Slater either unconsciously has assimilated this "congestion-ending" fiction into his persona over the years or has deliberately concocted it. If it’s proof you want, you can listen to the recording of a “live” discussion about rail on radio station KHVH before the 2008 vote on the “steel on steel” City Charter amendment.

The discussion included Mr. Slater and Wayne Yoshioka, director of the Department of Transportation Services. They discussed congestion before and after rail is built. Mr. Slater clearly says on the show:

“We in the room here all understand that traffic congestion is gonna get worse with rail in the future, OK. That’s not what the public understands. The public thinks that traffic today, today’s unendurable traffic congestion going from here out to Kapolei, OK, will be reduced from today’s levels once rail goes in. That’s what they believe. OK, and we don’t believe it. You and I don’t believe that, but on the other hand, that is what the general public believes.”

Nobody water-boarded Mr. Yoshioka into openly discussing future congestion issues on that radio program. This exchange alone makes a mockery of fellow lawsuit plaintiff Randall Roth's "shame on the city" scolding he delivered on a public radio talk show last month.

Mr. Slater may want to bring up a Honolulu Advertiser opinion poll conducted in 2008 to justify his comments on what the public believes about future congestion. One answer in that poll appears to be the basis of his understanding of what the public understands. The poll is an excellent example of the old maxim, Garbage In, Garbage Out.

You can read the flawed question yourselves, Host and  Producer of INSIGHTS, and when you do, we’re pretty sure you’ll conclude – as we did last month – that “the question was not only misleading but confusing – a query based on a flawed premise.”

That should be enough grist for Question #1’s mill for now, but it suggests follow-up questions that we’ll get to during the lead-up to the October 13th INSIGHTS show. Our "aggregation site" has links to numerous Yes2Rail posts that address Mr. Slater’s statements over the years. You’ll find them under the heading Mr. Cliff Slater (and friends).

Yes2Rail readers are encouraged to propose your own questions for the INSIGHTS show by clicking the Comments link below. We’ll include the best ones in our October 13th post, which will be visible a few hours before the “INSIGHTS on Hawaii PBS” show airs “live” between 7:30 and 8:30 pm on KHET.

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

Critic Says Rail Will Fail if Traffic Won't Be Cut, but His Beloved Tampa Highway Hasn’t Done That

Cliff Slater, leader of the minority anti-rail faction, repeats himself a lot. His most repetitious line is that rail isn’t worth building if traffic congestion in Honolulu’s urban core will be greater after rail is built than it is today.

In other words, he believes rail will be a failed project if it can’t actually reduce congestion from current levels – even as the population and number of vehicles both increase. He believes this preposterous logic so much that he has used it as his focus in innumerable anti-rail presentations.

In his next breath, Mr. Slater is likely to praise the managed lane highway in Tampa, FL as a better alternative for Honolulu than rail. Tampa built its reversible high-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes a few years ago, and Mr. Slater is lavish in his praise.

It seems reasonable to judge Mr. Slater’s HOT lanes in Tampa with the same standard he wants to apply to Honolulu rail. It really isn’t reasonable, of course, but it’s the same logic Mr. Slater applies to Honolulu, so we’ll do it – for now.

Yes2Rail yesterday used the Urban Mobility Report 2011 to highlight the growth in the number of wasted hours commuters spend in traffic congestion here. Honolulu rail will be fully operational 9 years from now in 2020, so we looked back to 2001 to see how much congestion grew from 2001 to 2010 as a probable predictor of congestion’s growth by 2020.

Doing the same for the Tampa-St. Petersburgh, FL area is bad news for Mr. Slater. Congestion grew there between 2001 and 2010 – after the managed lanes went into service. The average rush-hour car commuter experienced an additional 3 wasted hours in congestion annually – 33 hours in 2010, compared to 30 in 2001.

Oh, Dear

Using the same logic to slam Tampa’s managed highway as Mr. Slater uses against Honolulu rail, one could conclude that Tampa’s HOT lanes are a failure because they haven’t reduced traffic congestion. Isn’t that what they were supposed to do?

It’s such a specious argument that it makes us wince just to type these words – but we detect no such reticence in Mr. Slater. Just the opposite is true; he even bragged before the City Council last year that he nearly had to water-board – his word – the city’s Wayne Yoshioka to uncover the unremarkable truth that congestion will continue to increase in future years and decades.

Mr. Slater has gone so far as to recruit a University of Hawaii law professor to carry this theme into the public discussion on rail. “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,” Professor Randall Roth said on public radio last month.

Duplicity like this from a professor at the local law school also makes us wince. Do they think Honolulu citizens are dummies?!

For Shame

The city has never lied or tried to cover up the facts of congestion’s anticipated growth on Oahu or that Honolulu rail will be the only reasonable alternative to sitting in that traffic. Doing so while under the Federal Transit Administration’s tight scrutiny of the project would be unthinkable, and shame on anyone for suggesting otherwise.

And shame on Mr. Slater and former Governor Ben Cayetano if they make the same duplicitous charge when they appear on KHET’s “Island Insights on PBS Hawaii” program a week from Thursday.

They’ve accepted the station’s invitation; quite reasonably, the city has declined to appear. There’s no way city defendants in a federal lawsuit aimed at killing rail will appear on a "live" television show with two of the plaintiffs. (Shame on the station if it finds the city's decision remarkable.)

Messrs. Slater and Cayetano probably will make an issue out of the city’s refusal, too. Judging from their near-empty trove of anti-rail arguments, that’s just about all they’ve got.

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

How’s Your Day Going? Honolulu Drivers Spend Nearly a Day and a Half Annually in Congestion

The 2011 Urban Mobility Report is out and confirms what Honolulu drivers know in their guts – and rear ends. The average driver here who commutes during the morning and evening rush hours wastes 33 hours sitting and creeping in traffic congestion.

That’s something their families know, too – all those hours wasted on the homeward drive that could better be spent grilling in the backyard, at the soccer practice, anywhere but on a highway.

And it could be worse – and will be, according to the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI), which publishes the report. The slow economy has actually made traffic slightly less onerous, but that’ll all change with better times, says the TTI.

“The economic recession has only provided a temporary respite from the growing congestion problem,” TTI’s press release says. “When the economic growth returns, the average commuter is estimated to see an additional 3 hours of delay by 2015 and 7 hours by 2020.”

The report tracks hours of delay going back to 1982, and it’s not surprising that, along with the growth in Oahu’s population, traffic congestion has also grown – dramatically.

Population and Traffic

Twenty-nine years ago, the average drive-time commuter spent 14 hours a year caught in congestion, less than half of the hours lost in today’s commuting experience. The report says Honolulu’s urban population then was 570,000; it was 713,000 in 2010, the most recent benchmark.

Go back only 9 years and the report says our urban population was 700,000 – not much less than today. The average drive-time commuter spent 26 hours annually stuck in congestion. Those congestion hours have increased 27 percent since 2001.

What’s so important about 9 years? The Honolulu rail project is scheduled to be up and running throughout its 20-mile length between Kapolei and Ala Moana center in 9 years. According to TTI’s report, the average drive-time commuter in the country will experience another 7 hours of wasted congestion time by 2020 – the same number of increase Honolulu drivers have seen tacked on since 2001.

Since our local statistics are close to the national average (33 hours vs. 34), we’ll presumably see a similar increase in traffic congestion by 2020 and in the hours spent sitting in it.

But it might be worse; Oahu’s population growth is happening outside the urban boundary on the ewa plain, and it’s on highways and streets connecting this region to urban Honolulu where most of the growth in congestion is occurring. It's an easily understood fact: Congestion grows with the population.

But wait: Anti-railer Cliff Slater would have you believe Honolulu rail is supposed to actually reduce future congestion levels to less than today’s experience. He’s been making this nonsensical argument for years – prominently in his July 2010 Civil Beat interview, later that same month before the City Council, in his August 2011 op-ed commentary, and so on.

It’s a bogus argument -- suggesting that the rail project would be a failure if congestion isn’t reduced below current levels in 2020, 2030, 2040, etc.

It’s important for arguments like Mr. Slater’s to be exposed for what they are as he and his anti-rail colleagues ramp up their campaign to kill rail. They’re offering nothing new – just a whacky theory that rail should miraculously end congestion in our time, a notion the TTI report destroys.

Raill will be the commuter’s option to wasting all those hours in traffic congestion – of that there can be no argument.