Newspaper’s Rail Poll Can’t Be Taken Seriously: It Was Conducted as Cayetano’s Mayoral Campaign Dominated Broadcast, On-Line, Print Journalism; The Predictable Results Are Easy To Discredit

The Honolulu Star-Advertiser’s opinion poll on rail (subscription) is not worth the paper it’s printed in. That’s the logical conclusion considering its timing.

This survey was conducted by Ward Research between January 26 and February 5. It started one week after anti-rail Gang of Four member Ben Cayetano officially announced his candidacy for mayor.

The telephonic poll was going on during the former governor’s burst of anti-rail publicity. Aren’t there opinion research ethics that discourage that sort of thing? Apparently there aren’t; the American Association for Public Opinion Research's ethical guidelines say nothing about timing, which is this poll’s black hole of a blind spot.

What did the Star-Advertiser expect? It’s almost beyond belief that the newspaper in this city could overlook the timing issue and commission this survey when the results were so predictable. Mr. Cayetano’s entry into the mayoral race isn’t mentioned in the story until its final paragraph!

Pro-Rail Silence

The Star-Advertiser devoted nearly a thousand words to Cayetano’s candidacy the day after his announcement. A day later the anti-rail candidate received more coverage in a story about the current governor’s decision to not issue an endorsement in the mayoral race. An editorial was devoted to the race that same day, and that was after wall-to-wall broadcast coverage. And so it's gone in print, radio and TV journalism since.

The pro-rail candidates in the mayoral race – Mayor Peter Carlisle and former Managing Director Kirk Caldwell – said comparatively little if anything during the survey period to offset Mr. Cayetano’s stream of anti-rail publicity. Their pro-rail campaigns have barely left the starting line, yet the newspaper felt it just had to do a survey during a period when virtually all media coverage on rail was negative. It's mind-boggling.

What the research company predictably did was uncover the proverbial “snapshot” of public opinion during the time Mr. Cayetano was enjoying an uncritical free pass in the media. With the fawning treatment given the former governor and his views, it’s no shock the poll’s snapshot found dramatically less support for the project among its sampled population, which obviously was influenced by the coverage.

Black Flagging the Poll

The results don’t jibe with the strong support for rail found in previous surveys conducted by two other research companies – OmniTrak and QMark. Support for rail averaged about 58 percent in their three scientific surveys conducted between 2008 and 2011.

Also, pro-rail candidates for mayor thoroughly defeated their anti-rail rivals in the 2008 and 2010 elections, and pro-rail City Charter amendments were adopted by the public in those elections, too.

Now comes this poll – conducted after nearly six months of non-stop anti-rail campaigning by the Gang of Four, culminating with one of the gang member’s announcement that he’s running for mayor to kill the project. He's running against rail with no hint of an actual plan to address the intolerable highway congestion commuters face in the city’s east-west corridor, as we noted on January 20th and several times since. The above graphic topped Yes2Rail the day after Mr. Cayetano's announcement.

Non-Stop Negativity

The Gang launched its public relations effort with a 1500-word newspaper commentary in August that was largely discredited by independent investigative news outlet Civil Beat. Gang members subsequently appeared on Hawaii Public Radio’s “Town Square” program in September and public television’s “Island INSIGHTS” the next month.

All four took the stage at the largest Rotary club in Honolulu; gang leader Cliff Slater trotted out his thread-bare anti-rail argument that we’ve taken pains to discredit with numerous posts here at Yes2Rail. Our “aggregation” site has links to many of them beneath the Mr. Cliff Slater (and Friends) heading.

Now Mr. Cayetano has picked it up and is using it in his campaign even though it’s a dumbed-down argument that does no credit to anyone who suggests rail will be a failure if congestion continues to grow after rail is built. Of course it will grow; the population’s going to grow! What Gang members can't or refuse to understand is that rail will be the missing link in our transportation network that will allow commuters to bypass traffic altogether. Judging from today's newspaper story, their followers are similarly blind to this fact.

The Invisible Cloth

The Slater/Cayetano main talking point is intellectually dishonest, yet they continue to use it since the media have failed to expose its naked flaw. The title of Hans Christian Andersen’s short story fits nicely with minor adjustment: “The Candidate’s New Clothes.” Maybe you remember the plot, summarized by Wikipedia:

“A vain Emperor who cares for nothing but his appearance and attire hires two tailors who are really swindlers that promise him the finest, best suit of clothes from a fabric invisible to anyone who is unfit for his position or ‘just hopelessly stupid.’ The Emperor cannot see the cloth himself but pretends that he can for fear of appearing unfit for his position….” 

You can see where this is going.

The usual anti-rail suspects will be applauding this 10-day survey as justification to kill Honolulu rail despite abundant evidence that the public has supported the project over a period of several years.

The rest of us now wait and wonder about which prominent person or media outlet will be the first to publicly denounce the deceit.

Columnists Mangle Their Mothers’ Advice: ‘If You Can’t Say Something Nice, Say Something Bad’ -- Plus: LTE Forum Examines Our Fixable Needs

Cartoonist Tom Toles' take on the transit-highway debate, from The Washington Post.

The new game we call “Watching the Columnists” and their commentaries about the Honolulu rail project is becoming even more entertaining than we had imagined at the start.

You might recall our prediction early in January that the three regular Star-Advertiser columnists “will write not a single paragraph of positive content about the Honolulu rail project in 2012.”

The prediction is holding true through this week’s columns – Dave Shapiro on Wednesdays (he wrote about teacher contract issues), Cynthia Oi on Thursdays (no column this week) and Richard Borreca on Fridays (sandalwood protection).

This was one of the most significant weeks in the history of the Honolulu rail project. On Monday, the Federal Transit Administration granted a Letter of No Prejudice to the city, which now can begin major construction.

Despite the positive news (“positive” in the sense that it advanced the project), the three columnists couldn’t bring themselves to take note. Their “good news” switch is perpetually clamped in the off position regarding rail, whereas the circuit that transmits news of unfavorable developments is always energized.

One might conclude from their commentaries that the scribes oppose the project, and that would be accurate. Here’s the corollary of our original prediction: The next piece of negative news on rail will be trumpeted in at least two of their columns in the days that follow. You can bet on it.

LTE Forum

The newspaper carries a letter to the editor criticizing the rail project today, and readers have posted reactions in the online version of the letters column (subscription required). We’re highlighting both:

Rail is diversion from real needs (Star-Advertiser, 2/9)

“If rail is so good for jobs, what jobs will be there afterward? Another rail?... This is a Band-Aid solution. Why not fix the roads, sewers, public housing, etc., needed now – and above all do the maintenance. That is plenty of jobs….”

One responder in the “comments” section wrote:

“…it’s hard to imagine a need more pressing to address than the twice-daily highway congestion that scores of thousands of commuters face. Imagine having to do that morning and night, which I’d wager (the writer) does not. If her house’s sewer had a backup each day, I could understand her perspective, but that’s undoubtedly not the case….”

Someone who does deal with congestion each day commented:

“When you spend upwards of 2 hours, not unusual if it’s 3 hours-a-day to travel to school or a job that’s only 25 miles away, finding a way to reduce that time is a ‘real need.’ It’s a ‘quality of life’ issue. Why bother trying to be a contributing member of society when you don’t have a ‘quality of life’ to speak of? There’s nothing like getting up at 4:30 am so that you can be on the road by 5:30 am, just to have a reasonable chance of making it to your job by 8 am….”

Congestion as ‘Cancer’

Rail opponents who aren't affected by Oahu's congestion crisis might have more sympathy for those who do if the issue were framed differently. Thinking of “traffic” as a “cancer” might help.

Most citizens presumably don’t oppose government funding of cancer research and treatment even though the disease may not affect them or their families. As the second response to the letter shows, freeway congestion has become a cancer on the quality of life for scores of thousands of commuters. Putting yourself in someone’s shoes could go a long way in resolving some of the opposition that lingers about rail transit here.

And a final point: The streets leading to and through our home’s neighborhood have been repaved within the past month with smooth-as-silk blacktop, and there’s not a single pothole to be found along their length. The city is fixing roads, and sewers, too. It’s time to “fix” highway gridlock on this island by building the Honolulu rail alternative. The cartoon at the top has it exactly right.

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

Anti-Rail Highway Advocate Makes Extraordinary On-Air Admission: Rail Transit System’s Goal Is Improved Mobility, Not Reduced Congestion. He Should Tell that to Cliff Slater and Ben Cayetano!

University of Hawaii Professor Panos Prevedouros, whose online bio accentuates his highway-related studies but reveals no obvious rail transit expertise, nevertheless does understand at least one critical fact about rail transit:

“Transit systems are not considered traffic mitigation projects,” he told a talk show host on a local radio station yesterday. “What are they? They are mobility enhancement systems. That is actually the reason they exist. This may be a little startling…but providing mobility and an alternative to driving is sufficient. That’s why Cliff Slater from very early on has been saying the (Honolulu project’s) scope is insufficient. From the beginning the project has been about mobility enhancement. That is the scope of the project.”

He had it exactly right. Rail will restore mobility in the urban core, something that’s been lost due to ever-increasing traffic congestion. The anti-rail radio host was so stunned or perplexed by the professor’s accurate description of rail’s mobility-enhancing goal that he let it slide by without more than a verbal nod.

Maybe Professor Prevedouros can repeat his observation to anti-railer-in-chief Cliff Slater and mayoral candidate Ben Cayetano. Quite clearly, they’ve substituted their own idea of what they think rail should do instead of truly understanding rail’s role in Honolulu’s mix of transportation alternatives.

Messrs. Slater and Cayetano repeatedly assert that rail is being built here to reduce traffic congestion. Mr. Slater has been implying it for years – see numerous posts at our “aggregation” site under the Mr. Cliff Slater (and Friends) heading – and now Mr. Cayetano is repeating the same misinformation.

“Eliminate” Congestion?

They have two reasons to spread this falsehood. First, they’re drivers at heart, not transit riders, so a traffic reduction goal fits their orientation. More to the point, highway use will continue to increase as the population grows – the link is obvious – so they’re trying to convince the public before rail is even built is that rail isn't worth the effort because it won’t achieve their goal. Unmentioned by them, of course, is that rail transit riders will enjoy exceptionally better mobility by avoiding highway congestion altogether.

Some citizens fall for the Slater/Cayetano line so totally that they actually believe the rail project’s goal is to “eliminate traffic congestion,” as a letter in MidWeek stated three months ago. The absurdity of actually accomplishing that in the absence of population controls and other draconian measures should be obvious to all but the most ardent rail haters.

The “misunderstood goals issue” comes at an important time for Honolulu rail. Major construction is about to begin now that the Federal Transit Administration has sent the city a Letter of No Prejudice. The public will read, see and hear more about the project in the weeks ahead than perhaps any time during the past several years.

It’s therefore the perfect time to dispel inaccuracies about the project, including the accidental or deliberate mischaracterization of rail’s goals by a mayoral candidate and his primary anti-rail adviser.

The irony that the truth comes from another highway advocate like the UH professor makes the message that much sweeter.

This post has been added to our "aggregation" site under the Dr. Panos Prevedouros heading.

Anti-Rail Candidate: ‘If We Had Dedicated Bus Lanes and ALL OF THAT….’ It’s the ‘All of That’ That’s Missing from His Transportation Scheme

No sooner had we finished yesterday’s post when the Ben Cayetano interview in Honolulu Weekly landed in our inbox. We started reading to see if the new mayoral candidate had finally provided details of his transportation plan that he wants to implement instead of building Honolulu rail, which he vows to kill. This stood out:

“Let’s go with something less expensive – which the studies have indicated will do the job. If we had dedicated bus lanes and all of that, I think we can do the job,” said Mr. Cayetano (shown here in a Honolulu Weekly photo).

It’s the “all of that” phrase that’s so arresting. What is the “all of that” Mr. Cayetano is proposing? What exactly does he suggest can be implemented to roll out his express buses concept? What are the implications of adding more surface vehicle traffic to existing streets and highways? What would relying on a vastly larger bus fleet do to surface congestion at the start and end of his express lanes? How would existing highway infrastructure have to be modified to accommodate them? Has anyone in his entourage checked into “all of that”?

Stop the Presses

In the same paragraph as the “all of that” comment, Mr. Cayetano makes an observation that seemingly undercuts his previous anti-rail talking points, which of course are actually Cliff Slater’s talking points. Here’s that observation:

“If we had dedicated bus lanes and all of that, I think we can do the job. And also, because you’re never going to get rid of traffic congestion, you manage it. You combine that with other things….”

Mr. Cayetano acknowledges in this quote what the city has been saying for years – that congestion will continue to grow even after rail is built. The population and number of vehicles owned by our residents will increase, and rail will be the critical piece of infrastructure that will give commuters a traffic-free travel mode through Honolulu’s congested urban core.

But just one day before the Honolulu Weekly interview appeared, Mr. Cayetano was repeating Mr. Slater’s key talking point that’s at the heart of the Slater/Cayetano anti-rail argument. Here’s what he said in his statement issued after the Federal Transit Administration authorized the city to begin heavy construction on rail:

“In its Environmental Impact Statement, the City concedes rail will not reduce future traffic congestion below current levels – a statement with which the FTA agreed on page 208 of its Record of Decision.”

Straddling

Clearly, this is a case of trying to have it both ways – criticizing rail for not reducing “future traffic congestion below current levels” one day but freely acknowledging we’re “never going to get rid of traffic congestion….” the next.

The problem with rushing past the “all of that” details in transportation planning is that they simply can’t be brushed aside so easily. Years of analysis and critical thinking go into a project like Honolulu rail. Supplying snapshot suggestions to toss it all away with a detail-free plan to use express buses “and all that” shows no evidence of any critical thinking whatsoever.

As for the “something else” that Mr. Cayetano says “will do the job,” there is nothing else that would give commuters a traffic-free commute through the east-west corridor. That’s the job rail will do, and that’s why our grandchildren will look back at our generation’s decision to build elevated Honolulu rail with gratitude – not the ridicule the candidate suggests.

A Serious Quest: Searching for Candidate’s Option To Rail that Would Help Commuters Avoid Traffic; What We Found: Lots of Unanswered Questions

We’re on a serious search to understand Ben Cayetano’s “plan” to provide some kind of relief to commuters from Oahu’s traffic congestion problem, which already is severe and can only get worse.

Mr. Cayetano is an avowed opponent of the city’s intention to build a 20-mile rail line through the urban corridor that would serve communities throughout its length and beyond.

It’s not asking too much to demand some concrete ideas by this mayoral candidate about what he’d do instead of building the traffic-avoiding option of elevated rail transit. (See the blue field above and our disclaimer about what Yes2Rail is not – a political blog.)

This week’s announcement by the Federal Transit Administration granting the project a Letter of No Prejudice has cleared the way for nearly $200 million in heavy construction along Phase One – from East Kapolei to Waipahu. Such a major step would surely also provoke Mr. Cayetano to provide his detailed plan, or so you’d think. After all, 10,000 jobs are hanging in the balance, not to mention future decades of traffic-free travel by untold numbers of Oahu residents.

Unfortunately, Mr. Cayetano isn’t so easily provoked. To be sure, HawaiiReporter.com posted a commentary by the former governor yesterday in response to the LONP. HR is the favorite channel for anti-railers like Mr. Cayetano and Cliff Slater, whose decades-long arguments against mass transit can now be found in Mr. Cayetano’s campaign statements. (Messrs. Cayetano and Slater are shown here in their attorney’s office when they announced their lawsuit to kill rail.)

Concerns Sans Plans

But exactly what does Mr. Cayetano want to do for long-suffering highway commuters to ease their weekday trips to and from work through our narrow east-west corridor? They’ve been patient enough over the decades as city mass transit projects have been launched, only to fail thanks to the efforts of Mr. Slater and his car-loving friends.

The FTA’s LONP means we’re literally weeks away from major construction on Phase One, so we poured over Mr. Cayetano’s 472-word statement in HawaiiReporter issued after the FTA’s action to see what he’d say about building an option to elevated rail.

There wasn’t one word in that statement about an option, let alone details about a transportation plan. We even used our browser’s Find function to search for a few key words that might offer insight into Mr. Cayetano’s thinking – transit, bus, trolley, highway, even HOV. Alas, not one of these words is in his statement except for their use in the FTA’s name and within the word “business.” (The word “transit” can’t be found at his campaign site’s Platform page either – more on that below.)

How can that be? Isn’t Mr. Cayetano’s “plan” what residents (and reporters) should be demanding from the man who vows to kill rail in both the Gang of Four federal lawsuit and his campaign? If not elevated rail to give commuters a traffic-avoiding option, what does he want?

Dissecting Cayetano

For sure, the commentary covers Mr. Cayetano’s concerns about the cost of the project. That’s to be expected about the most expensive endeavor in state history, and he has company. The FTA is watching project costs like a hawk, so is the City Council and so is the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation and both pro- and anti-rail citizens.

But that’s where he stops short – lamenting the project’s $5.3 billion cost while suggesting that money could better be spent upgrading Honolulu’s sewers, storm drains and potholes. It’s at this point we’re reminded of the Doctor Pepper TV spot (or is it Coke Zero?) in which the main actor keeps asking “And…..?“ every time he’s offered something (a job, an ice cream cone, etc.) but expects more.

We wanted more from Mr. Cayetano than this somewhat bizarre commentary. At one point he channels Mr. Slater’s dumbed-down talking point about how “the City concedes rail will not reduce future traffic congestion below current levels – a statement with which the FTA agreed on page 208 of its Record of Decision.”

And…..?

What are we to make of Mr. Cayetano’s use of this hackneyed observation? At a minimum, we conclude he doesn’t even know rail’s goals – to restore mobility to citizens, improve travel times, ensure transportation equity among all users and guide rational future development.

Please read this sentence aloud for the benefit of anyone sitting nearby: “Rail will not reduce traffic below current levels decades from now because Oahu’s population will continue to grow far above current levels!”

We almost welcome the continued use by Messrs. Slater and Cayetano of such an easily exploded argument (see yesterday’s post), but the rail project is too important to have the community’s discussion on it mucked up by this intellectually dishonest sloganeering.

Veering into the Past

Something else strange in Mr. Cayetano’s post-LONP statement was this emphasis on his previous governmental service, which ended in 2002 (that's his official portrait as governor below):

“As for (Senator Daniel Inouye’s) comment that ‘there are a lot of things involved in the management of a large city like Honolulu, a city that represents over half (900,000 to be more exact) the population of the whole state,’ the good senator forgets that the people gave me the privilege of governing the population of the entire state – 1.2 million residents – for eight years during some tough economic times – and he apparently has forgotten the supportive remarks he made about my performance when he endorsed me in my 1994 and 1998 elections.”

Does Mr. Cayetano believe the senator’s previous support has immunized him from criticism of his current anti-rail stance? The former governor’s apparent misunderstanding of rail’s goals and his disinclination to offer details on an alternative to rail is embarrassingly obvious to casual observers. We can only imagine how put off Mr. Inouye must be by attempts to kill the latest version of a project for which the senator has fought so hard and so long.

More Buses?

Mr. Cayetano formally announced his candidacy three weeks ago tomorrow. So far, he’s failed to present a detailed vision of a transportation plan that would serve commuters better than Honolulu rail. The closest his campaign comes, it seems, is on its Platform page, which displays a January 30th statement attributed to Mr. Cayetano. He says he’d improve the city’s bus system “by developing dedicated lanes for express buses on the freeway….”

“Buses have greater flexibility and will be able to go into different communities, pick up passengers and drive them to downtown nonstop on dedicated lanes – avoiding the need for transfers as would be required for rail….”

This statement again reveals how little the candidate understands Honolulu rail. Not only will a time-consuming “transfer” not be required when using both TheBus and the train, the bus system is already slated to do what Mr. Cayetano thinks it should do – “go into different communities, pick up passengers and drive them” to the nearest rail station, where they'll board a train and ride in comfort above street-level buses and other vehicles.

An example of missing details: His statement doesn’t say how his neighborhood-cruising buses would access the dedicated express bus lanes. The current Zipper Lane has entrances and exits at its ends. Residents of neighborhoods along the bus expressway might well wonder how their neighborhood’s buses would access those lanes – and how much expense would be involved in building the ramps and otherwise modifying the highways.

The campaign’s Platform Page ends with this invitation: “Got Questions? Contact us.” At this point, one will suffice:  

“Mr. Cayetano, what exactly are the details of your plan to provide relief to west-side commuters?”

FTA’s ‘Letter of No Prejudice’ for Honolulu Rail Contrasts with Anti-Railer’s Decades-Long Fight To Kill Mass Transit Projects Here, Plus: SLC’s At-Grade Trains Involved in 2 Crashes in 2 Days

“Mandatory Cliff Slater Anti-Rail Responses to Positive News” is hereby added to our 2012 predictions list, joining “Three Star-Advertiser Columnists Will Have Nothing Good To Say about Honolulu Rail This Year.”

One of the most positive developments in the history of Honolulu rail projects over the decades was greeted yesterday by another Slater denunciation. Do Honolulu reporters silently snigger as they type their phone interviews with the car-loving businessman-activist who has opposed every transit project that could have provided traffic relief to the masses?

Maybe they can assign numbers or letters to his dour downers as they write their stories with helpful suggestions, such as “insert Slater Response #5 here.” His anti-railisms are utterly predictable, as well as inaccurate. More on that below.

Take Mr. Slater’s response in the Star-Advertiser (subscription) to the Federal Transit Administration’s granting of a Letter of No Prejudice (LONP) to the Honolulu rail project – a huge step forward for a truly effective transit alternative to driving that’s been envisioned for decades. 

The LONP authorizes the city to begin building the first phase of Honolulu’s 20-mile line. The FTA issues the document only when its continuous oversight has determined a project is managed properly and has a high probability of eventual success.

The city is pursuing a Full Funding Grant Agreement that would obligate the federal government to provide $1.55 billion in funding for Honolulu rail.

Hoping We Fail

Mr. Slater, of course, hopes the FFGA never comes through, since that would be an even bigger development for the project – topping the LONP, which his prepared statement said “merely continues the city’s ability to risk city taxpayer dollars. There is still no guarantee that there will be any federal dollars.”

Somewhat unexpectedly, Mr. Slater said his Gang of Four plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit to kill rail will not seek an injunction to block construction. It had been considered likely they would use every legal maneuver in the book to prevent it.

According to Civil Beat’s report on the LONP, the Gang said the city has promised that if the lawsuit prevails, “any work undertaken between now and then will be torn down.” Yeah – and if this were a poker game, the city has seen the Gang’s bet and raised it.

With the LONP in place, construction can now begin on the first leg of the 20-mile elevated guideway at the western end of the project.

Slater’s Misinformation

A key characteristic of Mr. Slater’s long opposition to rail still seems to have escaped the attention of reporters covering rail – perhaps because they’re too caught up in the daily give and take of the story to give it much thought.

Mr. Slater’s intellectually dishonest campaign deliberately attempts to confuse Oahu residents as they follow Honolulu rail. We’ve pointed this out repeatedly; see our “aggregation” site and the links below the Mr. Cliff Slater (and Friends) heading.

As recently as two days ago, Mr. Slater’s HonoluluTraffic.com website trumpeted: “It’s final: Traffic congestion will be worse with rail” This headline and the copy that follows it attempt to confuse readers into believing rail is being built primarily to reduce traffic congestion. He's been peddling this falsehood since at least July 2010, and probably earlier.

While that will indeed happen after tens of thousands of drivers switch to riding the train to save money and time, that’s not one of rail’s goals, which also are linked from the “aggregation” site.

Rail will be an alternative to traffic – not its end. It doesn’t take much thinking to grasp that traffic will continue to grow with the population. As we noted a few days ago, Oahu will have nearly 84,000 additional residents by the end of 2020 if this decade has the same growth rate as the 2001-2010 period. Vehicle registrations will increase by 123,000.

Logically, with that much growth, congestion eventually will be worse than it is today. That’s why the rail option – elevated above surface traffic and thereby immune to it – will be the missing link in Oahu’s transportation infrastructure that more than 100,000 passengers will ride daily.

Mr. Slater would do well to come clean and start speaking the truth to Oahu residents. It might give him a better legacy after rail has been built and commuters are thanking their lucky stars they didn’t listen to him. Somehow, we don’t think his "cleansing" will happen.

Salt Lake City Accidents

Phoenix’s at-grade rail transit system recorded accidents on Saturday and Sunday, and this week it’s the Salt Lake City TRAX system’s turn.

The driver of a pickup truck ran a red light yesterday and slammed into the lead car of a TRAX train, derailing it. Service was disrupted for several hours – and so was consumer confidence, no doubt.

Earlier today, another truck driver ran another red light and encroached into a TRAX train’s right-of-way. No one was injured in this crash, but TRAX has recorded a long string of incidents involving vehicles and pedestrians, some of them fatal, as we recounted in November.

We continue to post these crash notices to make the point that light-rail transit systems operating at ground level cannot be as reliably on-time nor as safe as grade-separated systems. To attract sustained and growing ridership, systems must deliver quality service.

Elevated Honolulu rail will do that – and no amount of confusing campaign sloganeering by Mr. Slater and other rail opponents can change that.

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

Phoenix Light-Rail System Had Terrible Weekend: At-Grade Train Slams Car 1 Day after Teen Is Hit

Driver escapes injury after driving into at-grade train's path.

This past weekend wasn’t a good one for Valley Metro in Phoenix, AZ. The system’s light-rail trains were involved in two incidents whose outcomes could have been much worse than they were.

A teenager was seriously injured Saturday evening when he was run over by a train, and a car was destroyed yesterday afternoon after turning into a train’s path.

Unlike what happens Las Vegas, when Phoenix’s light-rail system experiences something unsavory, it makes news here in Honolulu, where opponents of the city's’s future rail system say it should be built at ground level – like in Phoenix.

That city began its light-rail train service in December 2008, and in the first year of operation, Valley Metro had 52 vehicle crashes along the 20-mile line. As the weekend made all too clear, people and property are still being damaged in rail-related accidents precisely because the trains and vehicles operate within feet of one another, as the adjacent photo illustrates.

Aesthetics First?

Here in Honolulu, some rail opponents continue attacking the project primarily because its elevated guideway will be about 30 feet above the ground and therefore more obvious than an at-grade system.

Putting such a high premium on aesthetics in the planning stage would have degraded the Honolulu system’s safety, however. It will be impossible for street-level vehicles and Honolulu’s elevated trains to collide along the 20-mile line. Pedestrians also will be grade-separated from the tracks, so they won’t be making news like the 17-year-old boy unfortunately did on Saturday night in Phoenix.

Focusing so much on view planes betrays a tunnel-vision appreciation of the Honolulu project. Not only would an at-grade system be extraordinarily hazardous compared to being elevated, ground-level transit can’t possibly be as fast, frequent and reliable as elevated rail.

Those are the attributes required by any transit future system to address Oahu’s growing traffic congestion crisis. Only grade-separated transit can deliver them. As Yes2Rail suggested yesterday, citizens have a right to demand answers from those who would kill the only system capable of bypassing congestion altogether.

Phoenix At-Grade Train Hits Teen: ‘It Is Unknown How or Why Pedestrian Got in the Train’s Path’

Scene after last night's at-grade train accident in Phoenix, AZ.

A straight-forward answer to our headline’s quote from a Phoenix Fire Department spokesman is that both the teen and the train occupied the same space at the wrong time yesterday.

Phoenix built its 20-mile light-rail transit system at ground level, and within a few months residents were asking why there were so many accidents. The system recorded 52 of them in its first 52 weeks.

A search of Google for “Phoenix train accident” returns dozens of hits, including a page at azcentral.com’s website that’s devoted entirely to light-rail news, including numerous crashes.

Again, the straight-forward answer to the residents’ question is that Phoenix’s trains, cars, trucks and buses all operate at ground level – and unfortunately, so do pedestrians on occasion. Trains and vehicles collide in intersections and crossings because of human error after drivers ignore red lights and signage that should prevent crashes.

But that’s the problem with at-grade transit systems, isn’t it? They practically invite accidents because humans are error-prone, ignore signage, text while they drive, zone out mentally or otherwise do the wrong thing around at-grade trains.

Looked the Wrong Way

Phoenix Fire Department Capt. Scott McDonald said authorities didn’t immediately know “how or why the pedestrian got in the train’s path,” but a witness told a Phoenix television station the 17-year-old was standing on the tracks looking to see if a train were coming. One did, but it approached at 30 miles per hour from the opposite direction, hitting and pinning the teen to the curb. The teen was taken to a trauma center in stable condition. Said a witness:

“I just ran over there, and I looked at him. I tried to get him out, but he was really, his muscles were contracting, so it was pretty difficult. I got him out and I set him down on the floor, on the road, and I just held his head up and put him to the side to make sure he was OK." 

The same man gave this description to a different TV station:

“He wasn’t looking, and he got hit by the train. It hit him really bad, it threw him a couple feet away from it, and then it caught up to him and kinda dragged him to the side and under the train.”

The teen was taken to a trauma center in stable condition.

The point of highlighting accidents involving at-grade transit systems, of course, is that Honolulu’s elevated rail will experience none of these crashes, but that doesn’t stop rail opponents from suggesting view planes are more important than safety.

Our view: Proponents of at-grade rail transit, including political office-seekers, must address at-grade rail’s safety record and why they believe it would acceptable to introduce that unnecessary hazard into our community. And if reporters won’t do it, citizens should.

Honolulu: America’s Densest City

The Brookings Institution, a non-profit public policy research organization based in Washington, D.C., published a study on density in America’s cities in 2001: “Who Sprawls Most? How Growth Patterns Differ Across the U.S.”

The study found that Honolulu was the densest metropolitan area in the United States. The study made a point of noting Honolulu’s unique geography that contributes to the city’s density:

“Honolulu, of course, is atypically land-constrained for U.S. metropolitan areas because it is located on an island in the Pacific Ocean.” Elsewhere in a summary of the study, Brookings wrote:

“…Honolulu is not your image of urban jungle but tropical paradise jungle! Yet: It is 50% denser than number 2, LA. Why is this romantic city the densest? Development and parks have filled the flat areas, which are bordered by steep mountains and the ocean on three sides, the military bases to the west…. Consequently, people gather in public parks and other public places, generating a sense of community. The density also leads to higher bus use.”

Brookings has it exactly right, and the same density factors that contribute to high ridership on TheBus will do the same for Honolulu’s future rail system. It’s what anti-railers like Cliff Slater ignore when they recite statistics about rail ridership around the country – as if Houston, Salt Lake City, Phoenix, Denver and the rest of them were comparable to Honolulu’s elongated layout between the mountains and the sea.

Safety deserves to be #1 in the list of considerations about the rail transit system that will serve Honolulu’s urban core communities. The people’s choice to build an elevated rail guideway above the perils of surface traffic was the right one. Let the office-seekers respond to that!

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

Traffic Advice Went Beyond Just Head-Scratching; Being Stuck by Traffic for Hours Is Unacceptable, Plus: Mayoral Candidate Still Mum on Transit Plan

The more we think about it, the more outrageous it seems. The new mayoral candidate continues to avoid any details about his plan to address Oahu’s intolerable traffic congestion problem. That’s pretty bad in its own right, and we’ll get to that deeper in today’s post.

What’s over-the-top outrageous is the advice provided by a traffic reporter to homeward-bound drivers on Wednesday – to simply “hang out for at least a few hours until the traffic dies.”

Hang out? What about the kids in preschool who needed picking up before the “late fee” kicked in? What about kids who needed rides to after-school activities? And what about the grocery shopping and the dinner that had to be on the table? Hang out for at least a few hours?

It’s only February 2012 and already we’ve had at least one road incident that blocked several highways simultaneously on Oahu. Can you imagine what it will be like in a few more years?

Let’s try to imagine it. You know the population’s going to grow, barring an unknown event or circumstances. Oahu’s population increased 8.8 percent between 2000 and 2010, according to the 2010 State Data Book. The number of registered vehicles on Oahu increased by nearly twice that rate during the same period – 17.1 percent.

So looking ahead to 2020, if the population and vehicle registrations were to increase at the same rate this decade as the past one, Oahu would have 83,882 more residents and 123,166 more vehicles by the end of 2020. The totals would be 1,037,089 and 843,433 respectively.

Highways? No.

Advocates of continued reliance on the private automobile and the “freedom of the open road” it allegedly represents will tell you more concrete is the appropriate response to the specter of even worse highway congestion ahead.

“Let’s build ourselves more highways to solve this problem,” they’ll say. “Let’s build the highways elevated above surface traffic so we won’t get caught in massive traffic jams, and let’s make them toll roads so we can manage the flow of traffic – you know, keep traffic moving along nicely on these lanes by raising the price to use them high enough to keep away those who can’t afford the toll.”

That’s essentially what folks like Cliff Slater and Panos Prevedouros are preaching. The Hired Gun Gang of libertarian-minded speakers coming to town at the end of this month will probably go on about highway freedom, too. They’re coming out at the invitation of that other gang – the Gang of Four that’s suing to kill the Honolulu rail project.

Rail? Yes.

Oahu already has an appropriate response to what happened Wednesday on the few arterial roads between town and leeward Oahu. It’s not more highways – elevated or otherwise – and it’s not ground-level transit, which would be slowed by all the cross streets and intersections with roads carrying cars and buses.

Elevated rail will deliver a level of service that car commuters have lost. Imagine being able to know exactly when you’ll arrive at your destination. That’s what rail will give commuters – a timetable that tells them exactly when they’ll arrive at the Waipahu Station, the Aloha Stadium station, the Honolulu International Airport station and all the other stations along the line.

From one end to the next, the ride will take exactly 42 minutes, and you’ll know your arrival time at your destination station as you step aboard the train. Try making an accurate prediction of your arrival time today when you head off in your car during peak travel time through our narrow east-west urban core.

You can’t do that except for dumb luck. Deep down, highway users know that’s true, and as much as they love the freedom that driving their own cars gives them, they also know that increasingly bad traffic congestion is not sustainable.

Individuals with good access to the rail option via walking, buses or park-and-ride will take the train rather than drive for two principle reasons – convenience and cost. Just as congestion will increase, so will the cost to operate and maintain the family car.

Nobody should have to just kill time in town until the traffic jams melt away. Time lost is lost, no matter where it’s lost – in traffic or chilling in town. That’s the traffic reporter’s advice in 2012, but it will be a thing of the past for commuters who choose to ride Honolulu's future rail system.

Ben Cayetano

The former governor who’s now running for mayor spoke to the Downtown Exchange Club yesterday, and according to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser (subscription), he wants to “improve buses and the bus system….”

That’s apparently as close as he got to addressing Oahu’s traffic congestion issues. Mr. Cayetano (shown at right with fellow anti-railer Cliff Slater, two members of the aforementioned Gang of Four) told the club he wants to divert the money from the general excise tax transit surcharge that’s already earmarked for Honolulu rail – so designated by the State Legislature and accepted by the Federal Transit Administration as the local funding source – and spend it on sewers and buses.

“I would say to (legislators)… I would like you to consider, let me use $1 billion, maybe less, to improve the buses and the bus system. Give me a half-billion for sewers, a half-billion for water systems and you keep the rest. That’s a bill they’re going to go for because they want that money. The need that money.”

This isn’t a political blog, and we’ll leave it to S-A columnists Dave Shapiro, Cynthia Oi and Richard Borreca to comment on the political nuances of Mr. Cayetano’s suggestion. From our pro-rail perch, his “plan” looks transparently thin. One day after a highway-blocking, homeward-commute destroying traffic blockade on all major through routes to west Oahu, Mr. Cayetano’s idea to improve mobility in our community was to put more buses on the road with other vehicles that get stuck in the jams.

This is Day #15 since Mr. Cayetano’s official entry into the mayoral race and he’s yet to tell Oahu citizens detail #1 about his transit plan. Yesterday’s remarks didn't qualify, so just like the Columnist Watch and our 2012 prediction of what the Star-Advertiser scribes will say about Honolulu rail, we’re watching to see how long it will be before Mr. Cayetano proposes a travel option through town that will be as fast, frequent, reliable and safe as elevated rail. We’re guessing he can’t and therefore won't.

Traffic Watch Reporter’s Head-Scratching Advice: Kill a Few Hours in Town before Heading Home

The way home from town to the Second City has few options.

How do you suppose that advice went down yesterday with commuters whose only goal after a long day at work was to get home as fast as possible?

Here’s KSSK’s actual message that was posted at its Facebook page at 4:08 pm:

‘If you don’t have to head west from town, hang out for at least a few hours until the traffic dies. All routes to Aiea (westbound) are clogged because of an earlier accident in Pearl City. This means even under the viaduct…Jason.”

But those tens of thousands of commuters had no choice. They had to head west from town. They live west of town, and their only option was to head west from town.

Yesterday’s blurb on the popular radio station’s broadcast and Facebook page helped bring Honolulu’s particular geography into focus. The facts on the ground are pretty simple:

Oahu’s Second City bedroom communities have been built on the ewa plain on the southwestern corner of the island. Residents there commute eastward to their jobs – anywhere from Pearl City to “town” – through a relatively narrow strip of land that curves around Pearl Harbor between the mountain range and the ocean, as seen in the graphic above.

Honolulu isn’t like Houston, Phoenix, Denver or any number of mainland cities with road networks that scatter every which way from the business district to the suburbs. Houston (at right) is perhaps the most extreme example; the map makes it obvious that if an accident has blocked your usual route home, you can detour the round-about way and eventually get there.

The Rail Option

Not so on Oahu. If there’s an accident on one road in Aiea, Pearl City or Waipahu, all roads are soon clogged as drivers jump over to alternative streets and highways, and there’s just no way around the jams that soon clog all roads in the area.

And here’s where we get to mention Honolulu’s future rail system. Quite obviously, by being elevated above surface traffic, commuters who choose to ride the train will avoid all traffic congestion. It’s the one basic fact that opponents never quite get around to mentioning.

They focus on the visual impacts of elevated rail (as we have recently here and here), and they say rail will be too expensive, but they haven’t successfully explained how their alternative – whatever it is – would actually allow commuters and others to travel through this corridor quickly and reliably on-time, two attributes of our future train system.

Which reminds us of Seinfeld again. In one famous sketch, Jerry was moved to compare the difference between “taking” rental car reservations and actually “holding” them – i.e., actually giving the customer what he or she wants, which is a car to drive. Building on that, we’d say anybody can object to Honolulu rail – the “reservation taking” part – but it’s something else again to have a plan that will provide fast, frequent, reliable and safe travel through the city, as rail will. 

Rail opponents don’t actually “hold the reservation” and fail to deliver what commuters need – a way to not drive to and from work and thereby avoid all traffic on their westward trip home.

‘Fact Check’ Finds Candidate’s ‘Waterfront View’ Statement on Elevated Rail Half True/Half False

A waterfront perspective from the corner of Bishop Street and Ala Moana.

Civil Beat’s Fact Check on mayoral candidate Ben Cayetano’s description of Honolulu rail near the waterfront found that he deserves only a   HALF TRUE  . In our book, that’s really a   HALF FALSE  , since that’s what you’d tell elementary school children when they shaded the truth.

As we noted back in August and September when Civil Beat fact-checked the Gang of Four’s big newspaper PR piece, CB said Mr. Cayetano and his three friends rated only two   TRUE   with that commentary, three   HALF FALSE   and two flat-out   FALSE  .

Our view is that influential people who are trying to kill the jobs-producing, traffic-avoiding, commute-improving, mobility-restoring, development-shaping, travel equity-enhancing Honolulu rail project should stick with the truth, whole truth and nothing but the truth. That’s especially pertinent since three of them are attorneys – a former governor, a former judge and a current law school professor.

But that’s not what’s happening with this Gang, and Mr. Cayetano’s discussion of Honolulu rail is the latest example.

Our Beautiful Waterfront

Here’s Mr. Cayetano’s statement that Civil Beat decided to Fact Check:

“The elevated, massive, concrete structure will run along the waterfront, destroying forever the view planes of our beautiful city and changing its character for the worse.”

To do its check, Civil Beat said it had to know "how much of the 20-mile line will snake along the city’s waterfront." The investigative on-line news site writes:

“Taken literally, Cayetano’s claim about rail running ‘along the waterfront’ is plainly false. The half-mile section connecting the Chinatown and Downtown stops is really the only part that even comes close to qualifying.”

Civil Beat asked the Cayetano campaign to clarify the “waterfront” remark. Mr. Cayetano told Civil Beat:

“That structure is basically running alongside the waterfront. If you take a look from the mauka side of Bishop Street and you look down the street toward the ocean, that thing will be blocking your view.”

Google Street View

Since Bishop Street runs mauka-makai, Mr. Cayetano must have meant the view one would have up Bishop Street on the mauka side of the guideway. But a closer look suggests his warning is more hyperbole than fact.

The photo at right is from the Google Maps Street View feature; it was taken from a vehicle in the middle of Bishop Street directly in front of the Dillingham Transportation Building. The cameras are attached to the vehicle’s roof (see photo at bottom of this post) several feet above seat level and therefore also higher than a pedestrian’s perspective on the sidewalks.

As the photo plainly shows, the only portion of the view affected by a guideway 30 feet above street level will be blue sky. The view of the harbor’s actual waterfront and the boat that offers lunchtime and dinner cruises won’t be blocked at all. The view for vehicle passengers and pedestrians alike will be below the guideway. Aloha Tower will still be visible, and so will Hawaiian Electric Company’s pre-World War II power plant.

Civil Beat also used Google Street View to see just how much impact an elevated guideway might have on the mauka-to-makai view at various locations up Bishop Street. From near the Beretania Street intersection, the waterfront can’t even be seen; “It’s hard to imagine that the rail line would dramatically change the view,” CB wrote.

It’s Subjective

The closer you get to Ala Moana/Nimitz Highway, the wider the waterfront view, making it “easier to envision how a rail line one block from the water would change the landscape,” says Civil Beat. But let’s face it: Your perception of how much the elevated line would affect the narrow slice of the harbor one can see from intersections along Queen Street (that’s Alakea above) depends on your view of the entire project, because the actual impact on view planes is small. Mr. Cayetano admitted as much:

“I think, as you point out, some things are subjective,” he told Civil Beat. “I’m talking about it from my standpoint as someone who has lived here. The people who have seen those renderings are shocked because they never imagined that it would be like that. That’s the point I was trying to make when I was talking about this structure snaking down the waterfront and changing the character of the city.”

The renderings Mr. Cayetano and his Gang show to people are, of course, intended to make the elevated structure look as bad as possible, but it’s worth noting that his campaign site’s rendering linked from Civil Beat’s story isn’t even a mauka-to-makai view.

Another view of the power plant, reflected off the Pacific Guardian Center's windows.

Civil Beat's Bottom Line: “It’s true that a small section of the route runs very close to the waterfront and a larger segment is in the general vicinity of the ocean. But the line is 20 miles long and in some spots is not particularly close to any water at all. Cayetano uses metaphor and imagery to create the impression that the rail system will be built on the coast, and that’s not entirely accurate. Hence the grade of HALF TRUE .”

In other words, this particular “snake” is barely visible from where most people walk the streets, drive their cars and sit in their downtown offices – lost in the “weeds” of high-rise buildings and a power plant. Following Civil Beat's lead, we have to give Mr. Cayetano’s statement a grade of   HALF FALSE  .

Google Street View is produced using vehicles like this.

Triple-Fatality SUV, Light Rail Train Crash Prompts Question: ‘Why Is At-Grade Transit the Problem?’

A Sacramento light-rail train speeds through intersection.

Sacramentio, CA police and transit authorities are still sorting through why the driver of an SUV reportedly drove around a crossing arm and into the path of a light-rail train two days ago. Two adults and a toddler died, and one adult is in intensive care.

The light-rail system’s general manager added details yesterday after viewing video from cameras mounted on the train. “There are sound walls on their side of the tracks, so visibility is limited, and the train was traveling 50 to 55 miles per hour,” he said.

Yesterday’s Yes2Rail post focused on the tragedy and prompted a question at Twitter from someone we respect who is truly a transit expert. “Why is the problem at-grade transit?” he tweeted. “You could just as well blame at-grade cars, especially since they’re almost always at fault.”

It’s a reasonable query from a transportation professional who has decades of experience with grade-separated and at-grade systems around the world. We can appreciate his preference to focus on one possible cause of the Sacramento crash – driver impatience and disregard of traffic laws.

Fault Isn’t the Issue

Our response acknowledged the truth in the expert’s tweet but also noted that in a city where at least some prominent rail opponents apparently want at-grade transit built here instead of an elevated guideway, safety is a top issue, and citizens need to be reminded of that.

Finding fault in one at-grade crash is irrelevant when comparing the overall safety of ground-level and grade-separated transit systems. Honolulu’s future elevated guideway simply will never experience the kind of train-vehicle crashes that have become all too common in cities like Phoenix, Houston and Sacramento. TV stations like Sacramento’s KCRA-TV often post videos of these accidents, such as this one.

Honolulu already selected elevated rail after an exhaustive analysis of which technology would be the best choice for this city. Oahu’s restricted space and population density entered into the decision, but so did safety – an issue the vast majority of residents undoubtedly believes is important.

Rail opponents are pressing their case against Honolulu’s future elevated guideway but never mention at-grade transit’s "safety problem" and its potential to forever change lives and even end them.

They’ll continue to blast the current project over their concern about the guideway’s potential to affect view planes. Proponents of the current plan have every right to demand a forthright discussion of the safety issue, too, which more than a few of us believe is more important than aesthetics.

At-Grade Tragedy: 3 Die in Sacramento after SUV Ignores Barrier, Drives into Light-Rail Train’s Path

Aftermath of yesterday's multi-fatality car crash with an at-grade train.

Opponents of Honolulu rail talk ceaselessly about the elevated guideway’s potential to block view planes. They warn that digging into the ground to build its support structure will disturb cultural remains along the line.

Some allude to their preference for at-grade light rail transit without offering specifics, so it’s virtually impossible to critique their ideas for a new piece of transportation infrastructure on Oahu. But it is possible to critique their preferred technology.

At-grade rail’s proponents rarely talk about safety. That’s because the comparison between technologies is stark: Elevated rail completely avoids cross-street and other traffic and therefore is immune to cross-traffic, while at-grade rail is in the traffic mix.

That point was driven home tragically yesterday in Sacramento, CA when the driver of an SUV ignored flashing warning lights and a rail crossing arm and drove into the path of a light-rail train. Two adults and an 18-month-old boy were killed.

Issue #1: Safety

At-grade advocates have contorted themselves into unbelievable positions as they attempt to explain why ground-level rail may actually be safer than elevated. The local architecture chapter pushed that view through an all-too-compliant Honolulu Advertiser reporter two years ago this week.

The reporter, who’s no longer reporting here, actually wrote the following in a January 31, 2010 story headlined Honolulu rail would be safer at ground level, AIA contends: “On a passenger-mile-basis, street-level rail had fewer reported injury incidents than elevated rail in all but one year between 1998 and 2007, based on FTA data.”

To reach that rationalization, the AIA compared the number of passenger miles in 2007 for systems with an exclusive right of way (12.6 million) and at-grade systems (1.9 billion) and found fewer injury incidents on a per-passenger-mile basis.

“The AIA said safety data supports their argument that street-level trains aren’t too dangerous for Honolulu,” wrote the reporter. “The safety of street-trains is supported by a decision by more than two dozen U.S. cities to build commuter train systems that operated at least partially at street level since 1984, according to the AIA.”

Ludicrous Rationalization

It’s preposterous to suggest that street-level train safety “is supported” by those decisions to build at-grade rail in places like Phoenix, Denver, Salt Lake City and others, all of which have recorded dozens of at-grade accidents. The more plausible reason is that those systems’ planners succumbed to anti-elevated arguments on cost and view-impact issues and subsequently chose ground-level transit.

The Advertiser story continued: “The AIA cites the relative safety of street-level trains as one reason why the city should consider building portions of the rail line at grade. City officials argue that the added safety of an elevated train is one more justification for the project’s relatively high costs.”

It’s true that exclusive right-of-way systems have experienced accidents and fatalities, including the notorious failure on the Washington, D.C. Metro a few years ago. But that system and Honolulu’s future elevated rail project are dissimilar in at least one significant fact: The Metro has human beings at the controls in both the trains and control room, and Honolulu’s elevated system will be completely computer controlled.

Driverless Safety

The safety of automated systems is proven and documented by now, as noted in a 2009 Engineering and Technology magazine piece. The first such technology was built nearly 30 years ago in Lille, France. To our knowledge, that system has never recorded a fatality – precisely because it’s separated from street traffic, mostly above ground, and because platform safety screens prevent passengers from falling, jumping or being pushed onto the tracks.

But the biggest distinction between Honolulu's future system and at-grade systems is the lack of interaction between trains and surface vehicles. As the city’s Director of Transportation Services Wayne Yoshioka said in January 2010:

“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 transit that’s crossing active streets with active vehicles turning in front of the train, with pedestrians crossing in front of the train. That (comparison) doesn’t seem to make logical sense to me.”

Unlike the Sacramento family, Honolulu families won’t be able to drive past a crossing arm and flashing warning lights or otherwise stumble into an at-grade train’s path here. No amount of hype about at-grade safety can alter the fact that our system will be safer than what the AIA -- and apparently some candidates -- propose.

Yesterday's tragedy in Sacramento can't be ignored.

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

LTE Forum: A Letter from 2002 Makes Rail’s Case; One from This Week Sees another TheBoat Fiasco

Some research into the origins of the anti-rail campaign of certain long-time opponents had a surprisingly good discovery – a letter printed by the Honolulu Advertiser in December 2002 that’s as good a description of how Honolulu rail will serve the community as any other we’ve seen. We’ll have more to say about those campaign origins later.

Today’s LTE Forum starts off with that letter and ends with one published just yesterday (Star-Advertiser subscription required). It’s not as if we’re giving the pro and con rail arguments equal weight, as you’ll see.

Rail system is only way to ease traffic (Honolulu Advertiser, 12/16/02)

“The Dec. 18 article ‘City bus plan far from certain’ reported officials as saying opposition to the Bus Rapid Transit System at the state and Civil Council levels could delay or derail the project.

“I found the use of the word ‘derail’ very ironic and sadly prophetic. It should be painfully obvious by now that any kind of proposed ‘bus rapid transit’ system that does not service a ‘rail rapid transit’ system is bound to failure. These ridiculous proposals that suggest adding more buses to already congested roadways make absolutely no sense at all.

“For those who have never lived in a city with rail transportation, please allow me to explain. Here in Honolulu, as in other cities, every day, all over the world, a rail transit system works like this:

“Step 1: In the morning commuters make their way to the nearest bus stop. Yes, almost all of us on Oahu live within walking or biking distance of a bus stop. And yes, these bus stops are equipped with bike racks for those who prefer to ride a bike rather than walk. Perhaps one may even choose to be dropped off at the bus stop or train station by car.

“Step 2: From the bus stop the bus takes us directly to the nearest train station. And, as an added bonus, there are many shops and cafes there. We get our morning coffee, read the newspaper, perhaps have breakfast with our friends and co-workers. We could even do a little early morning shopping before work (hmmm…helping the economy?).

“Step 3: Board the train that takes us to the station nearest to our workplace. We arrive on time, relaxed and ready for the day’s work.

“Step 4: Repeat the above, only in reverse. Oh, and don’t forget, on your way home please stop at the supermarket at the train station to pick up those items on the grocery list.

“It seems very simple, really. And, having lived in Japan for nearly four years, I can assure everyone that the above mentioned daily transportation ritual works and is the only viable way to get from here to there in the least amount of time and using the least amount of energy and resources.

“Furthermore, for the Japanese people, bicycles and walking are an essential part of everyday life, and just coincidentally, Japan has one of the healthiest populations on earth. Hmm….”

The writer’s endorsement of rail transit nearly a decade ago – based on his personal experience – is as sound as anything anyone could submit to the newspaper today. Wherever he is this morning, he’d probably just shake his head in disbelief if he knew the anti-rail minority is fighting Honolulu’s project in court and running a candidate for mayor in opposition.

TheBoat = The Train?

We move from the sublime to the difficult to swallow – yesterday’s letter that deserves a short response.

Rail will sink like TheBoat (Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 1/27)

“…How many people rode TheBoat to work? I believe the fare was subsidized by the city. TheBoat is gone for two reasons: Lack of ridership and lack of maintenance.

“If people did not ride TheBoat, what makes the train advocates think they will ride the train? And if the city could not maintain TheBoat, how in the world do they think they can pay to maintain the train?...”

Let’s answer the Hawaii Kai writer’s questions. We never were overly impressed by the concept of commuting by boat from the leeward side to downtown. “Rapid transit” it wasn’t; we have no idea what TheBoat’s top speed was, but it wasn’t anything like the 55+ miles per hour Honolulu’s trains will achieve – probably more like 8. With that “speed” to offer commuters, TheBoat didn’t attract customers looking for fast and convenient travel to and from downtown.

As for comparing a boat plowing through saltwater waves to a modern 21st century train system, there’s no comparison.

Stumbling across the 2002 letter was a stroke of luck, and we recommend it to anyone who wants an appreciation of how rail will work for more than one hundred thousand daily riders when the system’s up and running.

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

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

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

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

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

MSF Basics

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Honolulu rail is on a different track.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

More from LTE Forum

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

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

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

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

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