The disablement of the Zipmobile on H-1 Freeway cause a major lane imbalance for the afternoon commute in west Oahu by reducing available freeway lane capacity by two lanes.
My immediate reaction od Facebook got over 160 "likes" as of this writing:
I am sorry folks. I am at home now watching the rivers of red lights all
over town. They'd be the same with or without rail. We used to have two
or three of these a year. Now its a half dozen per year and getting
worse... Just wait for the prolonged lane closures for the rail
stations. So sorry that our place is run by smooth talking lawyers and
uninformed voters. What an avoidable lose-lose!
Hawaii News Now's Ben Gutierrez interviewed me for a piece on
After traffic nightmare, other options may be reconsidered:
University of Hawaii civil and environmental engineering professor Panos
Prevedouros has advocated reversible express lanes from the H-1/H-2
merge to the downtown area, which he calls a critical stretch for
commuters.
"If we had it yesterday, two or three lanes, express to the H-1/H-2 split, it would be like nothing happened," he said.
Star Advertiser's Kristen Consillio quoted me extensively in her article
Jam costs $1 million in lost gas and time:
The
economic loss of more than 75,000 vehicles carrying more than 100,000
people stuck in an hourslong traffic jam was estimated by Panos
Prevedouros, professor and chairman of civil and environmental
engineering at the University of Hawaii.
Prevedouros,
a former mayoral candidate, calculated the loss based on a typical
one-hour trip growing to four or more hours, and using the minimum
wage and current cost of gas to value the time and energy wasted.
"Obviously
it's disruptive to people's schedules so it's a waste of time and
money," added UH economist Carl Bonham. "At the end of the day,
it's really wasted time when people could've been doing something
productive."
The severe congestion that started around 2 p.m. delayed deliveries, while some flights were missed.
"Some
people arrived home so late that they were planning to call in sick the
next day — that's another loss," Prevedouros added. "Every major
event has both positives and negatives. Yesterday's horrendous
congestion was no exception."
Many bus
drivers gained extra overtime, some taxi drivers had some large fares
and many restaurants in town had an unusually busy Tuesday dinner
business, Prevedouros said.
"Of
course, idling for hours makes drivers fume and it is highly polluting,
but empty tanks is more business for gas stations," he said.
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