Belated Praise from Bob Jones!

Praise from Bob Jones? It's 2020 after all! Mahalo for the acknowledgement. When it's all said and done, I'll be 3x correct. Plus one. The first three were cost, complexity of delivery, and low ridership (~50% off TheBus.) The plus one is the new normal: Zoom and telecommuting, distancing requirements, shrinkage of services, and Uber and automated vehicles/robotaxis.

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Covid-19 is, understandably, #1 on the news cycle in Honolulu these days. But we have a Primary election coming Saturday and I wonder if everyone will forget and forgive about the train cost and delay.

The local gadfly Panos Prevadouros — who’s probably a much better civil engineer and professor than a would-be politician — got some of it strikingly right in his long fight against the elevated train project.

When the cost was just $5 billion, he showed that even if it served 7% of Oahu travelers (the City figure) it would be an irresponsible expenditure.

Little did we guess that the final cost might be $10 billion and the finish date so far in the future that we might all be traveling by air cars or rocket packs by then!

And to think that we embarked on this project with just 50.6% of those who voted saying yes to it. Not exactly a resounding huzzah.

Picking Your Candidates? Don’t Forget The Train, The Train, The Train, The Train

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