Why Panos Prevedouros left Hawaii

Mahalo to Dr. Keli'i Akina for the invitation and probing questions.

The state is at risk of a major natural catastrophe, he says, and its “suicidal” energy policy will just make everything worse

Hawaii’s policy mandate to go to 100% renewable energy is nothing short of suicidal.

That was the message of Panos Prevedouros, former chairman of the University of Hawaii civil engineering department, who spoke with host Keli’i Akina, president of the Grassroot Institute, on the June 22 episode of “Hawaii Together.”

Described by Akina as “one of Hawaii’s leading public intellectuals,” Prevedouros moved just last year from Honolulu, his home of 31 years, to Reno, Nevada. During his half-hour conversation with Akina, he explained why. Foremost was his concern about Hawaii’s energy policy and its relation to personal safety.

Because of its geographical isolation, he said, Hawaii needs reliable energy. In the event of a natural disaster, for example, Hawaii’s hospitals “must have reliable electricity for 10, 15, 20 days, or however long it takes for the military and other external providers of health assistance to come help a highly populated island like Oahu or Maui.”

Renewable options like wind and solar farms are not highly reliable, he said, especially since they can be totally demolished by the strong hurricane winds. Thus, Hawaii should be making reliability its top priority, even if that means using coal.

In general, Prevedouros said, Hawaii is totally unprepared for a natural disaster.

“I don’t see the [power] plants [or airports] being hardened. … Our harbors are absolutely not prepared to deal with a major surge from a hurricane or a major surge from a tsunami. Our harbors will be a complete mess. There will be cranes and they’re toppled and there will be containers all over the place.”

And when the Navy arrives from San Diego to help, he warned, “there will be nowhere for them to dock. Nobody is preparing plans to have resilience in our harbor.” 

He said the failure of Hawaii’s politicians to prepare better for a disaster is not peculiar to Hawaii.

“That’s a malaise that exists almost everywhere politically, because politicians, really, do not take a 1% to 2% risk very seriously, and plan to invest big money in that. However, unfortunately, bad luck … really catches up with these things, and we really need to protect the population.” 

Prevedouros said aside from his fears for his family’s safety, he left his beloved Hawaii because of a litany of “wrong” policy decisions.

“One wrong decision does not really change the whole picture,” he said. “There were so many wrong decisions, a litany of which, that, actually after that, I said, ‘Enough is enough.’” 

Well known as a critic of the Honolulu rail, Prevedouros said the recent proposal to stop the system a mile or so short of Ala Moana Center is “definitely a step in the right direction, but it’s not enough. They should have had the guts to stop it at Middle Street, and they probably will be forced to do something like that because now we have the other gift: inflation” — which is sure to drive up its construction costs.

To watch the entire conversation, click here.

Robert Poole: Problems on the Road to All-Electric Transportation

Excellent summary of opportunities, impediments and realistic timelines for surface transportation electrification by Robert W. Poole Jr. of Reason Foundation.

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Over the past few years, I’ve become convinced of the superiority of electric vehicles. Part of this was an exhilarating ride in a friend’s Tesla and more enthusiasm has come via keeping up with technology advances. As electric vehicles (EVs) mature, with next-generation battery systems having much greater range and/or much shorter recharging times, I’ll be happy to trade in my current vehicle for the cleaner, quicker, and less maintenance-intensive EV that is coming.

That said, there are some major problems preventing the emergence of an all-electric personal vehicle fleet. (I’ll discuss all-electric trucks on another occasion). As a starting point, I recommend renowned energy analyst Daniel Yergin’s recent piece in Politico Magazine, “The Major Problems Blocking America’s Electric Car Future.” His article discusses supply chain transformation, modernization and expansion of the electricity grid, and public acceptance of very different vehicles. Another good introduction is former U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) research and technology advisor Steven Polzin’s Q&A session at Arizona State University.

Here is my brief overview of the problems the industry and government must address to get beyond idealistic projections of no more fossil-fuel vehicles sold beyond 2030 and a completely carbon-free electricity sector by 2035.

Enough electric generating capacity

Most attempts to quantify a complete phase-out of fossil fuel electricity generation by 2035 take the objective to be replacing the current 4.13 terawatt-hours generated in 2019. Reason science editor Ron Bailey earlier this year wrote a good summary of the Energy Information Administration’s estimates of what this would take. For example, it would take 290 new nuclear power plants to replace the 62% of current electricity generated by coal and natural gas, at an estimated cost of $3.6 trillion—and in just 15 years. Alternatively, aiming to get 90% there via wind and solar (with some natural gas backup) was estimated by a University of California—Berkeley Center for Environmental Public Policy study to cost $1.7 trillion.

But that is just to replace current electricity uses. If even 60% of all US cars were electric vehicles by 2050, the nation’s electricity capacity would need to double by that date, according to the January 2021 electrification futures study by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Reuters’ Nichola Groom and Tina Bellon provided a good summary of this challenge in “EV Rollout Will Require Huge Investments in Strained U.S. Power Grids.” I will venture to say that neither replacement of all existing electricity capacity by 2035 nor doubling its current capacity by 2050 will happen.

Battery problems

News articles regularly appear about the limitations of current electric vehicle batteries. They don’t provide enough range for trips beyond urban travel. They take far longer to charge than refilling a conventional car’s gas tank (which is why nearly all of today’s gas stations lack the room to serve more than a handful of EV charging customers per hour). The current lithium batteries cost way too much (which is why EVs cost far more than a conventional car of the same size), they can catch fire and explode, and they require a number of rare and expensive metals, whose sources are mostly in either China or underdeveloped countries. The good news is there’s a fortune being invested in new kinds of vehicle batteries, but no one can predict how soon and how much better the next generation of EV batteries will be.

Far more (and much faster) EV charging

The “more” problem is one focus of the Biden administration’s environmental agenda, focusing mostly on subsidies for electric vehicle charging stations. If successful, this risks putting lots of new capacity in place before there is enough demand for it, but leave that aside. The administration and the Senate have shown no interest in changing federal law to allow EV charging facilities on rural Interstate highway rest areas, unlike the House, whose Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act reauthorization bill includes such a provision. An informal business/environmental coalition is trying to build support for including this provision in one of the pending infrastructure bills, but the White House and DOT have remained silent on this.

Faster EV charging is being developed by researchers and battery companies (established and startups), but even cutting it from 45 minutes to 15 still means much longer waits for customers and far more acreage needed due to durations several times longer than at gas pumps. This will be a much bigger problem for long-distance car and truck trips than for urban travel, where much EV charging can take place overnight at home, or at workplaces.

Environmental opposition

Experts know that the kind of electrical transformation desired by the Biden administration and (in theory) by nearly all environmental groups will require a huge investment in new long-distance electricity transmission lines, huge areas to locate a vast expansion of solar panels and windmills, and a very large expansion of mining rare-earth minerals, such as lithium and others. Yet as these efforts are starting to get underway, we see various environmental groups, often allied with local NIMBYs, seeking to block new transmission lines, large-scale solar arrays even in deserts, a major expansion of wind power installations, and domestic attempts to start mining lithium and other rare earths. Since this is a surface transportation newsletter, let me just say that there are numerous examples and they are taking place with increasing frequency. The major environmental groups need to start speaking out against this kind of opposition if we are to take their commitment to widespread electrification seriously. And the Biden administration needs to reform the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to reduce endless opportunities for litigation that seeks to block just about every kind of new infrastructure project.

For all these reasons, I have to be skeptical about grandiose electrification goals for 2030, 2035, or even 2050. And if achieving those goals will actually take a lot longer, we need to think through what is actually possible, let alone cost-effective. A completely EV America will require a much larger electricity sector.

Is Hawaii Becoming a Perfect Contradiction?

 

1. The state depends on tourism but cannot guarantee covid regulations for conventions in 2022.
2. An island state without ferries but more than enough "environmentalists" that killed the Superferry.
3. A state with the best astronomy in the world, but with enough cultural opposers that killed the 30 Meter Telescope.
4. A place where people have multiple jobs and things to do that they cannot carpool two or three at a time, but will take a train 500 at a time.
5. A place where politicians such as Ige and Caldwell do not deserve one term, but were voted into top office twice.
6. A state with a button pusher who drove us all nuts, and still kept his state job.
7. The state with the most workers per capita, but 15 months after the lockdown does not have nearly enough workers to clear the unemployment benefits backlog.
8. The Aloha State takes care of ohana, but has the most homeless per capita.
9. A state with modest incomes and high cost of (basic) living has exorbitant housing costs and a high preference for private K-12 education at $20,000 or more per year!
10. A state having among the highest taxation delivers among the worst public K-12 education in the US.
11. A state that has a waste to energy plant that makes electricity, but prefers to ship recycled paper waste 2,000 miles away.
12. A state that has no connection to external electric grids for help, but focuses on unreliable intermittent energy for baseload power supply.
13. A state with a rich volcanic reservoir enough to solve its energy problem, but hates geothermal energy development (New Zealand has a profit sharing scheme for use of culturally sensitive geothermal energy for the benefit of the indigenous Maori.)
14. A state that has an 85% dependency on imported food, but converts prime agricultural lands such as Koa Ridge and Aloun Farms to cookie cutter suburban subdivisions (that are primarily car dependent too.)

Finally an Article that Describes Me Well: Why Some People Are Willing to Challenge Wrongs

"The traits of a moral rebel

First, moral rebels generally feel good about themselves. They tend to have high self-esteem and to feel confident about their own judgment, values and ability. They also believe their own views are superior to those of others, and thus that they have a social responsibility to share those beliefs.

Moral rebels are also less socially inhibited than others. They aren’t worried about feeling embarrassed or having an awkward interaction. Perhaps most importantly, they are far less concerned about conforming to the crowd. So, when they have to choose between fitting in and doing the right thing, they will probably choose to do what they see as right."

That's right!

SOURCE:  Analysis: Why some people are willing to challenge behavior they see as wrong despite personal risk

Urban Transit After COVID-19

 Excellent input by transportation experts Robert Poole and Steve Polzin.

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Urban Transit After COVID-19

Here is a recent set of headlines from a couple of reputable sources, to introduce a discussion of how urban transit will need to change when we enter the post-pandemic period:

• “Remote Work Is Here to Stay. Manhattan May Never Be the Same,” Matthew Haag, The New York Times, March 29, 2021
• “If Rush Hour Dies, Does Mass Transit Die with It?” Henry Grabar, Slate, Feb. 11, 2021
• “Riders Are Abandoning Buses and Trains. That’s a Problem for Climate Change,” Somini Sengupta, et al., The New York Times, March 25, 2021

The reporters of these stories reflect genuine concerns, but my impression is that many in the transportation community have not fully thought through the implications for urban transit in the “after” COVID-19 times.

One expert who has is Steve Polzin, a former transit official, university professor, and most recently as a senior advisor for research and technology at the U.S. Department of Transportation. After reading a detailed paper that he and a colleague produced while at DOT last fall, Reason Foundation commissioned Polzin to write a policy brief focusing specifically on how transit will have to change, and why. The new report, “Public Transportation Must Change after COVID-19,” was published last week and you can find it here.

Polzin first reminds us that in the five years prior to the coronavirus pandemic, transit experienced a significant loss of ridership, before appearing to stabilize at a lower level by 2019. Then the pandemic led to former transit riders avoiding buses and rail transit in favor of cars, bikes, walking, and working at home. Comparing January 2020 (pre-pandemic) with January 2021, unlinked transit trips were 65% less (though transit vehicle miles of service decreased only 23% for the same months).

Alas for those hoping for a post-pandemic return to “normal,” among the factors leading to permanent changes are, of course, some degree of permanent shifts to working from home, either part-time or full-time, along with the continued popularity of network companies like Lyft and Uber, a millennial generation that is getting older and buying houses in the suburbs, and a general movement of people and companies from higher-density to lower-density locations.

Polzin points out that even if many people work at home Mondays and Fridays, but still work in the office mid-week, this will “make it harder to justify peak capacity capital investments and complicate service scheduling.” In terms of permanent work-at-home shifts, he notes that if this share doubles from pre-pandemic levels of 5.7% to about 12% of people working from home, that could mean 15%-to-20% fewer downtown workers, a major change for downtown-focused rail transit systems.

Another section of the brief looks at declining vehicle occupancy by transit mode: bus, light rail, heavy rail, and commuter rail. All four are down significantly, but some much more than others. And this makes a surprising difference in the environmental friendliness of these modes. Here is his comparison of pre-pandemic vs. December 2020 fuel economy of various commuter modes, drawn from the U.S. Department of Energy Alternative Fuels Data Center plus estimated occupancies from the National Transit Database. The metric is passenger miles per gasoline gallons equivalent; hence the highest numbers are best.

Commuting Mode	Pre-COVID	Current
Heavy rail	50.4	18.0
Automobiles	41.7	41.7*
Commuter rail	39.6	10.9
Light trucks/SUVs	36.1	36.1*
Transit bus	26.6	14.5
Demand response (Uber, Lyft)	9.2	9.2*

*assumed to be unchanged

As of December 2020, the most fuel-efficient means of commuting was the car, followed by light trucks—but only because occupancy embedded in the transit calculations was so drastically low. Obviously, when we get past the pandemic those figures should rise but whether mass transit will be able to rebuild enough ridership to be more fuel-efficient (and hence more carbon-friendly) remains to be seen, and as you can see from the current numbers, transit has a long way to go.

A major premise of the Biden administration’s transportation agenda is to greatly increase federal spending on transit, compared with only modest, constrained increases for highways (with very little scope for adding highway capacity). This approach poses major risks of putting billions of taxpayer dollars into projects that will have costs far greater than their benefits (e.g., light rail systems for medium-sized cities, megaproject expansions of heavy rail and commuter rail systems, etc.).

At the very least, it is premature at this juncture to commit funding for major new rail transit projects before we have some idea of the extent of transit ridership in the first several years after nationwide vaccinations.

Panos’ Estimates Rail Cost to Reach at Least $13 Billion

In fact $13 billion is a rock bottom estimate of total costs from project inception in 2006 to project completion and full commissioning into revenue service in 2026 (or later.)

If HART rail were to start operations today, it would get about 20% of the expected opening day forecast ridership.

Unlike a large metropolis with huge demand for commuting trips (where rail makes sense), HART rail will be a costly and environmental disaster for decades.

The only "solution" is to cut it short. Complete 16 miles to the Middle Street intermodal center and stop the bleeding there.

Many thanks to Dr. Keli'i Akina and the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii for the ThinkTech interview.

How Much Do We Pay for Roads and Other Utilities?

Robert Poole of the Reason Foundation presented a comparison below in which I added my data from Honolulu, Hawaii. Thanks to the 12 solar panels on the roof of my house, and my moderate annual mileage (about 11,000 miles at 20 mpg), my costs are similar or better than average US costs.

However, the data below do not include vehicle registration fees which are part of the road charges we pay. My vehicle's registration is just under $30 per month but most light duty trucks pay about $500 for registration on Oahu, which is over $40 per month. Even with registration included, the conclusion is the same. Roads are a vital infrastructure utility and we pay less for them than we pay for other infrastructure utilities.

=========== Poole's article:What Americans Pay in Highway User Taxes  ===========

HNTB Corporation last month put out a useful analysis that compares what Americans pay for roads and highways (via gasoline taxes) with what they pay for other basic infrastructure, such as electricity, water, cell phones, broadband, etc. I was not surprised to see that their results showed a far lower annual cost to use roadways (excluding tolled facilities) than for other user-charge-funded infrastructure. But I was surprised by how low the reported gas tax charge was.

In my book, Rethinking America’s Highways (University of Chicago Press, 2018), I presented a similar comparison, using data mostly from 2012-2013. My results were very similar to HNTB’s, except for the highway number. The comparative monthly figures are shown above.

My numbers make the same basic point—that people don’t realize how little they pay for roads compared with other basic infrastructure. But my fuel tax figure is about double that of HNTB. The answer appears to be that all HNTB’s figures are per household, except for fuel tax, which is per driver. By contrast, all of mine, including fuel tax, are calculated on a per-household basis.

I’m grateful to HNTB for making this kind of comparison, but we should not be presenting an unfairly low figure for what households pay for roads. The main point is to get people to understand that even $46 per household per month is far below what they pay for other basic infrastructure and is not sufficient to cover the capital and operating costs of our extensive roadway network.

Dramatic Oil Based Sea Level Rise Is Not Possible

A major article on climate change published in the science journal NATURE concluded as follows:

"The study concludes that a moderate amount of warming, on the order of 2°C, or 3.6°F, sustained for millennia, would cause significant melting of the interior ice that lies below sea level in this region [Antarctica], raising global sea levels by 3-4 meters, or up to 13 feet."

However, there will be no oil and fossil fuels left to burn a few hundred years from now. See graph of oil reserves from The Economist, below. In addition, technology moves fast towards cleaner options, and heavy polluters like China and India cannot afford to burn coal uncontrollably because their large cities are already suffocating; more on this at The Future of Oil. 

Therefore, oil based global warming over millennia is not possible!

The Great Train Robbery

"The now nearly 50-year experiment with transit subsidies has fallen well short of expectations. A more practical result could be obtained by better prioritization of funding to meet the greatest needs in the metropolitan reality as it currently exists. . . . In the cities without legacy cores, and in the suburbs of cities with legacy cores, we should focus on the needs of those unable to provide their own mobility. This is far more socially responsible than adding expensive services such as urban rail that have shown virtually no evidence of reducing driving alone. . . . In the vast majority of markets, transit has not lured drivers from their cars to relieve congestion or improve air quality. And it is wasteful to commit transit funds to achieve purposes other than improved transportation, such as city-building or place-making. Transportation is too important to economic growth and prosperity to be subject to utopian notions."

–Joel Kotkin and Wendell Cox, "The Great Train Robbery: Urban Transportation in the 21^st Century," Center for Demographics & Policy, Chapman University, 2017

Honolulu Star Advertiser: Road Woes Roll On

I was quoted extensively in the headline article Road Woes Roll On of the September 28, 2016 edition of the Honolulu Star Advertiser, the main newspaper in the state of Hawaii.

The latest Reason report found that Hawaii, with the nation’s smallest state-run road network at 1,016 miles, in 2013 spent about 2-1/2 times the national average in total costs per mile: $405,269.

Despite that heavy spending, the report further found Hawaii’s roads to be the worst in the U.S. for urban pavement conditions.

“Unfortunately, it’s the worst of both worlds. We overpay and we under-receive,” said Panos Prevedouros, who heads the University of Hawaii at Manoa’s Civil and Environmental Engineering Department.

“The statistics are reliable because these are self-reported numbers. They don’t paint a good picture for us,” added Prevedouros, who specializes in transportation.

...

Having the nation’s smallest road network also helps drive up the state’s average cost per mile, he said.

Prevedouros agreed.

“It’s like a small apartment and a big apartment — they still have the same appliances,” he said Monday, making a comparison to state road networks and the agencies that must maintain them.

“It’s impossible for us to be at the top” of Reason’s list, Prevedouros said. But “there is a lot of room for improvement.”

Hawaii might face some unique challenges, but it also avoids problems faced by mainland states, such as heavy interstate travel, Prevedouros said.

...

“The administration now is making significant improvements to make the maintenance better,” Sakahara said, adding that policy could lead to better grades in subsequent annual Reason reports for the Ige years.

Prevedouros said he believed the policy “may make the numbers even worse.”

Without adding more highway capacity, the state’s congestion grades for the Reason reports will likely worsen, he said.

Manila Traffic Congestion

Philippine Daily Inquirer, June 14th, 2016: Citing a six-hour commuting “kalbaryo” for Metro Manila commuters, the Management Association of the Philippines (MAP) has reiterated its call for President-elect Rodrigo Duterte to declare a traffic crisis so that he could be given emergency powers to solve the problem.

Then two weeks later...

GMA News, July 1, 2016: Senate President Franklin Drilon on Friday filed a bill seeking to grant President Rodrigo Duterte emergency powers to address the perennial traffic problem not only in Metro Manila but also in other major urban areas as well.

Indeed Manila's traffic congestion is extraordinary and a simple screen capture from Google tells the story:

I was in Manila in mid-July and I decided to book a 3-hour ride in a taxi to take in the sights... and the congestion.  This was on a Saturday when traffic is slightly less hectic than weekdays. However, around the two hour point I have had it and asked the driver to take me back!

Traffic flow in Manila is very disorganized. The root cause of the congestion are the jitneys and city buses that stop anywhere, including the third or fourth lane of a 10-lane arterial road to embark and disembark passengers. They fiercely compete and block each other in order to secure the tiny fare.

This is a brutal system the at various times reduced the roadway capacity from upward of 5.000 vehicles per hour to under 2,000 vehicles per hour.  I witnessed a jitney driver on a 6-lane road (3 lanes per direction, no shoulders) stopping and blocking a lane to relieve himself by the jersey barrier. I saw an 1-lane left turn becoming a 3-lane left turn because road connectivity is poor. I was told, but I did not witness it, that passenger processing occurs ever on freeway! Taxis and buses stop and pick up people on the freeway. The traffic flow situation in Manila is brutal, chaotic, wasteful and nonsensical.

I also spent a few days in Legaspi City, population about 200,000 where most roads are basic 2-lane roads, one lane per direction. Legaspi has better planning and road capacity for its current level of traffic, but again, random stops by the ubiquitous trikes and jitneys waste over 50% of the road capacity, sometimes creating a quarter mile queue when none should be there given the amount of traffic present.

However, the political moves made in the Philippines government do not seem to address the problem.  The changes are more about contracting and less about flow management and transportation service regulation. Strict penalties for lane blockage must be enacted. The rampant police officer bribing which allows the chaos of passenger processing to continue must stop.

Buses need to be organized into scheduled transit service (not necessarily government transit, but organized, regulated transit) with drivers being professional operators nor highway sharks. Most jitneys need to be regulated out of existence. They are slow, cumbersome and very polluting.  Some of the jitneys (a Manila icon) may be retained and upgraded for neighborhood (feeder) service.

And one more "to do": The Philippines must regulate 2-stroke engines as soon as possible to rid of their toxic pollution (burnt oil in addition to gasoline exhaust).

Kapolei should have never happened

In her article titled Kapolei Hale turns 15 and the accompanying video Kapolei: Oahu's Second City?, reporter Jayna Omaye and videographer Kimberly Yuen present the story of Kapolei which, starting in 1990, took pure agricultural or unimproved land and began changing it into a "second city."

“Kapolei is a planning disaster,” said Panos Prevedouros, a civil engineer who has taught at UH for 25 years and specializes in transportation engineering and infrastructure sustainability. “It’s a bedroom community. It didn’t develop into a Second City. It developed as pure mainland-style suburbia.”

Prevedouros said traffic congestion and the lack of infrastructure and jobs point to Kapolei continuing on the path to become “Anywhere, USA.”

George Atta, DPP director, said Kapolei should have been developed with higher densities and in clusters, adding that building heights are 150 feet. Kapolei should grow in nodes, with each having its own characteristics and that should eventually connect — similar to downtown Honolulu and its Ala Moana, Kakaako and Waikiki neighborhoods, he said.

Kapolei should have never happened.  Honolulu should have developed into a dense urban strip from Salt Lake to Waikiki, a 10 mile corridor. In it mass transit would have succeeded with a compact high capacity, partially underground rail line.  But the powers that be and the planners who serve them opted for a double disaster. Kapolei's suburban sprawl 20 miles away from the city and an expensive, elevated rail system to permanently tether the second city to the first.  Bad plans lead to bad solutions and high costs.  And that's all we are reaping.

2014 American Community Survey: Honolulu Mode Shares

Transportation modes are the means by which people move around in a city, particularly for their commute to work. The mode shares for "Urban Honolulu, HI Urbanized Area (2010)" are listed in Table B08301 of the 2014 American Community Survey. They are as follows:

The same data in pie chart form:

There are several important observations:

• Personal transportation (cars, bikes and motorcycles) is used for 80% of the trips.
• Bicycling in Honolulu is only 1.1% of the trips.
• Work at home is a welcome 3% of the trips, similar to the US average.
• Walk is over 5%, which is better than the US average.
• Public transit (bus and taxi) is almost 10%, which is much better than the US average.

Almost 90% of the trips shown require roads and another 8.4% of the trips shown do not require substantial infrastructure (just sidewalks and the Internet.)

So how does the state, city and OMPO address the people's preferred use of transportation?  They provide an obscenely expensive elevated rail alternative that saps transportation funds for much needed road and sidewalk repair and expansion.

Understanding Public Transportation Policy

This is a eureka moment.  The following is the only rule one has to know to understand public transportation policy in the US and first world socialist countries.

"It must always be remembered how cost-effectiveness works in the public sector: the cost is the benefit." --Thomas Rubin

It is finally distilled!  The Cost is the Benefit.

A region or a nation prospers when benefits outweigh costs for all public projects.  If Benefits are $$$$ and Costs are $$, then the benefit/cost ratio is 2.  That's a good project. It yields $2 of benefits for every $1 spent to build it!

But look at Honolulu's rail where the benefits are $ and the costs are $$$$$$$$$$. The benefit/cost ratio is less than 0.1 and the entire public sector and political elite are strongly in favor. Why? Because, following Rubin's Rule, its enormous cost of $6 Billion and counting is the benefit!

The alternatives analysis eliminated a $2 Billion light rail and a $1.5 Billion HOT lanes.  Not enough Cost... excuse me, not enough Benefit.

Unfortunately this is a certain indicator that a society has began its Roman Empire decay.

HHUA Expert Panel with Robert Poole and LaVonda Atkinson

ACCOUNTABILITY OF BIG INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS was an expert panel presentation in Honolulu, Hawaii organized by the Hawaii Highway Users Alliance.  The event took place at the Pacific Club on February 6, 2015.


MIT Engineer Robert Poole spoke about Reducing Risks in Transportation Mega-Projects 

[S p e e c h]  [S l i d e s h o w]

     Robert Poole is a co-founder of Reason Foundation and its president from 1968 to 2001. Los Angeles based Reason Foundation is committed to advancing "the values of individual freedom and choice, limited government, and market-friendly policies." Bob is an MIT-trained engineer and the author of Cutting Back City Hall. Bob has advised the Ronald Reagan, the George H.W. Bush, the Clinton, and the George W. Bush administrations.
     Bob has also advised many agencies and state DOTs. For example, in 2008 he served as a member of the Texas Study Committee on Private Participation in Toll Roads, appointed by Gov. Rick Perry. In 2009, he was a member of an Expert Review Panel for Washington State DOT, advising on a $1.5 billion toll mega-project. In 2010, he was a member of the transportation transition team for Florida's Governor-elect Rick Scott.


Cost Engineer LaVonda Atkinson spoke about The Billion Dollar Mile 

[S p e e c h]  [S l i d e s h o w]

     LaVonda Atkinson has worked as a program cost control analyst for 20 years.  Mrs. Atkinson has managed billion dollar projects for NASA, Department of Defense, Department of Energy, Federal Transportation Agencies and others in both the government and private sector. 
     Mrs. Atkinson began cost control and analysis of the San Francisco T-line extension in 2012, a project funded with $1 billion dollars per mile by Federal tax payer dollars.  Mrs. Atkinson blew the whistle for civil servant abuses of power, misappropriation of congressional funds and an overall misuse of the American citizens’ trust.  Mrs. Atkinson found a brood of unethical government contractors and incapable government enforcers.
     Just two days after her presentation in Honolulu, Ms. Atkinson was announced as a recipient of the 2015 James Madison Freedom of Information Award!

Smart Growth v. Suburbanization Score is 0-1

The Economist: A Suburban World explains that urban trends are driven more by the masses and less by the political, academic and "environmental" elites that love to dictate how the hoi polloi should live.

In short, despite rules, penalties and incentives Smart Growth lost to Suburbanization.  The following highlights from the article show why.

• The planet as a whole is fast becoming suburban. In the emerging world almost every metropolis is growing in size faster than in population. Having bought their Gucci handbags and Volkswagens, the new Asian middle class is buying living space, resulting in colossal sprawl. 

• Neither the car nor the motorway caused suburban sprawl, although they sped it up: cities were spreading before either came along. Nor was the flight to the suburbs caused by racism.  The real cause was mass affluence. As people grew richer, they demanded more privacy and space. Only a few could afford that in city centers; the rest moved out.

• Romantic notions of sociable, high-density living—notions pushed, for the most part, by people who themselves occupy rather spacious residences—ignore the squalor and lack of privacy [that comes with high density].

• The Western suburbs to which so many aspire are healthier than their detractors say. Even as urban centers revive, more Americans move from city center to suburb than go the other way.

• Suburbanites tend to use more roads and consume more carbon than urbanites. But this damage can be alleviated by a carbon tax, by toll roads and by charging for parking. 

• It is foolish to try to stop the spread of suburbs. Green belts [urban boundary policies], the most effective method for doing this, push up property prices and encourage long-distance commuting.

• A wiser policy would be to plan for huge expansion. Acquire strips of land for roads and railways, and chunks for parks, before the city sprawls into them. This is not the dirigisme* of the new-town planner—that confident soul who believes he knows where people will want to live and work, and how they will get from one to the other. It is the realism needed to manage the inevitable.

(*) Dirigisme is an approach to economic development emphasizing the positive role of governmental intervention.

America's Infrastructure: Roads are Crumbling, Congress is Fiddling

America's transportation infrastructure, once an engine of mobility and productivity, has fallen into such disrepair that it's become an economic albatross.
From the article Shoddy U.S. roads and bridges take a toll on the economy in LA Times.

A comprehensive summary with startling video by 60 Minutes is titled Falling apart: America's neglected infrastructure where Steve Kroft reports on why roads, bridges, airports and rail are outdated and need to be fixed.

All along the American Society of Civil Engineers has been providing biannual assessments of American infrastructure with overall grades typically ranging between D- and D+. Here's is ASCE's 2013 report card for the American infrastructure.

Ironically, Congress and States "cannot find" monies to fix and improve what we have, but they do find (pork barrel) billions for boondoggles such as the California High Speed Rail and the Honolulu Snail Rail.

Much like Nero, the roads are crumbling while Congress is fiddling (and misappropriating.)

As the Nation Turns, Hawaii is Still Driven

As the Nation Turns, Hawaii is Still Driven is an comprehensive and detailed article in the November 2014 issue of Hawaii Business Magazine, by Carlyn Tani. I am quoted extensively throughout the article as follows:

• “Hawaii’s driving never really went down – it just flattened out and then started going up again as opposed to the mainland, which made a U-turn,” observes Panos Prevedouros, who teaches civil engineering at UH-Manoa and chairs the freeway operations simulation subcommittee of the Transportation Research Board, a division of the National Research Council. He projects that Hawaii’s thriving economy and tourism sector will buoy VMT even higher.

• Prevedouros cites three economic forces driving Hawaii’s trend toward more vehicle miles driven per capita: a rebound in tourism, which puts more visitors on the roads; the construction boom on Oahu, which stimulates the transport of people and materials; and the large number of Hawaii residents who hold more than one part-time job and drive between workplaces.

• According to Prevedouros, the general tolerance threshold for congestion is 75 minutes for a one-way trip by car. When commute time exceeds that, people are more likely to move, change jobs or relocate to another region or state.

• But what does Hawaii’s transportation future look like? Prevedouros predicts that cars will continue to dominate because of the state’s tourism-dependent economy, high private-schools enrollment and large number of people holding more than one job.
  “We don’t have mass transit that is flexible and quick enough to take you to drop off your kids or take you to your multiple jobs. You cannot be a resident in Kailua with kids at Punahou and try to do these things by bus,” he explains. “The only mode that can deliver that is private transportation.”
  
  Prevedouros predicts we will see more cars on the road in the future, but says traffic congestion will eventually be reduced by autonomous cars that drive better than people-driven cars, while more energy-efficient cars will ease environmental concerns.

Highway Funding: Do Roads Pay for Themselves? No Because of "Theft"

Here is a brief analysis by Jack Mallinckrodt,  PhD in Electrical Engineering, Stanford University who made U.S. transportation planning his retirement hobby and has developed a series of well thought out articles at his website www.urbantransport.org:

"
The current intense search for additional sources of highway user revenue is grossly misdirected.

Based on FHWA “Highway Statistics” data for 2004 (typical), “highway user fees”, defined as all tax payments by highway users paid as a “necessary condition of their use of the highway system”, are already yielding revenues of $245 billion/yr (2004).  That’s enough to easily pay the full current annual costs of right-of-way, planning, building, maintaining,  and operating, and financing  the entire U.S. highway system, with a surplus (in business called  a “profit”) of $98 billion/yr.

 The fact that they don’t do so is due entirely to:

1. An arbitrary (not rational) redefinition of “Highway User Fees” hs that counts only about half of the ACTUAL highway user fees paid, and
2. State and federal politicized congressional misappropriation of those  surplus revenues, (“Diversions) to earmarked political favorites (street cars, bullet trains etc.) that provide little or no congestion reduction capacity at 90 or more times the net the cost per passenger-mile.

As someone might have said: “We don’t have a revenue problem, we have a revenue distribution problem.”. The revenue distribution process is a leaky sieve. The revered “Highway Trust Fund” initiated long ago as a solution to highway funding, with its latter day revisions has become instead, part of the problem.

No conceivable additional revenue collection mechanism, not increased fuel taxes, not tolling, nor mileage charge system, will resolve this funding gap until we fix the real highway fund leakage problem.  Our first priority must be to fix the highway user fee receipt distribution process. Otherwise we will simply be spinning our wheels faster. There is much more to this story, derived and explained in “Highway User Fee Surplus.”
"

"Modern" Light Rail: Worth the Investment?

The answer comes quickly in the introduction of this well-researched article in The Atlantic Cities: No!

• Five U.S. metros (Buffalo, Portland, Sacramento, San Diego, and San Jose) opened light rail systems in the 1980s to great fanfare. 
• Portland became transportation models for the country, pointing toward a transit-friendly urban future.
• Based on the decisions to build these projects, which were made by hundreds of local officials and often endorsed by residents through referenda, you might think that the experience building light rail in the 1980s had been unambiguously successful. 
• Yet it doesn't take much digging to find that over the past thirty years, these initial five systems in themselves neither rescued the center cities of their respective regions nor resulted in higher transit use — the dual goals of those first-generation lines.
• According to an analysis of Census data, in four of the five cities with new light rail lines, the share of regional workers choosing to ride transit to work declined.

Read the article: The Perfect Commute: Have U.S. Light Rail Systems Been Worth the Investment?