Car or Train? The Choice is Yours.

A picture is worth 1,000 words. 

Two pictures are worth 2,000 words.



Picture 1: A 2013 new mid-size car.
















Picture 2: Typical rush hour train commute.












 Any questions?

New Lane on EB H-1 Freeway!

Bravo Hawaii DOT. Now the Koko Head bound (east-bound, or EB) direction at Makiki has four through lanes between Ward Ave. and Punahou St. With a simple re-stripping, the freeway viaduct over Piikoi St. changed from a total of 6 lanes to 8. That's a 30% improvement for "peanuts."

Before the EB Vineyard Boulevard on-ramp the freeway has its the typical 3-lane configuration, like so:


The new lane is the continuation of the fourth lane that comes from the Vineyard Boulevard on-ramp like so:


The Ward Avenue on-ramp adds a fifth lane but this lane merges onto the fourth lane. Now next to the Piikoi Street on-ramp the freeway is 4 lanes wide!


This location was a perennial midday bottleneck. Now outside the peak hours, flow should be much smoother on both directions. Recall that the west-bound direction was modified from 3 to 4 lanes a couple weeks earlier, as presented here.

New Lane on WB H-1 Freeway!

Quietly, quickly and effectively the Hawaii State Department of Transportation (HDOT) has added a full lane of traffic on the west-bound H-1 Freeway from Punahou Street to Pali Highway.

The new lane starts as an extension to the existing auxiliary freeway lane between the Punahou Street on-ramp and the Lunalilo Street off-ramp like so:


The added lane continues onto the viaduct than now has four instead of three lanes! This is a whopping 25% to 30% capacity addition. Numerically it is a 33.3% gain but when a lane addition is effected by narrowing lanes and shoulders, some capacity loss does occur. As you see in these pictures, vehicles fit well on the narrower lanes and after multiple passes, I did not notice any slow downs because of the tighter lanes.

Now the critical Lunalilo Street on-ramp and Vineyard Boulevard off-ramp has five lanes instead of four, like so:

The fourth lane terminates smoothly as the Pali Highway off-ramp.

This lane addition is the result of many months of work at my University of Hawaii Traffic and Transportation Lab, the R. M. Towill Corporation, the Planning, Traffic and Design section of HDOT and others.

Cudos to HDOT for doing it! I look forward to the similar lane addition on the east-bound side.

Is Honolulu Really No. 1 in Traffic Jams?

Of course not! Honolulu’s congestion ranking is No. 50. But with rail, it stands a good chance to climb to the top 10 congested cities in the US. Read my analysis on Honolulu's congestion rank in this Honolulu Weekly article.

Underpasses Explained

Urban underpasses are the key to central city congestion reduction given that there is no room to widen streets and there is no desire to build intrusive flyovers. Here is a short video that explains them.

Honolulu would greatly benefit from at least three express underpasses. One from Nimitz to Alakea and Halekawila, another on Kapiolani Boulevard at the Kapiolani/Date/Kamoku intersection by Iolani School, and a third by having a lane of Kalakaua Avenue go under Kapiolani Boulevard.

Here is a video of our traffic simulation that explains the one lane express underpass from Nimitz to Alakea and Halekauwila. Observe that the left turns that take a long time to receive green and spill over and block lanes on Nimitz Highway flow non-stop to both Alakea St. and Halekauwila St. Also the westbound (Ewa) flow has green light all the time except when there are pedestrian crossing requests.

The simulation screen-shots below show the before/after situation on Kapiolani Boulevard at its intersection with Date and Kamoku streets. The one lane per direction underpass visibly reduces congestion on Kapiolani Boulevard and allows for more green time to be allocated to the other sides of this complex intersection. This reduces their congestion and shortens the waiting time for the pedestrian crossings.


Because almost 50% of peak hour traffic on Kapiolani Boulevard and nearly 100% of its off peak traffic will use the underpass, the risk of collisions and pedestrian accidents also reduces substantially.

At least two of the existing surface lanes are maintained because these are "low clearance" underpasses which are easy to fit in a crowded urban setting. London, Paris, Seoul and Singapore have many such underpasses. Any vehicle such as a standard transit bus and lower will be able to use them. Taller vehicles (amounting to about 2% to 4% of traffic) must use the regular lanes. Also when the subject street has green, most of its traffic will opt to use the surface lanes.The underpasses will be equipped with sumps and pumps to remove storm waters.

Castle junction on the windward side of Oahu is an exception because for that location a flyover rather than an underpass would be shorter, safer and much cheaper to implement. The one lane flyover would replace the very busy Kaneohe-bound twin left turns that on some occasions cause queues to grow near the tunnels and block the lanes to Kailua. In the peak periods the intersection will improve from Level of Service F in AM and PM peaks now, to D in the morning and B in the afternoon peak periods.

More on our analyses of underpasses in these professional articles:

Dehnert, G. and P. D. Prevedouros, Underpasses at Urban Intersections: Investigation and Case Study. ITE Journal, Vol. 74, No. 3: 36-47, March 2004. Received 2005 Institute of Transportation Engineers Van Wagoner Award.

Prevedouros, P. D., J. K. Tokishi and K. Chongue. Simulation of Urban Underpasses for Traffic Congestion Relief. 10th International Conference on Applications of Advanced Technologies in Transportation, ASCE, Athens, May 2008.

Yu, A. and P. D. Prevedouros. Left Turn Prohibition and Partial Grade Separation for Signalized Intersections: Planning Level Assessment. ASCE Journal of Transportation Engineering. In review, 2012.

The Ho'opili TIAR is Unacceptable

A critical element in approving any land use changes is the Traffic Impact Analysis Report or TIAR. The Friends of Makakilo and Save Oahu's Farmlands Alliance asked me to review B. R. Horton's TIAR submitted to the state's Land Use Commission (LUC) as part of the process for obtaining the approval to convert prime agricultural land to a residential development.

Let me quickly dispense the argument that my review of the Ho'opili TIAR may have been biased by the fact that Ho'opili contains two rail stations and is being billed as an exemplary Transit Oriented Development (TOD) of the proposed rail which I oppose.

The TIAR shows that Ho’opili’s transit trips are modest. If 50% of transit trips are made by rail, this results in 166 riders in the AM peak hour -- two bus loads and that’s it:
• Ho’opili does not work for rail proponents because it generates manini ridership.
• Ho’opili does not work for rail opponents because deleting it does affect the projected rail ridership substantially.

The first phase of Ho'opili barely justifies a basic bus service and the full development may benefit from limited express bus service. But as a ridership generator for rail, it is worthless, as all suburban TODs are. Suburban development and rail never go together.

Now back to the TIAR and why LUC should reject the petition on the basis of an inadequate TIAR alone.

“The planned year 2020 level of development is expected to occupy approximately one third of the total Ho’opili project site” stated on page E-2 is a hugely important statement. This means that all outcomes presented in the TIAR are only 1/3 of the whole. This is a “salami tactic” to get Ho’opili going without any disclosure of its total effects. A whopping 67% of the Ho’opili’s total effects are nowhere to be found. Therefore, this report should be deemed UNACCEPTABLE without at least an illustrative (approximate) full build-out scenario along with mitigations and final impacts. These numbers are simply “cheating” both decision makers and the community as they omit 67% of the potential impacts.

In the study’s Methodology for Freeway and Junction Analysis, the “… operating conditions were evaluated using the HCM 2000 methodology.” The current version is HCM 2010, but that’s a minor problem. HCM is not an appropriate tool for this application. The Federal Highway Administration (which has H-1 Freeway oversight) does not recommend such simple models for complex corridor and freeway analysis because they ignore congestion effects. The freeway operations in the Ho’opili area are dominated by the H-1/H-2 merge and other secondary bottlenecks. The TIAR’s segment by segment freeway and ramp analysis is entirely inappropriate. Also the H-1/H-2 merge is totally absent, therefore the presented results are UNACCEPTABLE.

The TIAR preparer assumed that Ho’opili will adopt a Traffic Demand Management composed of nine (9) major actions such as extensive biking, carpooling, tele-work, etc. Absolutely no other place in Hawaii has any four of these nine TDM actions occurring at the same time so at best this is a pie-in-the-sky assumption that artificially reduced the traffic impact of Ho’opili.

The TIAR preparer claimed that the Oahu MPO planning model allows them to take an up to 30% trip reduction due to the integrated character of the Ho’opili community. However, there is no proof that this is a valid or prudent assumption. I cannot think of a more integrated community on Oahui than Kalilhi. Arguing that Kalihi folks make 30% fewer trips is baseless and likely wrong. These multiple traffic reductions make the assessment of Ho’opili’s traffic impacts.

The freeway mitigations shown in the study are localized band aids and none of them address the merge of the H-1 and H-2 freeways. Worse yet, I note that the furthest downstream section of their mitigations is always a 3-lane “choker” so all these actions actually force more traffic flow onto bottleneck sections. The proposed freeway mitigations are UNACCEPTABLE.

The LUC Docket A06-771 “2020 TIAR” that I reviewed includes over 300 pages of computer traffic analysis output. All of it with simple Equation Type models, which are inappropriate for congested freeway corridors, as mentioned above. What I found surprising is that the memo for freeway analysis relating to Ho’opili agreed upon by State DOT, and two consultants of B. R. Horton is dated October 9, 2009 but nearly all of the computer outputs were dated August 20, 2009. So: (1) Freeway and ramp analysis was done before the State/Developer MOU, and (2) This TIAR is stamped “April 2011 update” but the traffic analyses are from summer 2009.

The TIAR states that “neither the City and County of Honolulu nor the State of Hawaii have guidelines for identifying the transportation impacts caused by the project.” This is a sad statement for our city and state and it is true. Solid technical criteria for the judgment of properly quantified traffic impacts are absent. Therefore, developers hire consultants to present a picture of the impacts and then government and top level decision makers arrive at an ad hoc determination about what’s wrong with the picture, if anything. This simply perpetuates arbitrary, capricious and favoritism-prone decision making.

Regardless of the lack of City and State criteria, the outputs of this analysis are by and large worthless. The report describes the 2020 plan with only one third of Ho’opili developed. The partial and biased TIAR of questionable methodology should be found UNACCEPTABLE for permitting the conversion of prime agricultural land to any other land use that obliterates the current active agricultural use of the land.

Can We Solve Honolulu’s Pervasive Traffic Congestion Problem?

Yes we can!

There are several specific projects that mitigate congestion that if one could magically install half of them overnight, Honolulu’s congestion level would be so low that traffic congestion would be removed from people’s list of worries. That would be a great thing for quality of life on Oahu and a booster to our tourism and the overall local economy.

Part 1 gives some background on congestion (did you know that some congestion is a good thing?) and presents low cost and shorter term traffic congestion solutions. Part 2 presents longer term, high cost traffic congestion solutions.

Honolulu Traffic Congestion – Part 1: From Bumper-to-bumper to Zoom-zoom by Removing One Third of Honolulu's Traffic Congestion for Less Than $500 Million

Honolulu Traffic Congestion – Part 2: Up-shift to Overdrive by Removing another One Third of Honolulu's Traffic Congestion for Less Than $5 Billion

These two white papers illustrate the dozens of doable, affordable, all-local-labor and effective projects for mitigating one of our largest problems on Oahu, traffic congestion.

Traffic congestion mitigation in Honolulu is in the hands of government and politicians. They may actually be the main causes of our traffic congestion.

Traffic Signal Optimization

4,114 Stoplights in Los Angeles and the Intricate Network that Keeps Traffic Moving is a simple and informative article of some of the advances in moving heavy traffic in congested cities.

I note that the City of Los Angeles has placed major priority on this city function not only by developing their sophisticated control system called ATSAC but also by staffing its operation ... "Yu and his team of 35 ­engineers and 20 operators."

HONOLULU needs about 1/4 of this level of staffing. It has 1/10.

In general, traffic signal optimization is among the "low hanging fruit" in mitigating some of the traffic congestion in urban areas. But it needs funding and staffing because this is a 24x7 operations with ever changing flows and congestion spots.

Traffic Congestion, APEC, Hurricanes, Tourism, Energy. How Will Rail and HOT Lanes Do for Honolulu?

Here is the LINK to a 2-page handout to inform yourself and your friends about the relative advantages of Rail and HOT Lanes for Honolulu.

Did Commuting Patterns Change in the First Decade of the Millenium? Only a Little.

A New Geography article summarized the commuting data and results revealed by the 2010 Census. The winner was Telecommuting and the loser was Carpooling. Despite higher prices and huge media hype over shifts to public transit, the big surprise was the continued growth over the last decade in driving alone to work.

In summary,there has been no major change in commuting, even with the huge gas price increases. As the shift to personal mobility continues, the largest increases will like take place in telecommuting, which is the most energy-efficient form of transportation. Gains in transit have been minimal and should be expected to stay at around 5% on the mainland and around 7% in Honolulu.

Clearly these numbers indicate that a city like Honolulu with 950,000 people investing on a $6,000,000,000 heavy rail system is nothing short of ridiculous.

Los Angeles ponders extending yellow-light times

Los Angeles ponders extending yellow-light times

Did Mishandling Cause the Death and Injuries of HPD Officers?

Did Mishandling Cause the Death and Injuries of HPD Officers?

Traffic Accident Investigation on Oahu: Stuck in the 1980s.

Civil Beat's Alia Wong has aired the festering problem of Honolulu Shutting Freeways Longer Than Other Cities which is indicative of Oahu's multilayered traffic mismanagement.

As far back as 1998 I wrote this opinion in the Star Bulletin: It takes too long on Oahu to investigate accidents.

Although the HPD is usually confronted with traffic crashes that are "manini" compared to those on the mainland, where jack-knifed trucks get mangled with several other vehicles, it takes hours instead of minutes to deal with incidents.

An incident on Kalanianaole Highway on Dec. 12 prompted me to write this letter. It was reported that at about 1:30 p.m. a car veered into a moped about half a mile east of Aina Koa Street.

At 2:30 p.m. I joined the queue, which had extended for more than a mile on H-1 freeway. It took 28 minutes to drive 1.5 miles. At the crash site, I saw a smashed moped, a car on the shoulder and at least six police vehicles.

Most streets around Kahala Mall were jammed. Waialae Avenue was gridlocked and the off-ramp was overflowing onto the freeway, creating a hazardous situation. At 4:30 p.m., police were still investigating and the queue on H-1 had reached Kokohead Avenue.

I estimate that this three-hour traffic "management" incident trapped more than 9,000 vehicles and more than 12,000 motorists. It caused more than 6,000 people hours of delay, increased the risk for secondary accidents, and resulted in more than 1,500 gallons of additional fuel consumption.

The mayor and the chief of police must remove the archaic and inefficient procedures for incident management and give our officers the education and training needed to get in step with contemporary national practice.

I am subcommittee chair of the Freeway Operations committee of the U.S. Transportation Research Board and I have assisted Attica Tollway in several operational issues. Some of my work on Freeway Incident Management has been published in professional, refereed venues, as follows:

• Incident Management Simulation on a Two Freeway Corridor in Honolulu. Proceedings of the 6th ITS World Congress, Toronto, November 1999.
• Video Incident Detection Tests in Freeway Tunnels. Transportation Research Record, No. 1959: 130-139, 2006.
• Automated Incident Detection and Automated O-D Generation for Freeways, Panel Session 539 on NEW TECHNOLOGY FOR FREEWAY OPERATIONS, Annual Meeting of TRB, Washington, D.C., 2006.
• Freeway Incidents – US, UK and Attica Tollway: Characteristics, Available Capacity and Models, Transportation Research Record, No. 2047: 57-65, 2008.

In all these years I have never been consulted by the city or state departments of transportation, or the traffic division of HPD. Apparently, all of them know all there is to know. And the results are obvious.

Problems Big and Small. Sensible Solutions for All.

[This is an enriched version of my TEA 2011 speech at Hawaii Capitol on April 15, 2011]

We got big Problems. So does everybody else… states, the whole country, other countries. What we need is Sensible Solutions. Instead we get more government solutions and more taxes.

Pension accounts for city and state government employees will be broke soon-- they face huge account deficits and Hawaii leads the way in this. Their solution? Tax pensions or bury their head in the sand. The sensible solution is to raise the retirement age to 70 years of age.

Homelessness. Their solution? Build more public housing. The sensible solution is to take care of the homeless needs and provide transitional housing. Transition the homeless back to normal life. Do not warehouse them. Empower, consolidate and better organize non-profits that care for the homeless. Set limits on the benefits that the homeless receive.

Power. We pay the most for electric power. We complain about the price of gasoline but it’s only 15% more expensive than the mainland average. Our electricity is about 300% more expensive. Whose fault is this?

The legislature's with their "green" objectives that put into effect without any cost analysis, the PUC's controls, and HECO's monopoly. The monopoly buys wind and solar power for 15c per KWh and sells it to ratepayers for 30 to 40 cents.

The sensible solution is to deregulate. Within 20 years we can have a competitive energy market with solar, geothermal, coal, OTEC, biomass, algae, etc. distributed power providers.

Planning is a big problem. We have the Oahu Metropolitan Organization (OMPO) that coordinates all transportation plans in the city and county of Honolulu. But the key people on the all-important policy committee are the Transportation Committee chairs of the Senate and the House. For many years they are both from Maui. So the county of Maui decides the transportation plans of the county of Honolulu. This absurdity is going on for a decade now and has lead to gross miss-allocation of funds with Honolulu at the losing end.

Traffic is a big problem. We need roads to move over 90% of the people who use vehicles. Instead government plans to waste 6 billion dollars to help the 1% of people on the rail. And cutback TheBus in the process.

TheHandiVan is a costly service. Its archaic and inflexible booking system requires 1 or 2 day advance reservations. This inconvenience costs $35 per rider. TheHandiVan services can be fully substituted by private modified vans of which there are several on island in private transportation. They provide quick and courteous service, local jobs and a modest profit at about $25 per ride. TheHandiVan is proof that Sensible and Government do not go together.

Waste Management is a problem. Their solution? Business as usual: Landfills and expensive, fake recycling. Best solution? Privatization and incentives for remanufacturing. The private sector can deal with landfill issues, burning and recycling. Or sending trash to mainland or Asia. Leave environmental requirements as is, and let the private sector find the solution set including the remanufacture of recycled paper, plastic, fats, oils and lubricants.

Pavements and potholes. Their solution? Neglect, followed by expensive contracts and sloppy pothole plugging by city crews. The sensible solution is to go on routine pavement maintenance so that our local refineries can plan their asphalt production. (I understand one of them has quit making asphalt because of the unpredictability of demand.) Sign 10 year contracts with quality guarantees and price discounts. Get the City out of the pothole repair business.

Sensible Solutions have these basic ingredients: Less centralization, less taxation, less regulation and greater private sector participation.

"Smart Technologies" Could Improve Transportation

The post below is excerpted from the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) daily newsletter. It summarizes an attempt of Congress to improve transportation conditions by employing Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS).

I have been teaching these methods for over a dozen years as part of my CEE 661: Intelligent Transportation Systems graduate course at the UH-Manoa. What is different this time is $1.2 Billion dollars in federal funding over six years for the pilot deployment in six competing cities.

I hope that the bill will go forward and I hope (but do not expect) that Honolulu and State of Hawaii will vie for this ITS initiative. Besides being substantially congested, Honolulu presents an excellent, fully controlled traffic laboratory. By that I mean that 100% of the traffic is local, as opposed to, say, Chicago, that at any time 5% to 15% of its traffic is from neighboring Indiana, Wisconsin and other states, thus its local ITS initiative is diluted by a large number of non-participating vehicles. ===========================================

The Hill (3/30, Laing) reports, "A bipartisan pair of lawmakers on Tuesday announced a bill to create six pilot 'intelligent transportation systems' they say will use technology to ease transit woes in cash-strapped American cities. Reps. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) and Russ Carnahan (D-Mo.) said their 'Smart Technologies for Communities Act' would make improvements to transportation that federal and state governments could not otherwise afford." Notably, "the bill would create pilot programs in six cities to test whether technologies such as cars with crash sensors, bridges that can sense stress from vehicle weight, electronic toll systems and live updates to commuters improve overall commutes."

The Detroit News (3/30, Shepardson) reports the bill "would provide grants to make 'Intelligent Transportation Systems' a reality." They support "spending $1.2 billion over six years" on the initiative. The News says "the pair will tout their bill along with Intelligent Transportation Society of America CEO Scott Belcher in a press briefing Wednesday." Their bill has the support of "the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers and its members, including General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler Group LLC." It would "create a pilot program in up to six communities across the country to serve as model deployment sites for large-scale installation and operation of ITS to improve safety, mobility and the environment on the nation's highways."

Gasoline Price Comparisons: Taxes not Octanes Matter

The original subject is gasoline prices but before we know it, the story becomes about taxes. The graph below shows the stark contrast between 10 states in the U.S. and 10 countries in the European Union, or E.U.


Among the states shown, the lowest gas price is in Oklahoma at $2.532/gallon and the highest is in Hawaii at $3.54/gallon. This one dollar difference is actually a 40% difference. Among the EU countries shown, the lowest gas price is in Spain at $5.496/gallon and the highest is in The Netherlands at $7.382/gallon, a 34% difference between them. The gasoline price in The Netherlands is 110% higher than Hawaii’s. (June 2010 US$ and EU euro rates.)

A similar situation is observed for a small sample of worldwide islands (see below). Most island gasoline prices are twice as high as those in Hawaii. Despite the high prices, all cities in the islands shown have significant problems with congestion. This is because gasoline pricing tends to affect vehicle choice, and has a small effect only on vehicle ownership and use.

At places where gasoline price is relatively low, the typical vehicle has a V6 engine and delivers about 20 mpg in city usage. At places where gasoline price is twice as high, the typical vehicle is a 3 or 4 cylinder subcompact delivering about 40 mpg in city usage. So based on these vehicle choices, driving 12,000 miles per year at either place costs the same for fuel.

Going back to the first graph and comparing The Netherlands with Hawaii we ask: What can possibly explain a 110% difference for the same gas? It’s not technology, it’s not manufacturing, and it’s not transportation. These are less than half of the story. The “larger half” is taxes! See below:

Governments worldwide use taxes to finance general budgets and other infrastructure. Fuel taxes are among the first to be increased when budgets cannot be met. The price of gasoline is “inelastic” as economists call it, that is, a large change in the price of gas (say, +30%) does not correspond to a proportionally large change in highway travel (-10%). This is generally true for urban travel and less so for intercity travel where larger travel reductions may be observed.

Overall the lesson here is that taxes on gasoline are a cash cow for governments. Gas tax does practically nothing in reducing congestion. It may reduce pollution somewhat by forcing lower income people to purchase smaller cars, but it does this at a very high overall cost. The overall cost is high because a large part of the economy worldwide “rides on the streets.” Foods, goods and services need to be brought to the market, delivered, installed and maintained.

Expensive gas makes for expensive commuting, repair services, food and appliances. Gas taxation limits mobility, slows economy and reduces the standard of living.

In more general terms, high energy costs exacerbated by heavy taxation on them are a brake in progress. For a vibrant economy, countries and regions need to optimize their energy portfolio and reduce the taxes on it.

Hawaii energy costs are high and climbing. If the status quo continues (oil dependency and heavy subsidies on low productivity and hyper expensive alternatives), then by definition Hawaii’s long term economic outlook cannot be rosy.

Acknowledgment: Recent civil engineering graduate Michelle Coskey conducted a large part of the research and data compilation in this article.

Fidell Urges Traffic Relief

Jay Fidell's blog post "the traffic honeymoon doesn't last forever" calls for the new mayor to address traffic congestion.

Fidell suggests that we need modern solutions - timed lights, sensored intersections, overpasses, underpasses, HOT lanes. We’re desperate for these things. The technology is there, but we ignored it during the Hannemann years. Surely, we learned something and have higher expectations now.

Unfortunately, as Fidell knows, the new mayor is focused on the rail and its $310 million per year bill for 30 years. That's if the project is ever started and if everything goes perfectly well for it. At the same time he is facing a $100 million budget shortfall and a ~$5 billion sewer consent decree with the EPA.

The new mayor gloats on TV that "he is not worried" while surrounded by the perfect storm. Asking him for synchronized traffic lights is simply too much.

The Little Traffic Sign That Could ... Cause Three Freeway Accidents per Month!

This innocent looking NO RIGHT TURN ON RED sign installed by the City at the corner of University Avenue with Dole Street is actually the root cause of several rear-end accidents on the Kokohead or East-bound H-1 Freeway. Typically the accident happens between the University Avenue exit the Bingham Street exit.
This prohibitive sign in combination with two freeway off-ramps that carry a high volume of traffic from both sides of the freeway generate dangerous lines of cars on both sides of the freeway.

On the Ewa or West-bound side of the freeway, traffic to town is very slow because this is the peak direction. As such, the backlog of vehicles that go to University and Manoa is not particularly risky.

On the Kokohead or East-bound side, however, the freeway operates under extremely dangerous conditions. Two lanes, middle and left, flow at 50 to 60 miles per hour while the right lane crawls at less than 5 mph.

Here is the evidence of three crashes in less than 20 days!

Oct. 12, 2010 Rear end accident photographed at 8:52 AM
Oct. 20, 2010 Rear end accident photographed at 8:55 AM
Nov.4, 2010 Rear end accident photographed at 9:55 AM
These three accidents caused extensive congestion between the Pali Highway and University Avenue. The photo below shows bumper-to-bumper traffic as seen from the Wilder Avenue pedestrian overpass. The school bus in bottom left is moving over to the middle lane to avoid the blocked right lane and shoulder.

The City should take a lesson from itself from a similar twin right turn with a heavy flow of pedestrians at the corner of Ala Wai Boulevard and McCully Street where the sign reads NO RIGHT TURN ON RED Except from Right Lane After STOP. This more permissive management of traffic flow is required at the University Avenue twin right turn immediately to reduce the frequency of queues spilling onto the freeway and causing rear-end accidents.

This location has a clear and well delineated paths for pedestrians and vehicles and no obstructions. Issues relating to pedestrian safety with a permissive right turn on red are minimal. All other intersection corners around the UH-Manoa allow for right turn on red with no ill-effects to pedestrian safety.

Incidentally as far back as Monday, May 12, 1997 in the Honolulu Advertiser, page A-13, I complained about the city's uncoordinated traffic lights and referred specifically to the University/Dole intersection having substandard signalization.

Overall, the University Avenue freeway interchange needs an overhaul. Some alternatives were proposed in the past (Monday, January 31, 2000 Star Bulletin, “Engineer has ideas for improving H-1 flow”.) A final design and implementation are necessary to reduce the accidents at this high risk location which includes the only two ramps in our entire freeway system that are managed by YIELD signs!

Click for additional coverage of this issue by Hawaii News Now's Tim Sakahara.

National Performance Metrics Comparison of Honolulu’s Elevated Rail and HOT Lane Proposals. Goal 1 of 3: Economic Growth

Let’s briefly analyze how 20 miles of rail with 21 stations and 10 miles of HOT lanes would score in an application in Honolulu based on three goals and six NTPP metrics that were presented in a previous blog.

In order to reach a bottom line, the best alternative for each goal will receive a score of 10 and the second best will receive a relative score between 0 and 10.

Note that these metrics address deeper goals and treat congestion as an outcome. For congestion relief alone HOT lanes would score a 10 and rail a 1.

In this part we focus on NTPP goal 1 which is Economic Growth. This goal has four metrics but two of them relate to long-distance commerce and travel; they apply to Hawaii when maritime or air transportation is considered.

Brief System Descriptions

RAIL: Fully elevated heavy rail starting about a mile east of Kapolei in the middle of prime agricultural land (presently Aloun and other farms) and ending inside Ala Moana Center with 21 stations and three or four park and ride facilities accommodating fewer than 5,000 cars. Headways are 3 minutes in peak periods, 6 minutes off peak. Trains have a capacity of 300 people of which two thirds are standees. Double track design with no express trains. The system will recover 0% of the capital costs and only 10%-20% of its O&M costs from fares. Capital cost estimated at $5.4 Billion and annual O&M cost at $70 Million/year.

HOT Lanes: 10 miles of elevated 3-lane reversible expressway designed for High Occupancy and Toll operation where buses and large carpools enter free. Low and solo occupancy vehicles pay a graduated toll (e.g., from $0.50 to $5.00). The toll is “congestion insurance.” Paying the toll guarantees 50 mph travel at all times. Higher tolls are necessary to discourage overloading. The facility has Aloha Stadium as its anchor (mid-point) and has exits at Pearl Harbor, Lagoon Drive and Waiakamilo. It starts at the H-1/H-2 merge and ends in Iwilei. The 2.2 miles from Keehi Interchange to Iwilei is a shovel ready project (signed EIS) as “The Nimitz Viaduct.) The system will recover at least one third of its capital costs and 100% of its O&M costs from tolls. Capital cost estimated at $1.7 Billion and annual O&M cost at $20 Million/year.

Access to Jobs and Labor (metropolitan accessibility)

RAIL: National research has shown that rail’s limited reach does not help the jobless to find jobs and is not helpful for those with multiple jobs; and we have many of the latter on Oahu. Rail is a mode for white collar commuters; this is a relatively small market in Hawaii’s service oriented and dispersed industry. Many workers drop off or pick up children from school before work; rail is no good for them. Combinations of rail and bus and walk for door-to-door travel result in uncompetitive travel times compared to direct bus, carpool or car modes. Rail’s original score of 4 is further reduced by 2 points because rail is incapable of providing transportations for goods and services which are vital for the economy and part of this criterion. Score = 4-2 = 2.

HOT Lanes: Nationally HOT lanes is the solution for rapid transportation and the best way to make express buses competitive with the auto and succeed in getting people “out of their cars.” An express bus from Waikele or Waipio on the HOT lanes would reach downtown in under 20 minutes in the middle of rush hour. These express buses can continue to major destinations in Kalihi, Kakaako, Waikiki, and UH. Also Oahu has among the nation’s highest carpool and vanpool rates. HOT lanes are designed to serve these high occupancy modes. HOT lanes provide fast travel for the provision of services (e.g., an electrician can get from Kapolei to Kalihi in under 30 minutes at 7 AM) and offer congestion relief to parallel routes (e.g., H-1 Freeway) which is used heavily for transporting goods. Score = 10.

Access to Non-work Activities (metropolitan accessibility)

RAIL: A very small portion of the population should be expected to use rail for non-work activities such as groceries, shopping, social visits, school events, soccer practice, night clubbing, out on a date, etc. Rail loses 1 point for being unable to be of any use during an emergency such as freeway closure, flooding, hurricane and tsunami. Score = 6-1 = 5.

HOT Lanes: The Honolulu design is for a reversible configuration which is tailored to serve commuting flows so it only partially improves access to the variety of non-work activities that people engage in. It is tailored however to work well for large events at Aloha Stadium by working in-bound to the stadium before the event starts and out-bound at event’s end for quick evacuation. The HOT lanes can also serve as a reliable emergency-only backbone during an emergency. Score = 10.

Summary

Based on the Economic Growth goal and its two metrics, HOT Lanes score 20 points and Elevated Rail scores 7 points.

Congestion, Rail, APEC and Hurricane Preparedness: Problems and Solutions

Severe Traffic Congestion Wastes Time and Fuel; Cripples Economy and Tourism
Fix traffic lights, install six underpasses, PPP reversible expressway and express buses, Ewa Beach ferry; intelligent traffic management systems. Read the summary of University of Hawaii Congestion Study for details.

Elevated Heavy Rail Costs Too Much, Does Too Little and Will Be a 20 Year Construction, Eminent Domain and Lawsuit Nightmare for Iwi, Environmental Law Abuses, Agriculture Extinction and Hawaiian Lands Invasion
There is no construction for rail. It is not a legal system to build now; maybe in 2012. Stop the paperwork and the money bleeding now, and move on to real solutions with far smaller cultural, environmental and economic impacts. Assess light transit options such as the Oahu Rail Line that has an over 90% preserved right of way between Waianae and airport.

The 2011 meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) will be held in Honolulu -- heads of state, Cabinet ministers, business leaders and other officials will attend summit, Nov. 12-20, 2011, at the Hawaii Convention Center. As many as 10,000 people may attend. Event management is critical.

Management by experts with past experience with large special events is necessary. For example I organized two conferences and helped with the 2004 Olympics, as follows:

• 1st ISFO, Athens, Greece, June 4-7, 2006
• 2nd ISFO, Honolulu, Hawaii, June 21-24, 2009
• Halkias, B., Prevedouros, P., et al. Attica Tollway Management in the Athens 2004 Olympic Games. 12th World Congress on Intelligent Transportation Systems, San Francisco, CA, November 2005.

Emergency Resiliency is Non Existent
It is clear that there is no action plan for clearing roads, restoring electricity and providing medical and other vital services to Oahu neighborhoods after a hurricane hits. There is no preparation for it. For starters:

• Core streets need regular tree trimming and proper handling of poles and utilities.
• Placement of trucks, front loaders, ambulances and power units at key locations is essential.
• Emergency docks and “plugs” for Navy Submarines.
• Public second access for Waianae (tunnel to Kunia.)