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It is no secret that the roads on Honolulu are generally in mediocre to poor condition. A 2009 report of the American Association of State and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) makes this negative distinction official: Honolulu is 4th worst in the nation.
As a consequence of this, the average vehicle in Honolulu suffers about $700 in annual road damage in tires, suspension, etc. The analysis of this report does not include the cost of additional accidents and crashes that roads in poor condition cause.
The report states that when a road is good, the investment of $1 to keep it in good condition averts the expenditure of $6 to $14 in payments necessary to bring it from a poor condition to good condition. Unfortunately for Honolulu, the habitual raiding of the Highway Fund by the Legislature and the habitual neglect of the roads for 10+years of the Harris and Hannemann administrations could not have come at a worse time, since now we are in a belt tightening mode.However, I need to remind our reader that on Oahu, it is not a priority to fix our roads or to reduce congestion on our roads or to provide work for projects our laborers can do (fix and build roads.) The priority (for now) remains to waste five-plus billion dollars on a rail system with 20 stops, for which specialized imported labor will be necessary.
A summary of the report and the report itself can be found here: http://roughroads.transportation.org. The pavement quality table is shown below. 
This is hot off the press from the federal Department of Transportation:
Economics: Pricing, Demand, and Economic Efficiency
The 24 page report can be found here: http://www.ops.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/fhwahop08041/fhwahop08041.pdf
In their words: The application of tolling and road pricing provides the opportunity to solve transportation problems without Federal or state funding. It could mean that further gas tax, sales tax, or motor vehicle registration fee increases are not necessary now or in the future. Congestion pricing is not a complete plan of action. It has to be coordinated with other policy measures to maximize success.This volume describes the underlying economic rationale for congestion pricing and how it can be used to promote economic efficiency. It lays out the basic theory of travel demand and traffic flow and shows how inefficient pricing of the road network helps create an economic loss to society, as well as the means by which this can be alleviated through pricing. The impact of congestion pricing on highway infrastructure investment and the revenue implications of congestion pricing will be discussed in a separate volume in this primer series.
Justification as to why road pricing should not be a strange concept since it's already applied in many other areas:
By charging higher rates during high demand periods, proprietors are able to better allocate demand to optimize the utilization of the available capacity.
Examples of such common practices include higher rates for lodging and other amenities in tourist areas during the “high season,” discounts for afternoon showings at movie theaters, and evening and weekend discounts for telephone use. More recently, other industries have moved in this direction, including professional sports teams (which have begun charging more for tickets to more desirable games, reflecting long-standing practices in the aftermarket for tickets) and electric utilities (in which advanced electronic meters now allow usage at different times of day to be recorded).
What are HOT Lanes and why are they "win-win"?
HOT lanes are a special case of tolled express lanes, in which high-occupancy vehicles (HOV; including carpools, vanpools, and transit vehicles) are allowed to use the special lanes for free, whereas low-occupancy vehicles are required to pay a toll to use the lanes.
Because most toll-paying users of the HOT lanes are likely to shift from the other lanes, congestion on these lanes will be reduced and travel times will be improved, whereas existing HOV users will see no reduction in the quality of the service they receive. The result is a pure gain to highway users.
It is important to note that the value of time savings reflects to the total value of all passengers in a vehicle, not just the driver. Thus, some of the highest value trips are likely to be those in buses or other transit vehicles.
Here are three views for the Jacobs Spot Report of partial risk analysis conducted for Honolulu's proposed rail project as an advisory piece for the Federal Transit Administration.Hannemann said "There will still be some give and take on the numbers. It may shift here and there, but the big picture is there's no way this project is way over budget. No way."Okino said "This thing confirms that we're on a firm financial basis for this project. It verifies everything that we've been saying.”The Jacobs report says … given your willingness to buy your little city a five billion dollar 20-mile train with, and I quote the report, “automated short heavy rail vehicles,” then the past paperwork is in good shape and you can proceed to the next stage in the paperwork.
The Jacobs report was prepared for the FTA as a risk analysis supplement. An explicit approval by the FTA is not necessary. The FTA uses this risk analysis to avoid exorbitant cost and schedule overruns. Despite such risk analyses done for other projects, about one third of urban rail projects in the U.S. do have exorbitant cost and/or schedule overruns.The report does not take a position on whether rail for Honolulu is good or bad.
The report does not take a position on whether the route and its length are good or bad.
The report does not take a position on whether steel on steel technology is good on bad.
The report says that given all of these choices made by the locals, Jacobs reviewed the paperwork vis-à-vis FTA requirements and rules and what has been prepared so far for Honolulu’s proposed rail allows the project to enter preliminary engineering (PE) so that, and I quote from the conclusion, “estimates undergo significant refinement once the project advances into the PE stage”.The report does include dozens of alarming sentences such as:Jacobs cannot provide a detailed opinion on the constructability of the project since the plans are at a conceptual level of detail. The City did not include enough detail for utility related activities such as utility agreements, utility coordination and planning, underground utility exploration, relocations, abandonment and installation.At the present stage of pre-Preliminary Engineering, one can be 90% confident that the proposed project will cost between 5.2 and 10.2 billion dollars (Figure 1-1, page 1-10 of Jacobs report.) Once PE is done and the project enters Final Design, then its price tag is expected to narrow: The project will have a 90% chance of being built for a budget ranging between 4.8 and 8.1 billion dollars. For those who understand risk analysis, this means that there is a 5% probability that the project will cost more than 8.1 billion dollars, and an equal probability that it will cost less than 4.8 billion dollars.If the rail project entered Preliminary Engineering in summer 2009 and PE takes well over six months, followed by well over six months for Final Design which is necessary for construction, how can construction possibly start in December 2009 as Hannemann says?For popular consumption this question is not answered based on reality. Rail will be proclaimed to “start” as necessary to provide a major photo op for Hannemann who immediately afterward will leave the ”bag” for someone else to hold. I hope that someone will be there to take the bag to the conveniently located Waimanalo Gulch landfill nearby!
The Fiscal Year 2008-2011 Transportation Improvement Plan or TIP includes detailed costs for the Honolulu High Capacity Transit Corridor Project, which is the full description for Mayor Hanneman’s proposed rail project. The TIP tables also include FY 2012 and FY 2013 information.The tables show costs for planning, design, right-of-way, construction, equipment, etc. The costs add up to $4,420,859,000 for FY 2008 to 2013 only. The charts do not show how far the project will go after spending the shown funds. The City could start one mile east of Kapolei, spend 4.4 billion dollars, and still not make it to Ala Moana Center.Of course the amount of money by itself is staggering given Oahu’s 400,000 taxpayers. Two other things are particularly startling: (a) the excessive amounts for planning and design, and (b) the tiny federal contribution.Excessive Planning and Design CostPlanning and design costs are shown for FY 2008, 2009 and 2010. They add up to $320.3 million of which the Federal contribution is only 12%; all the rest all local taxes. This does not include all planning and promotion monies spent between 2004 and 2007 when Mayor Hannemann made this project from nothing to priority one. It would be safe to say that planning, promotion and design will cost at least $350 million.To put this in perspective, I provide costs for two recent large roadway projects for comparison:1) Tampa’s 10 miles of 3-lane reversible elevated express lanes were completed in summer 2006 at a total cost of $320 million including planning and design.2) California State Highway 210, a 6-lane freeway facility with a length of 7.25 miles with several interchanges was delivered in summer 2007 at a total cost of $233 million.This is a startling comparison: These two freeway projects cost roughly $30 million per mile designed, constructed and delivered to their communities for use, and Oahu’s rail project is costing $17 million per mile for the paperwork alone.Tiny Federal ContributionAs mentioned above, the Feds provide 12% of the planning and design costs. How about the construction costs? Mayor Hannemann talks about one billion dollars. Yet the TIP includes only $600 million for the first $4.4 billion of the project. Of course $0.6 million is much less than the “proclaimed” $1.0 billion. This results in a tiny share of 13.5% by the Federal Transit Administration.
If there are more federal monies to come, then this means that the project will cost well over five billion dollars for the first 20 miles.Cannot Afford ItIt’s worth remembering that in his 2004 campaign, Hannemann’s moto was that for a project to get the green light it must pass muster: Do We Need It? Can We Afford It? Can We Maintain It?Honolulu has a traffic congestion problem. Rail is not a solution to traffic congestion. Thus we do not need it.The above numbers clearly indicate that the costs for rail are enormous and out of proportion to Oahu's tax base. Thus we cannot afford it.But if we are crazy enough to build it, then can we maintain it? But of course: Like the sewers, water mains, roads and city parks.
Friday Bonus: Not a completed product but not a Photoshop creation either. To be effective, the biker must be a steady one. More info here: http://www.altitudeinc.com/downloads/021609_bikelane_Boston.pdf
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