BBC: Is it Cheaper to Put Greek Train Passengers in Taxis?

BBC News coverage on May 12, 2012.

The claim that it would be cheaper for Greece to send every rail passenger to their destination by taxi was first made by Stefanos Manos, the former Greek finance minister, in 1992. Manos used the railway system to illustrate what he saw as gross public sector waste.

Mr Manos is correct if there are more than two passengers in each taxi.

But either way, the Greek railways are in a pretty awful mess, and while train journeys may cost less than cab journeys, they are more expensive than travel on other forms of public transport, including air.

"Over $13bn has been pumped in, in the last 15 or 16 years. In terms of passengers, long-distance rail has 2.7% of the share and in terms of freight it's truly a joke because it's 0.08% of the freight so the costs are staggering," says Prof Prevedouros.

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.

10 Requirements for Infrastructure Mega-Project Success

This article was published in the Hellenic Institute of Transportation Engineers, SES News No. 179, Feb. 2012.

The article features analysis and a spectacular picture of Gefyra which is a 9,500 ft. long cable-stayed bridge connecting Rio and Antirio. (I was born and raised in the city of Patras which is just five miles from Rio.) The Rio-Antirio Bridge received the 2005 Outstanding Civil Engineering Achievement (OCEA) by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).

Hawaii and Greece are half a globe apart, but they have several things in common:

• Both are temperate places dominated by coastline and a marine lifestyle.
• Both have been historically invaded and taken advantage of by various colonialists.
  
• Both are relatively powerless in regional and world politics.
• Both have agriculture and fisheries, but they are relatively poor in natural resources.
• In both places tourism, education and military are a big part of the economy. And,
• Both places have insider-dominated politics.

With these as background let’s look in brief at the lessons learned from large infrastructure proposals for highways, airports, rail systems, and large wind, solar or other renewable energy “farms.”

Hawaiian Island Sustainability

How can we tell if an island is sustainable or not? All islands are net importers, meaning residents depend on external resources to survive, so they tend to be less sustainable compared to a self-sufficient continent.
To get a handle on island sustainability, a UH study group developed a database of 52 islands with populations in excess of 50,000.

With a sustainability score of 300 being “very good” and a score of 30 being “very bad,” Oahu scores 140 and Maui scores 180. The Big Island scores 170 and can improve to 200 with all-geothermal power. Overall, Hawaii’s population-adjusted score is exactly average at 150, so its sustainability profile has a lot of room for improvement.

Read full article in Honolulu Weekly.

Move Oahu Forward?

BUSINESS AND COMMUNITY LEADERS FORM GROUP IN SUPPORT OF HONOLULU’S RAIL TRANSIT PROJECT

More than thirty of Hawaii’s leading business and community leaders have joined together to form a new organization, Move Oahu Forward...

There are hundreds of large companies and thousands of small businesses on Oahu. Now the usual pro-rail suspects* got together and gave another name to the old and tired Go Rail Go which morphed into a construction unions operative.

Campbell Estate should be "credited" for giving Oahu mainland suburban sprawl (where transit has no chance to succeed,) instead of diversified ag. If they are so proud of their 2nd city why do they need a five billion dollar tether to the first city for it?

HECO alone has given Oahu the nightmare of 77% oil dependency for power generation and power rates 300% higher than mainland, and climbing. Instead of cutting down, it wants to sign up the 40 MW electric rail customer. How greedy and irresponsible!

Move Oahu Forward? Move Oahu Toward Us ... for our sustained profiteering, is more apt.

(*) The MOF list does include a few surprises such as Hawaiian Airlines and Outrigger Hotels. Business dealings and obligations to bankers and other creditors are partly at play here. Don't forget that Aloun Farms has agreed to be obliterated by B.R.Horton's Hoopili development in Ewa. Mufi manages the hotel association. Sen. Inouye can facilitate for foreign landing slots for Hawaiian Air, or intervene to protect HA stronghold markets. All kinds of interactions are at play. The rail is the tip of the collusion and interdependency iceberg. Overall, however, it is becoming clearer who the political puppet master is in the Honolulu rail affair.