Rail Transit: Are we Creating New Life or Resuscitating a Dinosaur? (part 1 of 2)

The title is paraphrasing a 1983 paper title by Dr. Joseph Schofer, Associate Dean, College of Engineering, Northwestern University. I think it is a more appropriate title than the biased question "Has Mass Transit Finally Arrived?" posed in the NationalJournal.com's transportation expert panel discussion.

Of course the majority of the 23 commentators answer that the time for transit has come (as it did in all previous oil/global economy crises.) We know that the results were poor from most of those deployments. But learning from history is not a priority in modern society.

If you have about an hour, do read the original text which includes a handful of well thought out positions and concerns.
If not, here are some highlights from each commentator. This part provides excerpts from the first 11 commentators.

1. Eric Britton, Managing Director, New Mobility Partnerships
"Before rushing out to pour many billions of dollars into mass transit, we will do well to recognize that as a phrase, it is a relic of another day, another way of thinking about cities. And indeed another way of thinking about people (mass?).

Here is what we can counsel with confidence to the incoming Obama team about "mass transit" and its appropriate role for the critical 2009-2012 period.

If you have it already in place, your main challenge is to get a lot better at using what you have in a cost-effective manner.

If you do not have it, forget about using scarce taxpayer dollars to build yourself a new one from scratch, because there are far better ways of getting the job done."

2. Nancy LeaMond, AARP's executive vice president of social impact
"To leave their cars behind, boomers will require the same level of convenience as they have had in their car-centered world.

A coordinated strategy of public transportation, paratransit, coordinated human services transportation, transit-oriented development, and “complete streets” sidewalk networks accessible to transit, can yield a multitude of benefits for people of all ages.

...making stops and vehicles more accessible and user friendly, helping newcomers understand how and where to access schedules and their closest transit with easy to use information, training drivers to understand and pleasantly accommodate the limitations of aging and in some areas offering neighborhood circulators or door-to-door service to grocery stores or shopping malls."

3. Robin Chase, CEO, GoLoco, Meadow Networks
"If we think back to Katrina, the lack of alternatives for people without cars to evacuate the New Orleans proved disastrous. Some policy experts claimed that the solution was to make sure the poor and carless had access to cars. A few weeks later, another hurricane demanded that Houston evacuate. The highways were backed up and people sat motionless in their cars for hours. Today, as I write this note, a huge snow storm is bearing down on Boston. Planes are canceled and roads will be dangerous. My homeward-bound college age son is stuck in Washington DC.

My point is not that we should build trains and transit to accommodate one-day freak storms, just as I do not advocate building parking lots to accommodate Black Friday shopping demand. But real diversity and redundancy in transportation systems is mandatory. This nation needs to accommodate the transportation needs of people of all incomes, of all ages, of all development densities. The last 50 years of supporting one mode -- cars -- to exclusion of others, has not served us well. It is time to right the balance."

Somebody needs to tell her that a few days after hurricane Ike hit Houston, all systems were up and running except for its rail that took two and a half weeks.

4. Michael A. Replogle, Transportation Director, Environmental Defense Fund
"Established rail systems need to be revitalized. But pouring money into poorly conceived transit projects will not make transit a viable alternative for the majority of Americans living in auto-dependent suburban areas.

The most cost-effective way to expand high performance mass rapid transit is Bus Rapid Transit, or BRT. ... And BRT can be used like rail to anchor transit-oriented development. ... A big advantage of BRT is that the bus can go anywhere. The same bus can operate in mixed traffic where there is no congestion, enter a busway in a congested area, and then leave the busway again.

Performance-based transportation investment plans should be required as a condition for funding, including operational plans for both highways and public transportation."

5. Bill Graves, President and CEO, American Trucking Association
"Although mass transit performs many important uses, particularly for certain niche communities in large urban areas, it cannot replace our nation’s need for good highways. While mass transit effectively moves people, infrastructure investment is critical to the safe and efficient movement of freight."

6. Judith Bergquist, Associate Director of Rural Programs in the Denver office of the Colorado Center for Community Development
"Sometimes we look past some simple and very viable alternatives to multi – modal transit for bigger glitzy solutions: We should look at road and bus systems that could effectively be started today and get buses to run every 10 minutes from suburb to suburb and suburb to work centers and downtowns. We need the buses to run often with lots of quick stops to increase this ridership before other transit is even in place. We will lose the cars because there will be ease of access."

7. Paul Yarossi, President, HNTB Holdings Ltd.
"Public transit supporters definitely have the clout to influence the next transportation bill. In no way will this effort to fund more public transit projects replace the much needed investment in maintaining and expanding our national highway system."

Solid advice for worsening the already huge budget deficits (to the benefit of mega contractors.)

8. Christopher B. Leinberger, Real estate developer, Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution, Professor and Director of the University of Michigan graduate real estate program
"Why rail transit? Middle class Americans like it far better than bus transit. In addition, real estate developers and investors have increased confidence in it since rail transit implies permanence; it is easy to change a bus route but not so with fixed rail. The combination of middle class preference and the permanence of rail transit have resulted in far more real estate development being sparked around rail stations than bus stops."

Great paragraph but there is little proof that any of this is true. Most US cities developed quite well in the complete absence of rail.

9. Emil H. Frankel, Director of Transportation Policy, Bipartisan Policy Center
"How can transportation best serve national goals and purposes like economic growth, environmental and energy sustainability, national connectivity, metropolitan accessibility, and safety?

Before we allocate funding - whether to give transit or highways more money - let’s ensure that we have a performance-based approach that can help us identify and prioritize programs that achieve national goals."

10. Frank Busalacchi, Secretary, Wisconsin Department of Transportation
"The current transit programs send much of the funding to mass transit systems in our largest metropolitan areas. Our metropolitan areas rely on mass transit to provide a needed mobility option for those who don’t want to use their cars or don’t have cars to use. However, in many parts of the country bus fleets are old, far beyond the time frame in which they should have been replaced."

11. Tim Kaine, Governor, Commonwealth of Virginia
"Transit and rail investments are expensive up front and even more so when operation and maintenance costs are factored in over time. These long term financial commitments only make sense if there are different land use patterns to take advantage of the transit and rail investments.

Increased funding should not come at the expense of other modes, particularly given the dire need to repair and replace our existing bridges across the country."

==========

A few common themes emerge from these diverse opinions:

• Need to maintain what infrastructure we have and expand it.
• Look into buses, BRT and other affordable solutions first.
• Performance-based decision making and accountability for infrastructure projects.

The latter means that a systematic way is used to look at urban transportation problems and address the issues in a cost-effective away.

This is the opposite of what occurred in Honolulu where a politician was elected in 2004 and made rail the number one priority: Total top-down dictum. The lack of accountability is obvious in that there is no accounting of $107 million spent on rail studies and the shameless use of taxpayer money to defame those opposing the system and produce an avalanche of TV, radio, newspaper and home-mailed ads and fliers.

Stay tuned for the second half and the conclusion.

Operationalizing Sustainability

In a practical sense, sustainability may be defined as a process that supports a standard of living or quality or life forever given the known availability of natural resources and population trends. Wikipedia has a comprehensive definition.

As chair of the Freeway Operations Simulation Committee of the Transportation Research Board I intend to steer national discussion in this direction. Sustainability is the overarching principle that is engulfing most types of engineering and operations practice and research.

Congestion and energy consumption reductions are large components of sustainability. These, in turn, are affected by freeway and traffic operations. Our committee is embarking on an effort to establish sustainability parameters and requirements for freeway and traffic simulation models including vehicle fleet parameters, fuel consumption parameters, and modules capturing real time pricing and demand shifts in response to fuel, toll and congestion levels.

So far, my understanding of the status quo is roughly as follows:

• Green mobility policies and incentives: HOT lanes, tax credits for electric vehicles, light rail lite, etc.
• Green management options: Signal coordination, corridor-wide ramp metering, variable speed limits, peak hour shoulder lanes, etc.
• Green travel choices: hybrid car, parking cash out, locate close to work or school, etc.
• Green trip decisions: carpooling, 4X10 work schedule, telecommuting, etc.
• Green parameters for traffic simulation: __________________________?

In other words, there is a lot of room in improving simulation models to explicitly account for green options.

The Upside of High Oil Prices: Part 2, Long-term Effects

The U.S. and several other countries are in an economic recession which was caused in part by the extraordinary increase of crude oil prices from $16 in 1999 and several years afterward, to $147 in July, 2008. This 1,000% spike was followed by a precipitous fall of crude oil prices to about $55 in November 2008 and still falling.


High oil prices despite their obvious high cost disadvantages have several benefits and long term advantages. Some effects are realized almost immediately and others take several years to develop. This part covers the longer term effects, the majority of which are likely to be observed after five years of high crude oil prices.

GLOBALIZATION REVERSAL: High oil costs take a toll on unit production, distribution and delivery cost. Therefore some local industries may be better off near large cities in the developed nations instead of relocating at a region or country with a low labor cost. This is good news for local economies at developed nations but it reduces employment opportunities at developing and underdeveloped countries. Some see the slowing down of globalization as a good thing (e.g., less exploitation of cheap labor, lesser loss of local jobs.)

NUCLEAR ENERGY: The scarcity or cost of fossil fuels makes the development of expensive nuclear energy a more cost-effective proposition. High electric bills for residences, businesses and industry may decrease the emotional opposition to nuclear power plants. France and Japan are leading examples of reliance on nuclear power with no or minimal safety concerns. At the first oil crisis in 1973, only 1% of Japan’s electricity was produced by nuclear energy. By the second oil crisis of 1979, 4% was from nuclear; in 2000 the ratio was up to 12% and the 2010 goal is 15%. As of 2005, Japan had 52 operating nuclear plants, 3 in construction and 8 in planning and design. France is even more ahead: Its 59 nuclear plants produce 88% of the country’s electric power. There are about 440 nuclear power plants on the globe. France, Japan and the U.S. combined produce over 55% of the nuclear power energy on the globe.

AGRICULTURE: A lot of low-priced agriculture products are less affordable when processing, transportation and distribution costs are high. This improves the chances of local agriculture for profitability and long term survival. On the other hand, the benefits for third world from exporting agricultural products are reduced.

UNAFFORDABLE LIFE IN THE SUBURBS: The high cost of energy makes the low density living in the suburbs and its corresponding demand for long trips less attractive and less affordable particularly for young couples with children and retired seniors. As a result, central city apartments become attractive and office and apartment development in central city follows the market demand. In the same vein, office and retail development in the suburbs softens the impact of long, expensive commutes.

BIOTECHONOLOGY: High energy prices are also a strong incentive to develop alternative fuels as well as processes to convert trash, biomass, used oils and other lubricants into combustible fuels or other forms of fuel that can be converted into electricity.

RECYCLING AND REMANUFACTURE: The expensive production, transportation and distribution of goods makes the effort of recycling and remanufacture more worthwhile. Remanufacture is the developing industry of creating useful products out of wastes. Economies of size are important. For example, one or more used-aluminum processing factories can be profitable in the greater Los Angeles area, but none can break even in Honolulu. However, remanufacture of oils, refrigerants, other chemicals and plastic products can be profitable in small markets.

CHEMISTRY AND MATERIAL SCIENCE: The development of ultra light and low friction materials so that machinery does more work with less energy is an advancing field. Nanotechnology also contributes in this arena. High fossil fuel prices make research and development in such specialized sciences more urgent and better funded.

BLUE PLANET SENSITIVITY: Over time, the high cost of energy make people re-think of their decisions in home, work and school locations, local and long distance travel, and consumption of goods and services. They look for ways to downsize, optimize and economize. All these have a large aggregate reduction in resource consumption and pollution on Earth.

The Upside of High Oil Prices: Part 1, Short-term Effects

The U.S. and several other countries are in an economic recession which was caused in part by the extraordinary increase of crude oil prices from $16 in 1999 and several years afterward, to $147 in July, 2008. This 1,000% spike was followed by a precipitous fall of crude oil prices to about $55 in November 2008 and still falling. India’s growth, hurricanes in the Gulf, refinery shut downs for repairs and most importantly China’s hyper development in preparation for the 2008 Olympic Games contributed substantially to an unprecedented spike in oil prices, which in turn were manifest as high prices at the pump, shipping surcharges, and high electric bills and airfares.


High oil prices put oil producing counties in a significant advantage, oil consuming countries in a significant disadvantage and they are indifferent to countries who have achieved substantial fossil fuel independence (e.g., Brazil via sugar cane ethanol and France via nuclear power.) The discussion below is focused less on politics and more on energy, economy, technology, transportation and personal effects of high oil prices. High oil prices despite their obvious high cost disadvantages have several benefits and long term advantages. Some effects are realized almost immediately and others take several years to develop. This part covers the short term effects; the majority of which are likely to be observed within five years.

OIL EXPLORATION: There are forms and deposits of crude oil that when the price per barrel is low they are financially unprofitable to explore and exploit. But many of them break even and become profitable at a per barrel cost of over $50.00. Others require even higher prices.

INVESTMENT: The large swings in oil prices have the potential for quick fortunes to be made (and lost) through investment in futures and energy funds by investors and large retirement funds. The Sacramento Bee reports that “CalPERS [California Public Employees' Retirement System] has racked up a 68 percent return playing the commodities market in the past 12 months.”

RENEWABLE ENERGY: Most forms of renewable energy such as solar (photovoltaic), wind energy, geothermal, deep ocean upwelling and wave energy are expensive ways of converting natural forces or energy to electricity. High crude oil prices make several of these profitable.

TRANSPORTATION ALTERNATIVES: High energy prices are a strong incentive for carpooling, bicycling, telecommuting, condensed work weeks (4x10) and switch to mass transit.

AUTOMOTIVE TECHNOLOGY: Obviously, high prices at the pump make large cars with large engines much less affordable to operate. The market for them shrinks, and this becomes a strong incentive for manufacturers to develop lighter, smaller vehicles with more efficient engines. It also provides strong incentives for both government and private R&D to work on less conventional car power plants such as direct gas injection, diesel, electric, compressed natural gas (CNG,) alone or in hybrid combinations.

INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS: Redoubles efforts for freeway and arterial management, incident management, traffic light coordination, fleet management and optimum routing of vehicles through congested networks. Some private fleet operators work with very low profit margins, so congestion and high fuel prices can quickly turn a profitable operation to a money losing one.

High oil prices can have a large positive effect on the sustainability of modern societies. Alas, reduced demand has caused a precipitous reduction in crude oil prices. Now is the right time for the U.S. Congress to take the following actions:

• The fuel tax at the pump should be adjusted to reflect the nation’s highway infrastructure funding needs. This may cause the 38 cent tax to triple, but it is a necessary action.
• After this is done, a simple inflation adjustment formula should be legislated so that the “infrastructure purchasing power” of the gasoline tax retains its strength over time.
• In the longer term, more thought should be given about the nation’s highway needs, the impacts of congestion, the critical contribution of freight and the effects of non-taxable fuels used in hybrid, electric and fuel cell vehicles. The highway funding mechanism should provide tax collections that are proportional to the vehicle miles traveled on the nation’s highways.
• Finally, a small “renewable energy surcharge” such as two to five cents per gallon should be added to generate funds for much needed research and development. The proposed National Cooperative Renewable and Alternative Energy for Transportation Program can be administered by the Transportation Research Board which administers similar programs.

The EZWay Transportation Plan for Oahu

The basic goals of this plan are to provide (a) substantial congestion relief largely caused at the H-1/H-2 and H-1/Moanalua freeway merges by adding critical high occupancy capacity, and (b) express bus mass transit primarily in the west Oahu to downtown corridor. In addition, the plan addresses other major congestion spots in Honolulu and provides express transit connections to the University of Hawaii at Manoa. The basic ingredients of the plan are:

• the EZWay which consists of three elevated reversible zipper lanes from the H-1/H-2 merge to Iwilei,
• express buses having exclusive use of freeway shoulders in order to travel at near free flow speeds from/to the EZWay,
• a downtown underpass for efficient in-town traffic distribution, and
• a priority BRT from downtown to the UH and a new transit center for west Oahu bus passenger distribution in downtown, Kakaako, Ala Moana and Waikiki.

The elements of the EZWay transportation plan are briefly described below.

(1) Kapolei and Ewa Beach Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) connectors to Waipahu: Hybrid or fuel cell buses will be allowed to use shoulders on on-ramps and a number of elevated passages or priority lanes at intersections (queue jumpers) which allow them to get by chronically congested spots. Includes a Waipahu (Farrington Hwy.) on-ramp to/from the EZWay.

(2) Express buses from Waianae and Makakilo may use upgraded H-1 freeway shoulders to get to the EZWay quicker. The same priority treatment applies to express buses from Mililani and Waihiawa.

(3) The EZWay structure is a fully managed expressway facility that can be described as three reversible elevated zipper lanes starting at the H-1/H-2 merge and terminating at Pier 16 with off-ramps at Aloha Stadium/Pearl Harbor, Lagoon Drive and Waiakamilo Street. The right lane is an exclusive bus lane throughout the length of the facility. At Iwilei, one elevated lane goes to Hotel St. to connect with King/Beretania BRT (University spur BRT).

EZWay will open with a minimum occupancy requirement of three people per vehicle. This requirement may be increased in the future to avoid congestion. No tolls will be collected. Automated steep fines applied to low occupancy violators. No trucks allowed at any time. Open to all emergency vehicles at all times. Open to green vehicles with greater than 35 mpg EPA highway fuel consumption. This threshold is also subject to change in order to maintain at least 50 mph speeds in peak periods.

(4) Ala Moana Blvd. Downtown Underpass (mini-tunnel) starting east of River Street and ending both at Alakea Street and Halekauwila Street. Same tunnel reverses in the PM period from Halekauwila Street and Bishop Street to Nimitz Hwy. contraflow lane onto the elevated zipper lanes. The underpass may continue to large new parking lot(s) east of Punchbowl Street. As a result, a large portion of vehicular traffic may actually "disappear" from downtown by going from the EZWay, through the mini-tunnel directly into a parking structure.

(5) New Ward Centers bus terminal on Auahi Street. Express buses that arrive from the EZWay stop at this terminal and either return to origin, or continue as regular bus to Ala Moana Center. Contracted tour buses may be deployed at this terminal for direct worker distribution to Waikiki hotels.

(6) University BRT runs on priority lanes and with priority signaling along King Street and Beretania Street.

(7) Other elements include traffic signal optimization, other underpasses, several freeway bottleneck fixes, upgrades to TheBus and TheHandiVan scheduling and routing with advanced technologies, contracted express bus and special passenger service, deployment and incentives for 4x10 work hours, and encouragement to UH-Manoa to change start time for students, faculty and administration staff to 9 AM.

Features and Advantages

• Elevated zipper lanes with no tolls -- Bus lane running at 50+ mph: Waipahu to downtown in 12 minutes -- Express point-to-point buses every 5 to 10 minutes
• Same or better travel time than rail – Much fewer transfers. No transfers for major origins and destinations, e.g., Waipahu-Pearl Harbor and Airport, Waipahu-Kalihi, Waipahu-Downtown, Waipahu-Waikiki
• Congestion relief on H-1 freeway (remove high occupancy and green vehicles) -- Congestion relief downtown
• The plan works with buses which are adaptable to non-fossil fuel propulsion technology such as fuel cells and electric drives
• Twice the service reach (length) compared with the 20 mile rail at about one half the cost
• Reliable travel times between Ewa and Kapolei in Leeward, and Kakakao and UH in town
• Flexible, expandable, adaptable with familiar technology; no specialized labor to install or maintain vehicles or structures of the plan
• FTA New Starts fundable exclusive bus lanes and BRT
• Nimitz Hwy. flyover has approved EIS.
• Key parts of the plan can begin construction or operation in late 2009
• Removes all buses and vanpools from zipper lane and allows HDOT to convert it to a HOT lane

UH-Manoa Announces Competition on Sustainability

I am thrilled that the UHM has put sustainability front and center with today’s announcement of an internal $1,000,000 research competition, an unprecedented undertaking in and of itself. I quote from the announcement by the Vice President for Research:

“Sustainability, or lack thereof, is most critical in Hawai’i given our geographic isolation, fragile ecosystems, limited resources, and resulting increased costs (monetary and otherwise) to function in an island economy/ecosystem. To this end, it is imperative that we focus our efforts to reach and ultimately move beyond a plateau of sustainability. The University of Hawai‘i at Mânoa should play a key leadership role in this endeavor, as the flagship UH Campus and a leading research institution.”

“As an initial step in support of the stated objectives the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Education is pleased to announce an internal competition open to University of Hawai‘i-Mânoa faculty for a single 1 million dollar research grant in the broad area of sustainability.”

“The proposals will be reviewed by a committee of internal and external scholars and the recipient(s) of the 1 million dollar grant will be announced on Earth Day (April 22, 2009). Project funding will run from June 1, 2009 through May 31, 2011.”

I am also pleased that a group of faculty at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) took the initiative to develop some ideas for sustainability for which civil engineers are uniquely qualified to research and develop. A brief summary of draft ideas under the umbrella concept of a SIT Center is given below.

Advanced work on sustainability will put both the University and the entire state in the front lines of development for the long term survival of the human race on Earth. I look forward to this competition and results.

Sustainable Infrastructure and Transportation (SIT) Center

Mission: The Sustainable Infrastructure and Transportation Center (SIT Center) will contribute directly to both national and Hawaii security and mobility. The mission of the SIT Center is to lead heavily populated island communities like Hawaii to a path of sustainability through the
• careful management of energy resources,
• expansion of renewable sources of energy,
• optimization of urban travel, and
• minimization of solid and liquid wastes through remanufacturing the wastes into useful products.

The mission will be accomplished via research, education, technology transfer, and advocacy. Sustainability is critical to Hawaii as a remote island state, and the lessons learned are applicable to many populated island communities such as Guam, Caribbean Islands, Cyprus, Crete, Sicily, Corsica, Madagascar, Sri Lanka, Philippine Islands, Taiwan, Singapore, and Okinawa. In addition, the transformation of Hawaii into a resource-sustainable society will demonstrate to the rest of the nation what can be done to increase sustainability nationwide.

Definition: The goal of sustainability is to provide efficient and effective infrastructure and transportation for people, services, and goods while optimizing energy requirements and minimizing the usage of non-renewable energy resources. It addresses system design and operations, management, policies, technology transfer and deployment, and public-private partnerships.

Organization: The SIT Center is planned to consist of two main tracks, one focusing on sustainable infrastructure and the other on sustainable transportation and energy.

Sustainable Infrastructure focuses on 1) resource efficiency of the built infrastructure; 2) recycling and reuse of wastes, which leads to a no-landfill solution for household waste; and 3) the remanufacture of useful products from the waste stream. All activities will stimulate local economic development, as industry develops to commercialize the technology. SIT will serve the technology transfer needs for this new industry. Already, the CEE department has established research in the recycling and reuse of waste materials ranging from discarded glass and tires in concrete and asphalt, fly-ash produced by the H-Power plant, and reclaimed wastewater.

Sustainable Transportation and Energy focuses on ways to reduce dependency on fossil fuels while maintaining high levels of urban mobility. Constantly evolving intelligent transportation systems (ITS) are currently a national focus and provide the means to optimize traffic operations and management. Economic research provides the foundation for pricing and tolling schemes that externalize the full cost of trip-making. Renewable energy sources are the long term key to energy independence, particularly in places like Hawaii where solar, geothermal, wind and wave energy abound. SIT will complement the new UH National Renewable Marine Energy Center.

The overall goal of SIT is to promote technology transfer and deployment of sustainable transportation and energy operations via research, outreach, and education using Hawaii as the demonstrable test bed. The Center will provide a critical mass for expertise to conduct research, educate, and collaborate with public and private partners.

Some Options for Architects Who Dislike Traditional Elevated Rail

The architects’ society, AIA Honolulu, drafted comments on the rail DEIS. Basically they are in favor of the rail concept but they do not want elevated rail. To quote their December 4, 2008 draft letter to the City: “In comparison with elevated systems, at grade systems would require less taxpayer funding and offer greater flexibility and affordability in planning for future extensions.”

On Oahu, at grade rail will be cheaper in terms of guideway costs, and it will have a much lower aesthetic impact, but its requirements for condemnation and roadway congestion will both skyrocket. Condemnation would be extensive (and very expensive) because at grade space must be found for the wide turns that trains make and for 20+ stations. Roadway lanes will be lost to light rail; not only one lane per direction, but also adjacent lanes to install stations. For example, an at-grade light rail installation between downtown and the UH will practically take all of Beretania Street and maybe allow for one lane left for local access and deliveries. Lane-taking in Honolulu, one of the most lane starved cities in the nation, is not rational. Overall AIA’s recommendation for at grade rail is not a practical one.

Would a light version of the Japanese roof-mounted monorail make better sense?



This is the Ofuna Enoshima monorail. The guideway and posts of this system can be made slimmer by designing them for smaller and lighter trains, so the visual impact when a train is absent is small. But of course its stations would still be big and obtrusive. Such a system was not presented or evaluated in the DEIS.

Another fixed guideway option is the PPT, or personal public transit, but all of them are experimental or drawing board concepts. There are several concepts but the SkyTran concept for personalized magnetic levitation (Maglev) rapid transit (http://www.unimodal.com/) is exciting and All American. Its light structure makes it much more suitable for beautiful Honolulu.



If Honolulu were to develop 12 miles of HOT lanes now to solve its leeward Oahu congestion issues, in 20 years some of the PPT could be market ready and they have the potential to be fast, quiet, convenient and inexpensive. With HOT lanes, underpasses, smart traffic lights and PPT, Honolulu in 2030 would be an international transportation technology capital. This would be accomplished at a locally affordable cost and with minimal impact to aesthetics, cultural and historical sites.

20 Simple but Important Questions for the Rail DEIS

The Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) of the City’s proposed rail system is the document that should provide answers to all reasonable impacts. It is available at all public libraries. It is also available at the city’s website honolulutransit.com along with a lot of the rail propaganda that your tax dollars paid for.

Below I list 20 simple but important questions. Does the DEIS answer them clearly?

1. The bus routes will change. What happens to your route? What happens to express buses?
2. Lanes will be taken away, some temporarily for construction and some permanently. Where are those lane closures and what is their duration? Are there traffic rerouting plans?
3. Will there be bike racks on the train and where will they be located? Will bikes be allowed on the train? Will there be a place for surfboards? What about luggage? What about construction workers’ tools? Will there be a place for people to put large items they purchase at a big box retailer? What’s the size limitation?
4. Will there be washrooms at the stations? How about convenience stores, vending machines? Will the platforms have seats? How many?
5. Under land use, Aloun farms needs to relocate. Is that possible? Where will they go?
6. A relatively simple job of sewer upgrades in Kailua and Kapiolani lead to the loss of businesses and jobs. Are details provided about similar effects during the construction of the rail?
7. Is there a detailed plan for the effect of rail construction on water, sewer, gas and electric utilities? Will there be disruptions of service? Who pays for all these?
8. About $107 million will be spent on the soft costs of this project. This “paperwork” cost is rather exorbitant for a single 20 mile rail line. How did $107 million get spent?
9. The DEIS list of preparers for technical content shows that it was done almost exclusively with out-of-Hawaii engineers, planners and specialists. (See this document under Consultants: http://www.honolulutransit.org/library/files/end.pdf.) H-3 freeway was designed mostly with Hawaii based engineers. If Hawaii engineers are not able to design rail, who will supervise and build this unfamiliar-to-Oahu infrastructure?
10. Rail construction involves unique skills and certifications that Hawaii construction workers do not have. How will this be addressed?
11. The city has declared that in many cases only a portion of a parcel needs to be condemned and taken away. Can the business survive with the remaining portion? Are they forced to mandatory downsizing and some loss of employment?
12. There are 16 schools that are adjacent to the alignment. Will the overhead structure, the continuous high current exposure and the intermittent noise and vibration affect the learning environment? Is it prudent to relocate the schools?
13. Does rail fit our Hawaiian Sense of Place? How was the impact to tourism and local quality of life by a large elevated structure through town been assessed?
14. Does the DEIS address the impacted vistas and scenery? Are the aesthetics of the structure and each station explained and presented adequately?
15. What will happen in the event of a hurricane? Will the train operate? The train in Houston was shut down for 10 days due to hurricane Ike.
16. BART in the Bay Area uses rail cars made of aluminum to combat corrosion. Is the city’s position that corrosion is not an issue?
17. It appears that General Excise Tax surcharge proceeds for rail will be much lower than expected for at least four years in a row. How is this deficit going to be made up?
18. If ridership turns out to be lower than forecast, then what? If the city is forced to provide free train rides like in Puerto Rico, how is the shortfall going to be covered?
19. I heard that the Ala Moana station will now be at a lower elevation, at the west end of Kona Street and not above Nordstrom’s. What is the exact plan for the Ala Moana Center station and how is the train going to Waikiki and UH afterwards?
20. Starting construction in Kapolei makes little sense. It may be expeditious and convenient but it is not smart. Why can’t a temporary rail yard be established near the airport or Aloha Stadium and build rail east into the city and west out to Kapolei simultaneously?

The billion dollar question that no DEIS could address is this: With President Obama at the helm and Senator Inouye chairing the Senate Appropriations Committee can we get four billion for rail? How about splitting the bill 50-50 with the feds? Other cities got a 50% or better federal match. Why does Honolulu get less than 25%?

These and many more questions require simple and clear answers.

In addition to the 429 page DEIS, the following files contain information and visuals. The City distributes them on a DVD.

• Historic Resources.pdf
• Land Use.pdf
• Transportation Tech Report.pdf
• Street Trees.pdf
• Electric and Magnetic Fields Technical Report.pdf
• Visual and Aesthetic Technical Report.pdf
• Historic Appendix B.pdf
• Cultural Resources.pdf
• Economics.pdf
• Geology, soils, farmlands, and natural hazardsTech Report.pdf
• Haz Waste and Mat Tech Report Appendix A.pdf
• Natural Resources.pdf
• Noise&Vibration.pdf
• Haz Waste and Mat Tech Report.pdf
• tEISTravelForecasting ENTIRE.pdf
• Community Impacts.pdf
• Archaeological Resources.pdf
• Water Resources.pdf
• AQ&Energy.pdf

The City released this huge document just before the November 4 elections and in a period that includes the most holidays and days off. (The deadline for comment is January 7, 2009.) The hearings on the adequacy of the Alternatives Analysis were also conducted and concluded in the late November to late December 2006 period to make it as hard as possible for citizens to participate. (If it looks like a Banana Republic and acts like a Banana Republic ...)

Care about Oahu’s Energy Dependency? Look into Cars not Rail

Fossil fuel energy dependency and “carbon footprint” (a 21st century moniker for air pollution and green house gasses) are major concerns of many citizens which, combined with the wrong belief that rail systems are energy efficient (because they are “electric”) lead to wrong conclusions and decisions.

Rail systems can indeed be efficient if they are heavily utilized. Alas, only in cities with several million of densely distributed population the utilization of rail is high enough throughout the day. Those systems experience crash loads in the peak hours and heavy loads during most of the off peak hours. As a result energy per passenger mile is low and efficiency is high. Many of them in Canada, France, Japan, Taiwan or the United Kingdom are powered by electricity from nuclear or hydroelectric plants, so their carbon footprint is minimal.

However, in small population cities like Honolulu, a rail system may see some heavy utilization for two to four hours per day and the rest of the time it runs with a light load of passengers (and sometimes nearly empty) which leads to a very poor overall energy efficiency. Worse yet, its electricity come from diesel and coal, so the carbon footprint is very large.

The same could be said about buses, but buses do not have stations with lights, elevators, escalators, ticket machines, etc. and the security and other required attendants. Buses can be propelled by clean energy, e.g., fuel cells. There are several such buses in demonstration service and of course there are many hybrid buses on the streets of Honolulu already. Most buses in the city of Tacoma are LNG, or liquefied natural gas which burns much cleaner than liquid fossil fuels and is relatively abundant.

However, the comparison of rail to buses is baseless. Buses do fine without rail, as TheBus in Honolulu demonstrates. But rail is useless without buses. Honolulu's proposed system has 20 stations and that's it. Honolulu has thousands of activity points and hundreds of thousands or residences. Its proposed rail has twenty stations. The disconnect is obvious and only buses and cars can bridge the huge gaps between where the rail goes and where the people go. (That's one of several reasons why rail does not reduce traffic congestion.)

Except for nuclear, there are no clean energy power plants producing power for rail systems and this is unlikely to change any time soon since existing power plants have very long useful lives. So the present and long term (~20 year) conclusion is that rail systems in smaller cities (~2 million or less)

• have a large carbon footprint,
• are heavily dependent on fossil fuels for their electricity, and
• consume a lot of energy per passenger.

For brevity, I am only giving you part of the story here. The energy consumption and carbon footprint for rail systems is huge not only because of the heavy construction and equipment involved to build and operate them, but also because of their dependency on cars and buses to take people from stations to their final destinations.

What’s the outlook for cars? Fortunately we do not have to make any guesses. The outlook for the U.S. car fleet is already present in Asia and Europe.

Compared to the oil crises of the 20th century which propelled the Japanese auto industry to international prominence, this time there is better news because U.S. auto manufacturers won’t be left out. On the contrary, their EU and Asia divisions are manufacturing remarkable cars. (Note that all the discussion herein is for vehicles being sold out of dealer showrooms, not for concept cars.)

Ford Fiesta and Mazda 2 are jointly developed small cars of the size of a BMW Mini, a popular small vehicle on Oahu. The 1.6 liter diesel engine of the Fiesta is capable of taking it to a top speed of 120 mph and provides an average fuel efficiency of 56 mpg, almost twice of today’s 1.6 liter gasoline powered Mini. The similar Mazda 2 was chosen the 2008 World Car of the Year.

Ford also offers the C-Max a 5 or 7 passenger car in the compact category with a 58 cubic feet cargo ability with the rear seats folded. Both gas and diesel engines are available. The gas engine delivers an average of 32 mpg whereas the diesel engine delivers 41 mpg.

Ford Kuga is a stylish crossover vehicle which is sold with only one engine option: A two liter diesel which delivers an average of 37 mpg and needs refueling every 550 miles. Ford plans to bring this vehicle in the U.S., but apparently the average U.S. Ford customer is not as sensitive to fuel price and pollution as their EU counterpart: A 2.5 liter gasoline engine is planned for it. Or perhaps a 2 liter hybrid version. The latter may come close to the efficiency of the EU version (but with a more complex and expensive power plant combination.)

GM will introduce the Opel Corsa to the U.S., a car slightly smaller than the VW Rabbit. The Corsa has been sold in Europe and elsewhere for over 10 years and there are eight different motors for it, depending on version and market. Of great interest is the version presented at the 2007 Frankfurt Auto Show which combined a 1.3 turbo diesel engine with a hybrid motor to deliver a 63 mpg fuel efficiency and good performance.

Then of course there are competing offerings from Toyota (the 3-cylinder iQ gets 56 mpg), or the fully-electric Mitsubishi MiEV (costs about $25,000 and has an 80 mile range.)

Honda already imports the Fit to the U.S. The 2009 version delivers 27 mpg in the city for under $15,000. In various automotive magazine tests, the Fit delivered a frugal 35 mpg overall. The 2009 Toyota Prius is still formidable at 48 mpg in the city. Honda’s answer to that is the 40 mpg in the city Civic hybrid.

Speaking of hybrids, statistics of the U.S. Department of Energy show that their sales took off in 2005. Sales started at 9,000 units in 2000 and grew quickly to 84,000 by 2004. But in the last three years their sales have exploded: 210,000 units in 2005, 253,000 in 2006 and 352,000 in 2007. It is likely that a half million units per year sold in the U.S. will be reached by 2010 despite softening fuel prices and weak overall economy.

In conclusion, if people are concerned about carbon footprint and dependency to fossil fuels, then looking to return to 19th century commuting in trains is not the answer. Been there done that. Too limited, too crowded, too inconvenient.Modern society evolved out of it.

Technology is providing the solutions to the problems. This is the same technology that in one person's life time took us from the 1920 Ford Model T with its top speed of 35 mph and a fuel economy of 20 mpg to, say, the 2009 Ford Escape Hybrid with its top speed of over 100 mph and fuel economy of 34 mpg in the city.

In the next 20 years there will be an abundant selection of vehicles that are two or three times more efficient than today’s average offerings. This reduces fossil fuel dependency substantially. Combined with less travel, more telecommuting and wider use of renewable energy and natural gas, dependency on oil can be reduced dramatically.

In the next 20 years, scientific knowledge may overcome unfounded fears and allow us to replace oil fueled power plants with nuclear ones, for the benefit of our planet. This is a win-win-win proposition for the U.S.: Less dependency on oil imports, green house gas free electricity generation, domestic high-technology infrastructure development boosts the local and national economy.

If that occurs, then fully electric and truly non-polluting vehicles are possible. There are several fully electric cars available, the Tesla Roadster being the most spectacular U.S. electric vehicle in small production. Affordable and clean electricity is needed for mass production of electric vehicles and convenient fueling at Electron Stations which today we call Gas Stations. Or at park-and-plug parking stalls: It is not hard to imagine a parking meter with an electric outlet, isn’t it?

Better Place offers a concept of an all-electric car future. Hawaii's Governor Lingle has been briefed. California signed up last week.

Policy and Infrastructure: A New Course for Civil Engineerring Majors at UH-Manoa

CEE 491 – Policy and Infrastructure
Dr. Panos D. Prevedouros
Spring 2009

Infrastructure is a rather complex and not-so-clearly defined word. Only about twenty years ago there was an attempt to define it with some precision by the National Research Council (NRC); its definition provided some clarity by adopting the term public works infrastructure to include

"both specific functional modes - highways, streets, roads, and bridges; mass transit; airports and airways; water supply and water resources; wastewater management; solid-waste treatment and disposal; electric power generation and transmission; telecommunications; and hazardous waste management - and the combined system these modal elements comprise.
A comprehension of infrastructure spans not only these public works facilities, but also the operating procedures, management practices, and development policies that interact together with societal demand and the physical world to facilitate the transport of people and goods, provision of water for drinking and a variety of other uses, safe disposal of society's waste products, provision of energy where it is needed, and transmission of information within and between communities.”

Of note is the part of the definition that clarifies that infrastructure is not only the physical system but the operation and management of it. Operation and management is an area of weakness for CEEs. In addition, in many systems O+M costs may dwarf high construction costs because public works infrastructure has a typical life span of 50 to 100 years. Various types of engineers are involved in the operation of water, sewer, trash, road, airport, harbor, electric and telecom systems.

Now that we have a definitional grasp of one of the keywords of the course’s title, let’s cover our bases by defining policy. A policy is a deliberate plan of action to guide decisions and achieve rational outcome(s). The term may apply to government, private sector organizations and groups, and individuals.

The scope of this course may be narrowed down a bit by focusing on public (or government) policy on public works infrastructure with emphasis on civil engineering systems. What are major infrastructure systems? What are their technologies and functional variations? What are their characteristics and costs? Are there size limitations?

Engineers should be and in many cases are the primary advisors of elected or appointed decision makers responsible for the development or expansion of a type of infrastructure. What information and evaluation techniques would an engineer provide to decision makers in order for them to make the right choices for the community? Here is where good technical knowledge, honesty and ethics, and ability to keep up with new technologies and methods make the engineer a key partner in the choices and the future of a community.

The main areas covered in the course are outlined below:

• The NEPA Process
• Impacts Analysis
• Evaluation of alternatives
• Case Study 1 – Transportation alternatives
• Case Study 2 – Pavements, cost, life, recycling
• Case Study 3 – Bridges and tunnels
• Case Study 4 – Sewer lines and water lines
• Case Study 5 – Utility tunnels, utility corridors
• Case Study 6 – Solid waste management
• Case Study 7 – Residential and industrial waste: Recycling, reuse, remanufacture
• Case Study 8 to 10 – Sustainability via renewable energy: Wave, ocean upwelling, geothermal, wind, solar, nuclear, biofuels, other
• Case Study 11 – Flood management
• Case Study 12 – Emergency management

This course relies on textbooks from previous CEE courses and on extensive use of the Internet to analyze infrastructure types and issues, and develop case studies to improve the situation on Oahu. It relies extensively on self learning and group collaboration to develop an understanding for the sample case studies.

Students form groups of three to five and tackle several case studies, identify alternatives and apply a high level evaluation. Each student will work on five case studies. Each case study culminates in a comprehensive presentation and brief report.

Is 50.6% a Win for Rail?

Official results for Oahu can be found from the state office of elections:
http://hawaii.gov/elections/results/2008/general/files/cch.pdf

One can see that all state and county questions passed or failed by a clear margin, except for the rail question for which the votes and percentages were:

YES 155,880 (50.6%)
NO 140,623 (45.6%)
Blank Votes 11,441 (3.7%)

If one accounts for the disproportional promotion, support from several special interest groups, and powerful "old boy" backing, then the result is not only surprising but it is embarrassing to the pro-rail cause.

Recall this poll reported in The Honolulu Advertiser putting rail support at 59%. It came in late August 2008 (http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20080827/NEWS09/808270388/-1/NEWS09), well before the October advertising storm by rail supporters: "Another rail poll, similar results: 59 percent of voters in People's Pulse survey back $3.7 billion project. That 59 percent level compares with 38 percent of voters who opposed the project, according to the People's Pulse poll ..." The problem is that the election votes in support of rail are barely over 50% and nowhere near 59%!

Proponents of rail had a $110 million engineering and marketing team and flooded airwaves, TV screens and print media. In comparison, opponents had peanuts; they did no TV promotion and only minimal print media promotion.

I understand and support elections of officials with a 0.6% or even a 0.01% margin. The elected person will stay in office for a limited and prescribed amount of time.

However, moving ahead with a multibillion dollar infrastructure project with a life cycle of over 100 years on a 0.6% "advantage" is an entirely different choice. Clearly 49.4% of the voters did not say yes to the project.

We can boot a crooked or ineffective elected official or re-write a bad law or amendment. But we cannot undo a multibillion piece of infrastructure which will cost us roughly three times the annual City budget. A two thirds majority would have been appropriate for this choice.

Of course, in the short term the railroading process is likely to proceed unabated, but in the longer term a permanent derailment is likely.

Proposed 19 Mile Rail for Oahu. Bottom Line Benefit: 1% Increase in Transit Trips

Since 2006 I have been saying that the proposed rail on Oahu is nothing short of a joke. The just-released 2008 Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) proves this. Table 3-13 shows that transit share will increase from 6% to 7%. Auto based trips change from 82% to 80%, and walk-and-bike trips are 12%.

No administrator in his or her right mind would advocate the expenditure of five billion dollars for an 1% gain in the share of transit trips. The correct priorities would be to fix the sidewalks and build traffic and bike lanes. Not in Honolulu where administrators are proud to provide TheBoat at a taxpayer subsidy of $42 per trip!

Here is the breakdown of daily trips on weekdays as in DEIS page 3-18:

• 2007 No Rail = 184,000 total transit trips (on bus)
• 2030 No Rail = 226,000 total transit trips (on bus)
• 2030 With Rail = 249,200 total transit trips (on bus and rail)

Notice the tiny benefit of rail. And to put it in perspective, that's out of more than four (4) million daily trips on Oahu!

This result evokes the paraphrasing of Churchill... Never before so many paid so much, to benefit so few and by so little.

Figure 3-1 shows that from 1984 to 2008, transit speed decreased by 1.5 mph. So in the last 22 years the average speed of the TheBus fell by 1.5 miles per hour. This is such a calamity that according to the Go-Rail-Go luminous spokespersons requires a five billion dollar rail to fix it!

The Notice of Intent or NOI is violated. This is the 2006 agreement between the Federal Transit Administration and the City and County of Honolulu. The NOI explicitly mentions a fixed guideway from Kapolei to the UH. The DEIS guideway starts well outside Kapolei and ends at Ala Moana Shopping Center. The 34 miles have become 19, but the alleged traffic benefits have more than doubled from the 2006 Alternatives Analysis!

It should be obvious that this DEIS will provide a lot of entertainment in the coming weeks. By law, comments are requested by January 7, 2009. But thanks to the careful planning of the Mufi administration, Oahu's public had the Sunday and Monday before the elections to read and understand 400 plus pages prior to making an educated choice at the polls.

Does Rail Stimulate Long Term Urban Growth and Development?

Proponents of rail argue that billions of dollars of development will occur along a rail line and they offer multibillion dollar estimates from other cities.

Let’s take a few examples of large developments that occurred on a 6-mile corridor in Honolulu between 1992 and 2008:

• Extensive hotel and retail renovations in Waikiki
• Two new towers at Hilton Hawaiian Village
• The Hawaii Convention Center
• Ala Moana Center nearly doubled in size
• Three colossal Nauru towers
• Several other large buildings along Kapiolani Blvd. and in Kakaako
• UH’s Kakaako Medical Complex
• Aloha Tower Marketplace development
• A couple of new towers in downtown Honolulu including First Hawaiian Bank tower, the state’s tallest building
• Redevelopment of Dole Cannery and the large Costco complex in Iwilei.

All these and other smaller developments sum up to multi billion dollar development along the 1992 rail route. We did not build rail. But if we had, then all the developments above would be credited to it!

Lesson: You do not need rail for development and opportunities to flourish. You need a robust economy, a well-paid populous, low taxes, good quality products and services (tourism, education, local products, etc.), steady and smart leadership, and reliable infrastructure and government operations. Rail is simply a scheme to rob a million people (through taxes) in order to benefit a few hundred insiders and a few thousand workers, most of them temporary.

Initial Comments on the City Released Untitled and Undated Draft EIS Summary

• This document is endless blah-blah with very few project specific numbers.
• Cost has escalated from $3.7 billion in 2006 to $4.8 billion in current dollars and FTA contribution remains in $900 million 2006 dollars resulting in an FTA contribution of under 25%, the lowest contribution of any recent rail system in the nation.
• This document makes it clear, that the only system in question is from East Kapolei to Ala Moana Center. It does not include any information about west Kapolei, UH and Waikiki which are now “anticipated future plans.” Up till now we believed that anticipated future plans were Mufi’s obfuscations about extensions to Mililani, Waianae and Hawaii Kai.
• 212 condemnations including 1 church and 67 business is a substantial impact. Also 84 affected historical resources is a substantial impact. It is not clear whether any of these impacts and their mitigation costs are in the price tag.
• Extensive utility relocations (sewers, water, gas, electric lines) will be needed. They are not mentioned and are not likely included in the price tag.
• Total congestion reduction estimates of 23% are pure fantasy. No such relief can be achieved even if trains can be filled to their theoretical maximum capacity of 6,000 passengers in the peak direction. Throughout the nation, rail studies show that for modern rail systems only up to 25% of rail riders are ex-motorists. The rest are ex-bus riders, ex-carpoolers and new trips. Thus rail may reduce traffic on H-1 by 6%. This rail will never provide a two digit congestion relief.
• Current City presentations assert that the project covers a corridor that includes 60% of Oahu’s population. The summary says that a Project Station Area is one half mile around each station. The stations are the only relevant point of the system. The station areas cover less than 5% of Oahu’s population.
• The 2003 FEIS used a lower Oahu population and a far cheaper gas price (which works against transit) but it produced much higher ridership for a bus system than the 2006 rail estimates. But this alternative is not in the EIS.
• There is no form of exclusive busway in the EIS. It is rail or nothing. What a poor payoff from a 100+ million dollar consultant contract!
• Visual and aesthetic impacts include “project components that are out of scale and character with their setting.” This is one exceptionally precise statement this DEIS summary makes. The whole project is out of scale and character with Oahu.

One must be cautious in interpreting this FTA approval. It is not a federal approval of the project and its impacts. It is approval as to form and not as to importance of the impacts. In other words, the FTA approval of this DEIS means that it is sufficiently comprehensive in looking at potential impacts and the proper models were used to analyze the impacts. The FTA did not approve of the impacts. Two examples:

The FTA is not in the business of approving the demolition of churches and the destruction of 100+ year old trees. The community must decide if those are acceptable impacts or if the project needs to be rerouted.

The FTA is not in the business of reassigning right of ways from city to state and vice versa. The rail project takes away all the median and some sidewalks of Kamehameha Hwy. in Aiea. That’s State DOT property and the state has to determine whether this permanent loss of their right of way is acceptable.

FTA’s signature to release the DEIS does not mean
-- that the impacts are minimal or approved
-- that the mitigation of impacts is adequate
-- that all outputs are accurate and that the benefits are large
-- that the financial plan is good, or that a better one would be hard to obtain.

All of the above are to be considered by the impacted community and its agencies, and decide on the weaknesses of the study, on the severity of the impacts, on the mitigation strategies, and on the financial details vis-à-vis the ability and willingness of the population to pay.
Once the community and all involved and affected agencies sign off on the impacts and mitigations (as amended), then FTA may give federal approval. It usually takes more than two years from the release of the Draft EIS to the completion of the Final EIS.

Pavement Maintenance

Hawaii at 0.39, had the second lowest score in the nation in Interstate Pavement Serviceability in 2004. The average score of Pavement Serviceability in the U.S was 0.82. The situation is even worse for Honolulu.

Pavement Serviceability Index or PSI is a standard pavement quality metric ranging from one (1) excellent to zero (0) for terrible. In 2006, for 66 urban areas with population of 500,000 or more:

• Los Angeles had the lowest average score of 0.16 and San Francisco-Oakland with next lowest score of 0.17. Honolulu and San Jose had the third lowest score of 0.19.
• There were 25 urban areas within the score range of 0.25 to 0.50 including Albuquerque with a score of 0.39.
• There were 29 urban areas within the score range of 0.51 to 0.75 including Salt Lake City with a score of 0.59.
• There were nine urban areas within the score range of 0.76 to 0.87 including Jacksonville with a score of 0.86 and Tampa-St. Petersburg with the highest score of 0.87.

As much as a 71% saving can be realized if preventive maintenance were performed in a systematic way. The core of PMS is rating the pavement surface quality for every street in the city. From that the system recommends a program of annual expenditures that will help maintain good quality streets at that level or higher by preventing or reducing the wear from weather and vehicles.

To keep a road in good condition its surface needs to be maintained. Failure to maintain the surface leads to failure of the entire layer of pavement and sometimes the subsurface base, forcing the replacement of the entire pavement layer with new asphalt – an expensive process. An easy way to think of pavement (asphalt) preservation is to liken it to changing engine oil in your car. If you change the oil on reasonable recommended schedule, generally, the engine will last a long time. The same goes for a properly built street – with a refresher coat every 7-10 years it will last twice as long as normal.

Breaks in the surface can lead to hairline crack formation which allows the entrance of water into and below the pavement, leading to a shortened pavement life and early failure of the pavement subgrade base. Seal coating restores the oxidized surface and seals the pavement to prevent water entrance as well as adding a new wear course and adding improved traction.

Seal coats such as chip seals are more environmentally sound than paving. Three applications of chip seals over a 30 year period will use less than half the rock and oil of a conventional asphalt overlay.

One mile of collector arterial can be chip sealed in one week. If it had been repaved, it would have taken one month. Sweeping of loose gravel begins immediately after the chip is laid down eliminating the need to close the road to traffic. A final top coat of light oil is placed on the chip a few days after the chip is laid down, locking down any remaining loose chips.

Repaving of a typical residential street with three inches of pavement, in 2008 dollars, runs the range of $25 – 35/square yard, depending on the complexity of the project. In comparison, chip seal runs $3-3.50/square yard. In a 30 year life cycle (assuming three chip seals) that translates to as much as a 71% savings. Savings sorely needed to rebuilt streets that have failed, improve substandard width streets, put in sidewalks and take care of aging traffic signals.

Maintenance and rehabilitation can be cheaper if performed early and methodically instead of lately and on a random, ad hoc or “plotical whim” basis. For example, Orange County, California implemented a Pavement Management System (PaMS) two decades ago. Before its implementation, 50% of the pavements in the network were in good condition and 24% in bad condition; while twenty years later 78% were in good condition and 5% in bad condition, while at the same time both funding and personnel in maintenance decreased (Allen and Lorick, 2007). Additionally, the Michigan Department of Transportation has calculated that savings in maintenance are $6 for every dollar invested in Pavement Management (National Cooperative Highway Research Program, 2004).

The sketch below clearly shows the deterioration of pavement condition over time.




Pavement Management “involves the identification of optimum strategies at various management levels as well as the implementation of these strategies. It is an all-encompassing process that covers all those activities involved in providing and maintaining pavements at an adequate level of service. These range from initial information acquisition to the planning, programming and execution of new construction maintenance, and rehabilitation, to the details of individual project design and construction; to periodic monitoring of pavements in-service”.

Pavement Management may use a large number of measurements for distresses in asphalt pavements: Alligator Cracking, Bleeding, Block Cracking, Bumps and Sags, Corrugation, Depression, Edge Cracking, Joint Reflection Cracking, Lane/Shoulder Drop-Off, Longitudinal and Transverse Cracking, Patching and Utility Cut Patching, Polished Aggregate, Potholes, Railroad Crossing, Rutting, Shoving, Slippage Cracking, Swell, Weathering and Raveling.

Pavement Management has been successful on many occasions, e.g., in the Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) which has used a PaMS since 1980. The ADOT found out that the roads after PaMS implementation deteriorate later than prior to its implementation. The Tolerable Roughness Level (93in/mi) at 16.8 years of age, instead of the 14.8 years they used to last before reaching that level prior to the implementation of PaMS. In the case of the Interstate Roads of the State of Arizona, the pavements last 31.6 years within the Tolerable Roughness Level once the PaMS was implemented and before PaMS they reached that level at 18.9 years of age. The savings in budget provided by PaMS in Arizona are estimated to be up to $423 million during the 16 year period that last from 1981 to 1996. The benefit/cost ratio procured by PaMS is 51 to 1.

Letter to U.S. DOT Secretary Mary Peters

I assisted Cliff Slater of Honolulutraffic.com in preparing this important letter to U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Mary Peters. It speaks volumes of the conspiracy to disqualify all superior alternatives and promote rail as the "locally preferred alternative."

October 28, 2008.

Mary E. Peters
Secretary
U.S. Dept. of Transportation
1200 New Jersey Ave, SE
Washington, DC 20590

Dear Secretary Peters:
We wrote to you on January 15th this year requesting the reinstatement of the Managed Lane Alternative (MLA) in Honolulu’s Transit Corridor Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS). We have received no reply from you even though the DEIS is now pending.
In addition to the MLA, we also request the inclusion in the next iteration of the EIS the Bus/Rapid Transit (BRT) Program as fully described in the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) that the Federal Transit Administration approved in 2003.
We have lately noted that this BRT FEIS had forecast ridership six percent greater than is forecast in the Alternatives Analysis (AA) for the rail alternative (fixed guideway). Further the capital cost projected was one-fifth that currently forecast for the rail line’s MOS.
Dr. Panos Prevedouros, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Hawaii, has kindly provided us with the following basic data showing these forecasts together with some of the assumptions made at the time:

It seems rather strange to us that this BRT alternative was not considered during the AA process especially considering that Parsons Brinckerhoff was the principal consultant in both the BRT FEIS and the AA for rail. And also in light of their comment at the time that,
The light rail transit alternative was dropped because subsequent analyses revealed that Bus/Rapid Transit using electric-powered vehicles could accomplish virtually all of the objectives of light rail transit at substantially less cost.
We therefore request that this BRT program, with a suitably modified In-Town section, be reinstated in a Supplemental Draft EIS together with the MLA.
Sincerely,
HONOLULUTRAFFIC.COM
Cliff Slater
Chair
CDS/rrs

CC:
CEQ
FTA Ron Fisher
FTA James Simpson
FTA Ray Sukys

InfraConsult Goes Ballistic about the EZWay

InfraConsult is a private company hired by the Mufi administration to manage the rail project. Mike Scheider of InfraConsult recently wrote a review of the Kobayashi and Prevedouros plan of the EZWay plan which provides real traffic congestion solutions. It is modular, efficient, affordable and based on solid local expertise for design and construction. All these of course are major threats to the overseas design, engineering, equipment and operation expertise required for trains.

Below is a point to point response.

InfraConsult: A 3-lane wide, 15-mile long elevated highway for “guided buses,” unguided buses, carpools, and single-occupant high-MPG cars will cost more to construct than an elevated rail guideway. A 3-lane highway is more than twice as wide as a guideway for electric trains, and will require considerably more structural reinforcement. Furthermore, anyone who believes that this highway in the sky can be built without a full environmental impact analysis is in serious denial of environmental reality and has little knowledge of state and federal requirements. In fact, work could not begin on such a facility for many years after the first phase of the train is already under construction.

EZWay: The EZWay is a simple elevated structure that cost only $30 million per mile to construct in Tampa, Florida. The EZWay is complete at 15 miles. It has no requirement for guided buses. The rail has a 20 mile starter element that is used in local promotions to deceive the public that it is a four instead of a six billion dollar system. The whole rail system is 30 to 38 miles depending on which politician or land developer you try to please. Although the rail may have a narrower guideway, 20 to 30 massive stations will more that make up the amount of concrete “saved” on the guideway. The EZWay will need an environmental review but the 2.5 mile Nimitz Flyover of it already has a full EIS and was about to go to bid in 2004. It can be built much sooner than rail.

The environmental requirements of having express buses use freeway shoulders are minimal. Some critical stretches can be operational before rail even breaks ground.

InfraConsult: The proposed elevated highway is clearly ineligible for Federal funding from either the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) or the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). Section 5309 of the Federal code is unambiguous: No facility that permits single-occupant cars qualifies for New Starts funding from FTA, and no project that is unspecified in the O’ahu Metropolitan Planning Organization (OMPO) long-range plan can receive FHWA funding. Thus, the EZ plan’s major cost elements will have to be borne locally – more than $3 billion for the elevated highway and tunnels, plus the costs of bus facilities, numerous interchanges and grade separations, and over $400 million for new buses – a major cost item which was nowhere to be found in Kobayashi’s plan.

EZWay: One third of the EZWay is a bus-only facility and is fully fundable by the FTA. The rest is a high occupancy facility and can be funded by the Federal Highway Administration which also funded H-1, H-2, H-3 and other key roads throughout Hawaii. InfraConsult and the rail proponents have fixated their mind in the tiny FTA New Starts fund and ignore other relatively huge federal sources. Also, modular plans like the EZWay are far more flexible and eligible for earmarks, of which Senator Daniel Inouye knows a thing or two.

The EZWay does not encourage solo vehicle ridership. On the contrary, it provides a strong travel time savings incentive to carpool. The EZWay will be the first express facility in the nation to explicitly provide an incentive for green and highly efficient vehicles. EZWay allows Honolulu to be an international innovator. Of course, innovation is the last thing in the mind of rail supporters.

InfraConsult: It is unlikely that the transit-related General Excise Tax (GET) supplement will be permitted to fund Kobayashi’s plan, owing to language in the state statute that disallows these monies to be spent building new highway lanes.

EZWay: Fewer than 10 words need to change in the Act to strike out the discriminatory GET surcharge for Oahu. And if rail gets a NO in the ballot, the Act simply has to change and allow for the funding of real solutions.

InfraConsult: There are far too few access points along the proposed elevated highway to permit entry/exit for carpools and buses, causing significantly more driving for local residents and circulator buses to find and enter the elevated highway.

EZWay: This is by design because the plan addresses the huge mobility crisis between leeward and central Oahu on one hand and the primary urban center (PUC). It is not designed as a typical full access freeway between Waipahu and Honolulu. The ramps are designed to maximize quality of flow while serving very large traffic generators like Aloha Stadium, Pearl Harbor, Airport, Mapunapuna, Kalihi, downtown and Kakaako. This is more economical and entirely sufficient for providing substantial relief from congestion.

InfraConsult: Hotel Street simply cannot accommodate more buses without creating further transit gridlock. To assert otherwise defies logic.

EZWay: Only up to 20 express buses per hour destined to Moiliili and the UH may have to go through Hotel Street to connect to the University BRT. Hotel Street can do this. The current occasional peak hour mess on Hotel Street is a testament of mismanagement, not of overloading. TheBus is completely devoid of any tools of advanced fleet management. To give an analogy, many now use third generation cell phones, yet TheBus is run with Hawaii 5-0 style “Motorolas.”

InfraConsult: The operating costs of an all-bus system are 30%-50% higher than for a rail/bus system, which could result in an all-bus program requiring higher taxes for Honolulu residents. In addition, buses are typically replaced every 12-15 years, and rail vehicles every 30-40 years. The math is simple and straightforward.

EZWay: False. Rail alone is a largely useless mode given the densities along the route and the fact that very few people will walk more than a quarter mile to/from a station. Rail requires an extensive bus system. Only in very large cities of well over five million people does rail get sufficient midday and two directional use to make it worth some savings over bus. (But even in New York City buses carry more people than rail.) The proposed rail on Oahu is such a loser because it only offers some useful service for two hours per day per direction, so roughly it is only 10% efficient. Then account that almost half of the year the UH system is not is session and rail’s efficiency drops to 5%.

InfraConsult: Existing lanes for automobiles would need to be removed in and around Downtown to allow buses to operate in bus-only lanes, making traffic congestion in town considerably worse than with an exclusive rail alignment.

EZWay: False, because InfraConsult makes things up. The reason we opposed the Harris BRT was the lane-taking in town. The EZWay proposal has BRT on King and Beretania Streets and uses priority lanes only when parking is prohibited (during peak periods only.) This, along with signal priority provides a fast service to the UH-Manoa with no ill effects to the King and Beretania Street traffic. The EZWay avoids the disastrous Harris BRT plan to permanently take two lanes away from both Kapiolani and Ala Moana Boulevards. The EZWay plan includes no permanent lane taking.

InfraConsult: Regardless of “spin,” it’s clear to all serious-minded people that electric trains are more environmentally friendly than increases in auto and bus usage. Aside from costing commuters far less than driving, a modern rail transit system will aid in our long-range national goal of reducing dependency on foreign oil.

EZWay: The EZWay plan is an engineering blueprint and not a TV commercial made up with distorted statistics targeting the uneducated public and unaware environmentalists.

A significant fact that goes a long way in support of the EZWay is that the 2003 BRT study for Honolulu shows that despite using a lower population and much cheaper cost of gas, the total mass transit ridership with BRT is substantially higher that of the proposed rail and at one fifth the cost.

The EZWay is a substantial upgrade to the 2003 BRT system. The EZWay plan provides for a 15 mile exclusive bus lane which the Regional BRT did not have. So it will have at least 10% more transit riders than Rail at a much lower cost. Its FTA ranking will be far superior to Rail.

The 2003 BRT was part of the Oahu Regional Transportation Plan and EZWay can also become part of the ORTP once the required analysis is complete.

But then the likes of InfraConsult and the Honolulu Advertiser ask: Where is your bureaucratic paperwork, and where are your federal funding guarantees?

It is preposterous for engineering firms with over one hundred million dollar contracts (of our taxes) to require of those opposing rail and offering detailed alternatives to have similar analyses done and have their alternatives included in bureaucratic lists and rankings. It is also sad that in the current state of politics and journalism on Oahu, many politicians and many of the mainstream media instead of questioning the contracted consultants, they too demand detailed analysis and federal guarantees from opposing citizens and engineers!

The Power of Performance-Driven Criteria

Performance Driven Contracting is one of several techniques and technologies in contracting and construction that enable faster and less costly infrastructure project development and completion.

The following post is an abbreviated version of an article written by Pete Rahn who is president of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) and executive director of the Missouri Department of Transportation (Missouri DOT). He serves on the executive committee of the Transportation Research Board (TRB,) as well as its task force on accelerating innovation in the highway industry. He can be contacted at pete.rahn@modot.mo.gov.

Accountability is a critical component to earning public trust and gaining additional resources. One approach that is working well for some departments of transportation is incorporating stringent performance-driven specifications into design-build projects.
Bloger’s Note: Hawaii has laws that enable Design-Build (DB) projects and the design and construction of the H-3 Freeway was a DB project. DB is a basic form of public-private partnership (PPP.)

The innovative approach of Performance Driven Contracting (versus the traditional methods-and-means specifications) is driving down costs, speeding timetables and helping agencies to be more responsive to citizens.

The key to performance-based specifications is not to tell the proposing teams how to deliver the project. Rather than providing detailed plans and expecting design-build teams to submit design details with costs and completion dates, the Department sets the dollar amount and delivery deadline and asks the team to supply the scope within these parameters. So teams compete on how much project they can deliver. As a result, they are responding with proposals of innovative financing, innovative design and innovative program delivery.

Texas, Utah and Florida use this new dimension of design-build. Missouri DOT incorporated performance-driven specifications into three of its design-build projects:

• Reconstruction of Interstate 64 in St. Louis
• kcICON, a major interchange and bridge construction project in downtown Kansas City
• Safe and Sound Bridge Improvement Program, which involves rebuilding 802 bridges throughout Missouri.

Under the best circumstances, the Missouri DOT estimated the high-profile I-64 reconstruction project would be a six- to eight-year endeavor, costing $750 million.

The performance criteria, however, stated that the 10-mile project would need to be completed in three and half years and within the department’s budget of $535 million. The results have exceeded expectations: The team delivered 95% of the department’s wish list items in less time than stipulated in the contract.

The reconstruction was predicted by some to have an extremely negative impact on the region because it required the interstate be closed for two years—five miles per year—while work was completed. Word of the shutdown provoked “doom and gloom” speculations from citizens and news media. But those speculations never materialized. Instead, the project has transformed Missouri DOT’s image in St. Louis. And, the department has public accolades to prove it.

The I-64 triumph is due not only to performance-driven criteria but also unprecedented collaboration. All design, construction, department and federal highway representatives work in the same building and are empowered to make decisions on the spot.

The use of performance-driven criteria will become more commonplace as agencies discover how flexible and valuable these specifications can be in helping them promise and deliver transportation projects.

How Little We Know about Mufi's Rail

Of course it is my strong recommendation that Honolulu registered voters vote NO in the city charter amendment asking for the establishment of a steel wheel on steel rails fully elevated heavy rail system.

Linda, a person who voted for me in the 2008 primary election (who I do not know in person) sent me a very interesting email listing a litany of important questions. My answer to most of her question is: I do not know.

Because all these important questions remain unaswered and because the rail's Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) was not provided with sufficient time for public review and comment prior to the election, the public Must Vote NO on the Rail question.

Linda's e-mail is reproduced below with her permission, in its entirety and with no changes. If you have answers to the majority of her questions please send them over.

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What is the real reason that Hannemann is pushing for the rail by 2009 even though we do not have any guarantee on federal monies? It must be that the unions, etc. were promised to get him elected as mayor, then next as governor.

Also, even though we receive federal monies, won't we still as taxpayers have to dish out the balance, which no one seems to know what the actual amount will be. Is the real reason to develop the rail to bring in money and create jobs for the next 10-15 years? I'm all for job creation, but in the end, we'll all be paying more taxes and only those connected with the rail will be taking in any money. What is the true cost of adjusting bus routes, building car lots, providing security (hopefully), training or bringing in mainland staff?

Have issues such as safety and security and maintaining the rail been addressed? I am very, very concerned about that. It seems that even the Bus has difficulty with upkeep. The seats and floors are not cleaned, and torn. How long will it take to fix anything on the train since we obviously have to bring it in? Even traffic lights, etc. take months and months to be brought to Hawaii. My daughter stopped taking the city bus because of the lack of security and this is on a bus in which the bus driver can see and hear the riders. What happens on a train that will not have any security person on it? It seems like the perfect situation for muggings and even worse crimes. How about the car lots - any guarantee on security for our cars? Or will our cars be open game?

Who will actually work for the train system? How many regular workers, including maintenance and repair people and at what cost? Will it be run by union workers? What happens if there's a strike? What is the actual daily labor/running cost that will be involved?

What actual bus routes will connect to the train? How long is the actual time for the person to get to the bus station, ride the bus, then ride the train, then maybe have to walk or take another bus? I think people are just thinking about the train riding time, not all of the logistics just to get on the train and get to where they have to go. If they take their cars, again the safety issue and how many car lots?

I think demonstrating the actual noise decibel was a great idea. Just telling people it's so many decibels, people don't understand what that means in comparison to freeway noise, noise from an ambulance, etc. I would not want to be near constant steel-on-steel noise especially if you live in a residential area. I lived in Japan, so you can hear the train noise late at night (among all the other city noises). They have noise decibel machines to help people be aware of the noise pollution - do we want to have to do that here? I'm not sure if they have some kind of law about what the decibel limits are.

I would be more open to a system in Waikiki up to the airport area, University - probably not steel-on-steel, if all of the above questions were answered clearly!

As for a system from Kapolei - no. I think the city should keep its promise made to the Kapolei residents 20 or more years ago, before they bought their homes. Create the 2nd City - so they don't even have to come into town. They can have free time to spend with their families - quality of life! Isn't that what was promised - to build offices out that side so they wouldn't have to come into town. More time, less traffic, better for our environment, better quality of life. All the money they plan to spend on rail - spend it on building the 2nd City for the sake of all of us.

Mahalo.