Obama Re-elected. Market Drops 2%. So What?

I am sure that my Obama loving friends celebrated well last night. I'm glad they did because it's pretty much downhill from here.  This market reaction is only a tiny harbinger of what's to come.

Nothing personal with the President, but as Margaret Thatcher put it, Socialism lasts only as long as other people's money last. The math is both simple and brutal.

I hope you don’t think that only the top 1% of income earners lost a bit of wealth overnight.  Government and private company retirement funds, individual 401Ks, university endowments and most other savings and investments of the remaining 99% are in the stock market. (And in US bonds and T-bills that pay less than inflation so people's savings diminish with time while pension under-funding is growing.)

Of course Californians voted for added taxation to themselves. The outcome of this will be none other than ... Ross Perot's "giant sucking sound..."

These days the world is running at the speed of the Internet. Trends develop and bubbles burst quickly. So all of us under 75 stand a good chance in finding what Greece is all about where, among other things, unemployment for people under 25 yo is at about 50%.

Celebration will quickly turn into sequestration. The Treasury has quietly informed the President that the debt limit will be reached before the year is out.

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On November 7, the day after the election the DOW dropped from 13,300 to 13,000. Some said that this was a temporary knee-jerk reaction. By November 15 the DOW had slid further to 12,500.

Rail Is Not a Path to Prosperity for Honolulu

ENERGY.  Rail may be electric but 85% of electricity production on Oahu comes from oil and coal. This won't change much with the current intermittent renewable energy schemes. So rail does not reduce our economic dependency to imported fuels but it increases our dependency to imported sole source equipment and parts for which knowledge base is absent throughout Hawaii.

DEVELOPMENT.  Rail is not needed for TODs and other development. To be done successfully, these need a solid business foundation and strong demand. Neither is present for major development. US Census statistics clearly show that Oahu and Hawaii are in prolonged and perhaps permanent "sideways" trends.  See here [link].  How can a place prosper when prime agricultural land is turned into cookie cutter sprawled homes and fake gentleman farms?

JOBS.  It is bad policy to develop transportation solutions in order to provide jobs, particularly by selecting a type of transportation that will take the transit subsidy share of the city budget from 11% to 19%. This is the path to bankruptcy, not the path to prosperity.

TRANSIT SHARE.  It is counterproductive to develop a form of transportation that will take the current mass transit share from 6% to 7.4% at a cost of over $4 billion for the local economy. Unsurprisingly if one looks at the Final EIS, all freeway and main arterial screen-lines are shown to have similar or worse congestion with rail. Congestion chokes our economy. Fake relief will provide fake results.

CONGESTION.  Honolulu has a modest tax base and it clearly cannot support mega-projects such as the proposed rail. Honolulu has relatively severe congestion because it is among the most lane deficient cities in the union.

ECONOMY.  Despite having the best bus system in the nation and very expensive fuel pricing, the demand for independent travel is very strong, partly due to tourism, military and people having multiple jobs. A single rail line does very little for tourists, too little for people with multiple jobs and nothing for the military.

MOBILITY.  A lot of our traffic is school and college based and rail does really nothing for these trips. Over half of the traffic on the roads is pickup trucks and SUVs of plumbers, electricians, distributors, repairmen and soccer moms. Rail does nothing for them too.

PRODUCTIVITY.  Adding a lot of nothing gets us nothing. In fact the FEIS clearly shows that 70,000 daily riders will switch from bus to rail.  Add a few carpoolers and the 1% who may abandon their car and that's how the rail ridership comes about. Where is the productivity in this?  Even of rail had no construction cost, one would be hard pressed to come up with positive productivity for it.

GUT TheBus.  Last but not least, the rail will dismantle the No.1 system in the nation. All TheBus routes listed below (copied from the rail FEIS) will be terminated at the nearest train station or eliminated altogether: B, C, E, 3, 9, 11, 20, 43, 53, 73, 81, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 96, 97, 98A, 101, 102, 103, 201, 202.

An abbreviated TV editorial of this article appeared on Hawaii News Now on October 29 and 30.  Mahalo to Rick Blangiardi, General Manager of KGMB and KHNL for this opportunity.

Nimitz Flyover Cost Estimate Suggests that Rail Will Cost $7 Billion

In comparison, the structural and construction cost of the rail viaduct per mile will be similar or higher than $270 million per mile. So 20 miles of rail at $270 million per mile will cost $5.4 Billion. The rail's budget is $5.16 Billion. This means that the rail project will have no money left for trains, stations, a rail yard, etc. after 20 miles of viaduct has been built. Or that the rail will cost well more than $7 billion to complete.

Read full article in Honolulu Civil Beat.

Bus vs. Rail – 2007 Comparison and 2012 Opinion from Los Angeles

2007

The Gold Line BRT opened in 2003, the Orange Line Rail in 2005. Each is about 14 miles long, and each has 13 stations, about a mile apart. How do they compare?

• The BRT line was expected to start out at 5,000 to 7,500 average weekday boardings, growing to 22,000 by 2020. It actually achieved the 2020 goal by its seventh month.
• The LRT, by contrast, was supposed to start off with 30,000 weekday boardings and double that by 2023. But its actual ridership has been lower than that of the BRT line—well below projections.
• The capital cost of the BRT line was $349 million. The Light Rail cost was $859 million.
• The operating costs also favor BRT, with the Orange Line costing $0.54 per passenger mile compared with $1.08 for the Rail. On a cost per boarding basis, it’s $3.79 for BRT versus $7.54 for Rail.
• Lesson: A high-end BRT is far more cost-effective (bang for the buck) than a typical LRT, meaning you get a lot more transit per dollar spent.
• If a city is short on transit dollars, then a simple express bus service on a major arterial can provide tremendous value per dollar spent.

Source: REASON FOUNDATION’S SURFACE TRANSPORTATION INNOVATIONS ISSUE NO. 45 - JULY 2007

2012

"When you look at the size of Honolulu (and) you look at the transportation problem they're seeking to solve, BRT is almost certainly a better investment,"

UCLA Prof. Brian Taylor said.

Taylor's research shows one of the greatest factors in determining a transit system's appeal is the ease with which riders can get to a transit line, whether it's BRT or rail. If a rider needs to go through various steps like walking, driving or transferring to get to a final destination, the less likely he or she is to use public transportation. "So, making the vehicle a little bit faster is not nearly as important as having a cutting down of the wait time," he said.

While the overall number of projected riders appears impressive, Taylor says it's not nearly enough to offset the tremendous capital cost needed to build the system, as well as the additional expenditures required to operate and maintain it. Heavy rail is much better suited for large, metropolitan cities like Tokyo, New York and London, which generate extremely large numbers of riders.

Source: UCLA expert weighs in on transit debate, Andrew Pereira, KITV

 

Honolulu Transit Megaprojects Compared

The same consultant conducting transit system estimations 6 years apart for the City and County of Honolulu has produced the figures tabulated below.

The conclusion is clear: BRT would provide the same transit ridership for about one tenth the cost.

All these figures are from official Final EIS documents.

 

 The final word is that the Rail Emperor truly has no clothes.

A Train Has the Capacity of Five Buses. So What?

Published on page 3 of Honolulu's Filipino Chronicle.

B, C, E, 3, 9, 11, 20, 43, 53, 73, 81, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 96, 97, 98A, 101, 102, 103, 201, 202

The title of this article is not the code for a very nerdy version of the Hawaii-based LOST television series.

These are all the bus routes that will be eliminated or terminated to the nearest rail station. See Final EIS appendix D.

We all know how the public reacted to the relatively manini changes to TheBus last summer. Wait until two dozen routes are drastically changed.

Several of these routes are express providing a competitive service. Many of them are heavily used.

In addition several new and confusing "feeder" routes will be added. So basically the No.1 transit bus in the nation will be dismantled and reconfigured to provide life support for the rail.

Rail's ridership would be much closer to zero than the projected 90,000-some riders per day in the opening year, without dismantling and rearranging the majority of TheBus as we know it today, given that (1) nobody lives at the stations and (2) the whole rail line will have only four park-and-ride lots.

The total bus ridership that will be forced to transfer each day is found on page 46: 69,480 rail riders daily will come from the bus.  That's round trip.

So, over 30,000 bus riders daily will be forced to get out of their bus and transfer to rail going to their destination. They may also need to catch a bus at the other end to get to their final destination (i.e., from Ala Moana Center to UH, Waikiki, and from other stations to all the ridges and valleys that the rail does not serve.)  Coming home they will have the reverse transfers from bus to rail to bus. There will be chaos.

What is the logic of providing such a disservice to the loyal transit riders of TheBus?

In conclusion then, B, C, E, 3, 9, 11, 20, 43, 53, 73, 81, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 96, 97, 98A, 101, 102, 103, 201, 202 is the code for transit failure by design in Honolulu.

Fixing the Basics on Rail for Hawaii's Pro-rail Politicians

Full article in Hawaii Reporter. It closes as follows:

If Hawaii's pro-rail politicians are really interested in improving transit in the county of Honolulu, they may begin their education on the history of elevated rail in sunshine cities by simply reading about Miami's Metrorail, and San Juan’s Tren Urbano. Here are a few highlights for Metrorail and Tren Urbano.

Miami’s Elevated Heavy Rail: They got 80% Federal funds but still they run out of money due to cost overruns. (Honolulu gets only 30%).  Ridership forecast was about 200,000 riders (Honolulu's is about 120,000 riders).  When the first segment of the single line opened ridership was only 10,000.  In 1990, six years after opening, it reached only 25% of its forecast ridership or about 50,000! They too ordered trains from Ansaldo and there were allegations of conflicts in the procurement.

San Juan, Elevated Heavy Rail: They got 50% Federal funds but still there was a 74% escalation of construction costs (+74% over budget!)  There was a huge escalation of combined bus and rail operation and maintenance cost after the line was opened. Combined costs shot up by +250%!  There was a downgrade of Puerto Rico’s bond ratings and new taxes were enacted to pay the debt. There was a dramatic decline of total transit ridership (bus and rail) because the train dismantled their bus. It is now more than six years since its opening in 2006 and the train has not reached 50% of its opening year forecast ridership!

Bottom line is that trains are like wind mills. Their theoretical capacity is high and the promises for power and ridership are full of hype.  Once installed reality kicks in and they prove to be only ~25% productive...

Less Traffic Thanks to Telecommuting and Young Adults

"In 1888 Bertha Benz, wife of the carmaker Karl, drove 66 miles from one German city to another to prove to the world that the “horseless carriage” was suited to everyday use. Mrs. Benz succeeded beyond her wildest dreams."

This is The Economists' introduction of an article on urban transportation and the evolving trend of less car travel: "The road less travelled: Car use is peaking in the rich world. Governments should take advantage of that." Less travel? Can this be right? See Figure 1 below.



A few more quotes from the full article "The future of driving -- Seeing the back of the car -- In the rich world, people seem to be driving less than they used to" are as follows:

• Modern life is unimaginable without the car. The automobile has powered the growth of cities and steered their sprawl. Its manufacture has created millions of jobs and eased the development of many millions more.
• Cars are integral to modern life. They account for 70% of all trips not made on foot in the OECD, which includes most developed countries. 
• In the European Union more than 12 million people work in manufacturing and services related to cars and other vehicles, around 6% of the total employed population.
• The equivalent figure for America is 4.5% of private-sector employment, or 8 million jobs.

An interesting revelation of the research reported in The Economist is that current and future young people tend to travel less. There are several reasons for this:

1. Young people tend to socialize more via digital media and meet less often.
2. Car use has become more expensive for young people's parents to afford a car for them or for the young people to afford the sky-high insurance fees.
3. At least some of young people's college or professional education can be via distance learning.
4. Job opportunities for young people are less and lower rewarded in the stagnant economy of the EU and of several debt-laden states in the US.
5. Young people are getting their licenses later than they used to (see Figure 2 above.)

In addition the full democratization of the automobile (meaning that women own and use cars at rates similar to men) concluded at the end of the last century. So this "catch up" trend leading to traffic growth has ended.

More and safer bikeways, subsidized vanpooling, supported telecommuting and, in some cases, clean and reliable mass transit chip away at the dominance of the car. See for example below the gains in vanpooling and telecommuting in Washington State.



Recall that Honolulu rail will increase transit share roughly from 6% of TheBus today to 7% for combined bus and rail. It would be much easier to obtain this 1% with more vanpools and telework!  There is a real world example  for this: Portland, the poster child for light rail. From 1980 to 2011, working at home (mostly telecommuting) increased by 55,000. This is more than three times the growth in rail transit commuting (17,500). During the last decade, working at home passed transit as a work access mode in Portland, and with virtually no public expenditures as opposed to the billions spent on rail lines.

Car or Train? The Choice is Yours.

A picture is worth 1,000 words. 

Two pictures are worth 2,000 words.



Picture 1: A 2013 new mid-size car.
















Picture 2: Typical rush hour train commute.












 Any questions?

Island Heavy Rail Calamity: San Juan Repeats in Honolulu

Tren Urbano (or City Train) in San Juan, Puerto Rico is a perfect comparison with Honolulu's heavy rail:

1. Both are heavy rail systems with a very high cost per mile of rail line.
2. Both are systems on similar tourist/agriculture/military island communities.
3. Both are under Federal Transit Administration oversight.
4. Both received US federal funds.
5. Both have the same lead planner, Parsons Brinkerhoff.

I have written in the past about Tren Urbano:

• The Delusion and Deception in Rail Forecasts.
• Honolulu Rail Forecast 2 to 4 Times Higher than Actual Systems.
• Edinburgh Light Rail Halted. The Usual Suspects. The Usual Results.

Recently, Cliff Slater of HonoluluTraffic.com has developed a documented 2-page summary of the consequences of Tren Urbano such as:

• Huge escalation of construction costs (+74%).
• Huge escalation of combined bus and rail operation and maintenance cost after the line was opened (+250%).
• Downgrade of Puerto Rico’s bond ratings.
• Dramatic decline of total transit ridership (bus and rail) because the Tren cannibalized their bus. This is happening to TheBus now.
• It is now more than five years since its opening and Tren has not reached 50% of its opening year forecast ridership! (See link above where I provide comparisons that show HART ridership estimates are 2 to 4 times too high.)

Now all these terrible transit and financial outcomes occurred in San Juan where population is much higher, and average income and car ownership is much lower than Honolulu's (see 2000 data below). The Tren (like history) is repeating itself in Honolulu. The deliberate discounting of history by current elected officials and certain candidates is truly bewildering.

Enough with The Chinese Straddle Bus!

The Straddling Bus has attracted a lot of attention. I got an early video of this concept developed in China almost two years ago. Now I get two emails a week about it. At least!

Here's my take on it. It's a cool concept, but in reality, it is impractical and difficult as a retrofit. However, it can be adopted in new cities in China, India and other new, highly populated urban areas.

Challenges of the Straddling Bus include but are not limited to these: 

1.       Very few real world streets and traffic lanes are perfectly straight or level... traffic lanes are not built to airport runway standards. Therefore, at a minimum, expensive lane strengthening and re-alignment would be needed in order to operate this bus.
2.       How do we manage a crash of such a huge vehicle on the street? How do we tow it or lift it if it becomes sufficiently incapacitated?
3.       We do not know how "the common distracted driver" will react when a “tunnel” drives over him or her. Driver startling and related crashes will be an issue. This is why I proposed that the straddle bus runs as an Express Bus over existing BRT lines.
4.       The concept requires elevated stations which adds significantly to the cost because all elevated stations need to be ADA compliant. Obviously this will be an express service with stops at intervals of 1 km or longer.
5.       Overpasses, cross wires, sign and signal gantries, and trees will present significant challenges.
6.       Trucks, buses and other large vehicles have to be regulated out of the two lanes that go under the Straddling Bus. Writing the ordinance is easy. Enforcing it is not, and one unfamiliar trucker will block the Straddling Bus for a while.
7.       Receiving U.S. DOT certification to operate it on US city streets won’t be trivial.
 
As of mid-2012 not a single prototype exists. So let China build it, and then we can copy it. That'll be a first!

Old Tires into New Roads: Save Cost and Cut Noise

Engineers are designing quieter streets by adding rubber “crumbs”, reclaimed from shredded tires, to the bitumen and crushed stone used to make asphalt.

Enough tires are recycled in America each year to produce 20,000 lane-miles of road pavement mix, enough to re-pave about 0.5% of America's roads, according to Liberty Tire Recycling, a Pittsburgh firm that handles around a third of America's recycled tires.(1)

It is now possible to make rubberized asphalt less expensively than the traditional sort because rubber can partially replace bitumen, the binding agent used to hold the crushed stones together in ordinary asphalt. Bitumen is derived from oil, which means its price has risen over the past decade alongside that of crude oil. (1)

Discarded tires are cheap and are likely to get cheaper. In rich countries, around one tire is thrown away per person per year. (1)

In Hawaii we burn tires at the AES coal plant. This is much better than dumping them in a landfill or wasting fuel to send them out of state. But we should be making new roads with them.

(1) The Economist, When the rubber hits the road, June 2012.