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.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Sunday, November 2, 2008
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:
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.
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.
Saturday, November 1, 2008
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:
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.
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.
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.
Friday, October 31, 2008
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.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
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.
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.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
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
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