Star Advertiser Reduces Anti-rail Letter from 527 to 167 Words!

In this one newspaper town, any anti-rail individual who sends a letter to the editor at Star Advertiser should be happy if the letter is printed in some shape or form since 9 out of 10 anti-rail letters disappear and when an anti-rail letter is printed, at least one pro rail letter is added, "for balance."

Attorney Bradley Coates' letter was reduced from 527 words to 167 words. Below is the full edition.

Ben Cayetano is not only the guy with the smartest grasp of the rail issue, he also represents the last best hope Honolulu has of overturning our city’s entrenched “old boy” network consisting of big business, developers, labor unions and embedded political interests.

Nothing demonstrates this more clearly than the insulting “Be Nice Ben” smear campaign which was immediately implemented (and undoubtedly funded by) that exact same unholy alliance which supports both Carlisle and Caldwell. The very fact that those two mayoral rivals could suddenly join together so quickly in alignment with the ultimate king(maker) of establishment Hawaii politics Senator Inouye, shows just how scared that whole cabal is of losing their grip on
power.

As was brilliantly pointed out in Richard Borreca’s 5/6 Star Advertiser column, the Democratic power brokers have now somewhat ironically become the party pushing all the pro-growth agendas seeking absurd exemptions from long established zoning and environmental laws in order to push for unrestricted development. As poorly thought out monster-sprawl mega projects like Koa Ridge and Ho’opili attest, the developers and their “puppet politicians” now seem perfectly willing to sacrifice the mana of Hawaii in exchange for money and power. With about 12% population growth in just this last decade alone, our island may well have reached its “carrying capacity.” We should be preserving our islands’ unique beauty, our open spaces and especially our agricultural lands. We should be slowing growth rather than encouraging it. . .but unfortunately sustainability has become an afterthought.

Nor is Cayetano just a single issue candidate on rail alone. As a former governor who ran a far bigger administration than either of his two rivals, Ben has the most experience on all the aspects which will govern Honolulu’s shaky budget and finances. It is noteworthy that former Gov. Lingle, who along with Ben has the most experience running large government budgets, has also turned negative on rail. Even Governor Abercrombie now seems to be hedging. The recent GSA scandal as well as numerous other episodes have clearly shown the greed, waste and corruption which has begun to pervade Big Government. With $7 billion up for grabs (assuming we ever actually even get that “promised” funding), we can anticipate that greedy contractors and developers will push the edge of every possible envelope and, along with inept government and embedded and inflexible unions, will almost certainly turn the rail project into a total travesty. Let’s be realistic, despite all its expensive (and taxpayer funded) PR campaigns to the contrary, rail is the cabal ’s pet project, not the people's project. This could potentially bankrupt the city-not to mention turning into a horrible unaesthetic eyesore which will permanently scar our beautiful island.

Ben has already held the highest office in the state and is a reluctant candidate at best. He has absolutely nothing left to prove or gain personally. Instead, he is obviously embarking on this idealistic campaign (which has now come down to going toe to toe with almost all of Hawaii’s entire entrenched political “establishment”) strictly because he wants to do the right thing for Honolulu. He deserves our respect and our votes.

BRADLEY A. COATES
COATES & FREY ATTORNEYS AT LAW, LLLC

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

BBC News coverage on May 12, 2012.

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

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

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

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

Can We Solve Honolulu’s Pervasive Traffic Congestion Problem?

Yes we can!

There are several specific projects that mitigate congestion that if one could magically install half of them overnight, Honolulu’s congestion level would be so low that traffic congestion would be removed from people’s list of worries. That would be a great thing for quality of life on Oahu and a booster to our tourism and the overall local economy.

Part 1 gives some background on congestion (did you know that some congestion is a good thing?) and presents low cost and shorter term traffic congestion solutions. Part 2 presents longer term, high cost traffic congestion solutions.

Honolulu Traffic Congestion – Part 1: From Bumper-to-bumper to Zoom-zoom by Removing One Third of Honolulu's Traffic Congestion for Less Than $500 Million

Honolulu Traffic Congestion – Part 2: Up-shift to Overdrive by Removing another One Third of Honolulu's Traffic Congestion for Less Than $5 Billion

These two white papers illustrate the dozens of doable, affordable, all-local-labor and effective projects for mitigating one of our largest problems on Oahu, traffic congestion.

Traffic congestion mitigation in Honolulu is in the hands of government and politicians. They may actually be the main causes of our traffic congestion.

10 Requirements for Infrastructure Mega-Project Success

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

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

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

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

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

Hawaiian Island Sustainability

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

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

Read full article in Honolulu Weekly.

Move Oahu Forward?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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