Driverless Cars? Yes, GoogleCar, iCar, etc. are Closer than they Appear

No need for a driver's license?

Will the blind drive? 

Is this the end of accidents and insurance payments?

Will a multilingual automated car replace the taxi and handi-van?

Well, not so fast. Driverless cars are a Pandora's box of opportunities and challenges. One thing is for certain: They are coming.  First in simple versions; later on, in completely automated versions.

For example, Audi, BMW, Cadillac, Nissan and VW plan to offer 2016 model year cars that do at least half of these: braking and  throttle control (e.g., Delphi adaptive cruise control), self driving in stop-and-go traffic (e.g., BMW's traffic jam assistant), lane keeping (e.g., Toyota's lane keeping assist), gear shifting, and, if legal, unoccupied self-parking after all occupants and the driver exit the car (e.g., Audi's parking demonstration.)

Goggle has developed ten Google Driverless Cars (see sample photo) that have clocked well over 300,000 miles on California roads with only two reported accidents: One when the car was read-ended at a stop light and another near Google headquarters while driven by a person.  Google has produced a short video that shows a man driving around, picking up some food at a drive through store and arriving at home, opening his door and then extending his blind person cane to find his way to his house! Google expects sales of regular cars modified by Goggle to be drivereless in 2018. (Take a look at this CNN infographic.)

These developments cannot come soon enough because US, European, Chinese and other developing world cities are chocking in traffic.  Driverless cars will be a large part of the solution. They can follow each other at a distance of 0.5 seconds (engineers call this “headway”) instead of the average human headway of 1.5 seconds. This difference from 1.5 to 0.5 seconds of headway triples the capacity of a freeway lane from 2,200 vehicles per hour to over 6,000 vehicles per hour.

Sometime between 2030 and 2040, drivereless cars will become prevalent with more than one third of them in traffic. Then selected highways and arterial streets can be converted to driverless car highways with 8 ft. wide instead of 12 ft. wide lanes because driverless cars can adhere to a tight lane discipline.

The combination of tight lanes and close headways will have huge impacts to roadway capacity. Today two lanes on the Pali Highway have a capacity of roughly 4,500 cars per hour.  With only driverless cars on them the capacity of the same exact roadbed would be about 20,000 cars per hour. More than four times improvement; this will result in continuous 50 mph traffic flow. No congestion.

The driverless car technological innovation cannot come soon enough. For all but four U.S. cities (Chicago, New York, San Francisco and Washington, D.C.) city transportation is done in private cars, vans and trucks 85% of the time or more. Telecommuting has already surpassed the share of trips by transit. Car-sharing, and intelligent, drivereless zero emission vehicles will maintain the car’s dominance here and abroad.

But before completely driverless car become ubiquitous, self parking cars will arrive.This will have a huge impact for complete parking lots because now a couple feet of clearance is required between cars for driver access.  The self-park cars will only need a couple of inches of clearance between their folded exterior mirrors. So the large parking structure at the University of Hawaii holding about 5,000 can easily store 6,000 much to the improved convenience of students and a few hundred thousand more dollars of revenue for the UH.

Recently there were rumors that a Tesla Cars-Apple Computer "affair" may be about a future (autonomous) iCar.

I have little doubt that thirty years from now my kindergartener son and his friends will be commuting in driverless electric sports cars that can reach 0-60 mph in 5 seconds, follow at a headway of under 0.5 seconds on narrow high capacity lanes, be a full office away from home or work, and still deliver an exciting drive in off-drivereless mode outside the city.  The future of transportation in the U.S. will be great as long as it does not invest on modes of the past millennium such bicycles and ordinary trains, except for limited applications where they may be both practical and cost-effective.

A shorter version of this article was originally published on February 15, 2014 in Hawaii's Filipino Chronicle.

City Propaganda on Rail -- Hanneman's Fake Facts 4 to 6 out of 10

Myth 4: Rail is green.

Unlike cars or buses which become more efficient and green every year, a rail system would use the same increasingly inefficient technology (oil or coal to electricity) for the next 30 years. Cars like the 2009 Toyota Prius are beginning to move even further ahead, with solar panels being installed to recharge the car’s battery when not in use. Honda is offering a fuel cell vehicle in California; its emissions are water vapors. Cars are environmentally neutral as soon as they are turned off, unlike a rail system which runs nonstop for 20 hours a day, regardless of the number of people riding it. Typical passenger loads for metro rail outside two to four peak hours per day are very light. But the escalators, lights, ticket machines, etc. are all on, and station attendants and security are on-duty making it a very low productivity, low efficiency and high energy impact system.

Another startling observation is that in midday one can look at a stretch of a five billion dollar guideway. A train with 20 to 30 people passes by and then nothing happens for about 10 minutes. Now compare this to the hassle and bustle of a 6-lane freeway which in 10 minutes moves over 6,000 cars, over 10,000 people, several hundred tons of freight, and perhaps a couple of emergency vehicles. One can visualize the utter uselessness of a metro rail line as a transportation investment and the huge environmental impact of building it in the first place.

New York City's rail system carries about two thirds of all urban rail trips done in a typical work day in the entire United States. Based on national statistics, if New York City is excluded, for all other cities with rail combined, rail is far less green that today’s relatively inefficient vehicle fleet.

Myth 5: Rail can move the equivalent of 6 lanes of freeway traffic

Fact: According to city’s website honolulutransit.com [Note: Between the time this post was drafted and the time it was posted, the city changed the information presented on honolulutransit.com. The text of what was there originally can be found at http://www.gorailgo.org/benefits-of-mass-transit.html], each train can carry 300 people, and during the peak times, there is expected to be one train every 3 minutes, for a total of 6,000 people per hour on the peak direction. It is important to note that 4,000 of these 6,000 passengers will be standees.

Managed freeway lanes, such as HOT lanes, are designed to carry 2000 vehicles per hour per lane at free flow speeds, and since they carry express busses and high occupancy vehicles, the average occupancy would be well over 3 people per vehicle, for a total of 6,000 people per hour per lane. (All of them seated.)

So rail has the capacity of about one HOT lane. If Honolulu builds three reversible managed lanes (as can be seen here: http://www.eng.hawaii.edu/~panos/UHCS_ES5.pdf) the capacity advantage of the managed lanes is obvious.

Recall that in the 2006 Alternatives Analysis the city's consultant built a 2-lane managed lanes system and simultaneously removed the morning zipper lane for a net gain of one lane. This one 10 mile HOT lane performed only a little worse than 20 miles of rail line.

Myth 6: Rail is more convenient than driving or catching the bus.

Fact: For most prospective rail passengers, this is not the case. Under Hanneman’s plan, once the rail system is implemented, express bus routes will disappear, and existing bus routes will be reconfigured into feeder systems, where buses will pick people up from the neighborhoods, drop them off at the rail station, where they would then take a train to their destination station, then catch another bus to their final destination. That's two transfers per direction.

Transfers and the inconvenience of exiting and re-entering vehicles, waiting for them, going up and down escalators and through turn styles etc., and then repeating this for the trip home are an impractical routine at this day and age; a routine that was tried and progressively rejected through the times. This routine is practical only for 19th century breadwinners that only made a routine home-work-home trip. For this reason, the 2000 Census shows that only 2.09% of all urban trips in the U.S. are made in rail systems.

The Federal Transit Administration is strongly in favor of Bus Rapid Transit systems, particularly for cities under two million in population. The most recent publication cited below makes a strong case for BRT and the concept presented ties beautifully with my idea of an integrated HOT + BRT system presented in the UH Congestion Study linked above.

Advanced Network Planning for Bus Rapid Transit: The “Quickway” Model as a Modal Alternative to “Light Rail Lite”, Federal Transit Administration, February 2008,
http://www.nbrti.org/docs/pdf/BRT%20Network%20Planning%20Study%20-%20Final%20Report.pdf

Repeating a Lie does not Make it the Truth

The Honorable Ann Kobayashi
Chair Committee on Executive Matters
Honolulu City Council
530 South King Street, Room 202
Honolulu, Hawaii 96813

Dear Councilmember Kobayashi:

Attached for your information are two lists of documented misinformation. The first list compiles misinformation from several websites such as fixoahu.blogspot.com and stoprailnow.com. The second list compiles misinformation from a Stop Rail Now ad that ran in the Honolulu Advertiser on Sunday, September 14, 2008. Together there are 33 items that serve as a sample of the many misinformation items that are being spread by anti-rail organizations.

We hope this information will be useful to you.
Wayne Y. Yoshioka
Director
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My responses to Yioshioka's supposed misinformation that is attributable to my blog (fixoahu.blogspot.com) are listed below.

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"Rail simply takes current conditions and makes them twice as bad in 2030."

The fixed guideway reduces future traffic congestion by 11 percent, according to the Alternatives Analysis. The statement in the blog is misleading. As Oahu grows in population and employment, traffic congestion will worsen. Fixed guideway transit does the best job of managing this congestion. Without it, traffic congestion would be worse.

Prevedouros response: Traffic congestion by rail could be reduced by 6% using 2006 traffic levels. In other words, if we suddenly had rail in 2006, it would reduce total travel times between the H1/H2 merge and Waikiki by a smallish 6%. Rail provides no relief if there is any more development in the Ewa plains. This is clearly shown in the Hoopili Permit Application for 12,000 new homes between Waipahu and Ewa Beach. Year 2030 traffic conditions with or without rail will be at level F. the worst possible. Rail is billions of tax dollars wasted for tiny current conditions relief, and no long term relief.

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" ... the Hannemann administration has chosen to pursue, from the beginning, an elevated heavy rail system, which every analysis has shown to do little or nothing to reduce traffic congestion."

We have objectively pursued the best mass transit option to relieve future traffic congestion. The Alternatives Analysis examined the impact of four options on future traffic conditions - No Build, Transportation System Management Alternative (expanding bus service), Managed Lanes and a fixed guideway.

Prevedouros response: In November 2004, the search committee that was evaluating applicants for director of the City DTS for the new Hannemann administration had an explicit qualifying question: “Will you favor and support rail?” Rail did not exist as a recommendation in any DTS, Hawaii DOT or Oahu MPO documents. A politician made rail a priority. It’s that simple.

==========================

"Rail's immense construction costs and operating losses will preclude the use of funding for other transportation solutions."

The City, along with the State of Hawaii, is a partner in the Oahu Regional Transportation Plan 2030, which commits $3 billion to future transportation solutions, independent of the fixed guideway.

Prevedouros response: As soon as rail was proposed the Nimitz Flyover project which had a completed and signed EIS was mothballed. It is a project capable of providing substantial congestion relief, particularly if it is couples with a couple of underpasses in downtown.

Nothing of substance to relieve traffic ever gets done while a multibillion dollar boondoggle is on the horizon. The said $3B is expenditures over decades and do not provide any sizable capacity addition or congestion relief.

==========================

"A conservative estimate is that the proposed rail will require ... a 40% increase in property taxes in order to be built .... "

This is a scare tactic. The subsidy for rail could be funded without any increase in taxes, property or otherwise.

Prevedouros response: The 40% increase in property taxes is too low. In case Yioshioka has been asleep for the last four months, the national and local economies are in serious trouble. There simply is no money to complete projects in construction, let alone start new ones. This is particularly true for rail projects because FTA funding is tiny.

FTA does not have any approved monies for the Honolulu project beyond current studies and paperwork. It cannot legally do that before a completed EIS. As of October 7, 2008, there is not even a draft EIS available.


The soonest that any FTA support may materialize is 2011. And all of it will be used to buy rails, rail yards, trains, maintenance equipement, electromechanical systems for 20 stations, and more than 20 emergency generators. All procured in the mainland and foreign countries. Not a penny of federal dollars will ever reach Hawaii shores. On the contrary, Hawaii taxes will be sent overseas.

==========================

"The city, therefore, after taking out the 10%, is receiving approximately $140 million annually, for a total of $2.1 billion over the life of the increase. That is just over a third of the cost of the $6.4 billion rail project without the federal money, and just under two-thirds of the cost if Honolulu receives all of the funds it would be asking for."

This is incorrect. The revenue projections in the Alternatives Analysis call for approximately $2.6 billion in GET revenues in 2006 funds. These projections [are] conservative and lower than those used by the state Council on Revenues and based on 15-year trends.

Prevedouros response: The city administration is in its own railigious world. It has simply lost sight of the fiscal reality of the country, the recession in Hawaii, and the federal government's funding ability.

==========================

"The City has never said how much it will cost to operate and maintain the rail."

Estimated annual operating and maintenances costs for a 20-mile fixed guideway are $60 million in 2006 dollars. This has been mentioned in Council meetings and in community meetings.

Prevedouros response: Really? Which route, which vendor and at what price of fuel to produce electricity? How much was gas in summer 2006?

On the one hand City says that motorists cannot afford high gas prices, on the other hand they keep their maintenance costs at mid-2006 figures. My estimate is that the rail's annual maintenance cost including transit authority, stations, rail yard and all person-hours related to the rail will be well north of $150 million in today's values.

==========================

"HOT lanes pay for themselves with toll revenues and federal funds."

Toll revenues would fund only about 20 to 25 percent of the cost of HOT lanes. No other funding sources have been identified.

Prevedouros response: Why not seek funding from the FHWA, the Federal Highway Administration? Its funding pot has been many times larger than the one of the Federal Transit Administration.

FHWA paid for 80% of the design and construction cost of the H1, H-2, H-3 freeways and for the Kalanianaole widening. But of course you have to apply…

In July 2008 U.S. DOT sectetary Peters provided 15 billion dollars of funding for Private Activity Bonds exclusively for the development of HOT lanes. In contrast, the annual FTA funding for New Starts (where Honolulu will be applying for funding) is under $2 billion.

HOT lanes is the nation's number one solution for solving traffic congestion. Washington D.C. is adding 14 miles of 2-lane, 2-way HOT lanes along the Capital Beltway.

==========================

"The bottom line is that 10 to 12 miles of a high occupancy highway (HOT lanes with express buses) has incomparably lower operational costs than a rail system with 20 to 30 stations."

Estimated operating and maintenance costs are about the same for Managed Lanes, and the accompanying sizable expansion of TheBus fleet, and the fixed guideway with a far smaller fleet expansion. Because of reduced traffic congestion with rail transit, not as many buses will be required.

Prevedouros response: No way! FHWA and APTA sources show that the total cost for a 10 mile trip is 40 cents on a highway and 400 cents on a mass transit system. With HOT lanes, TheBus can maintain the same fleet and provide a much better service. This is because, express buses will not be doing 15 mph on the congested H-1 freeway but 60 mph on the HOT lanes, so the same bus can do two trips in one hour. No additional buses are needed.

==========================

"The Hannemann rail is being designed so that its maximum capacity is fixed from day 1 to decades in the future."

The fixed guideway is scalable - more transit vehicles can be added if ridership increases.

Prevedouros response: The proposed rail is minimally scalable. It will start with a capacity of 6,000 and it will top out at 9,000 which pales in comparison to the 25,000 people per hour that the H-1 fwy. carries today in the peak direction, in one hour. All of those 25,000 people are comfortably seated, but over 4,000 of the (theoretical) 6,000 rail passengers will be standees.

==========================

"Rail has the capacity of about one HOT lane."

Rail can transport approximately 6,000 residents per hour; Managed Lanes-HOT lanes can transport approximately 2,200 residents per hour, according to the Alternatives Analysis. P

revedouros response: The AA was a joke in nearly all respects. It added two HOT lanes and it removed the zipper lane for a net benefit of a single 10-mile express lane.

Three HOT lanes will minimally carry 12,000 people, but most likely they can carry well over 15,000 with a large number of buses and vanpools. HOT lanes are the nation’s number one priority in decongesting urban areas. DTS has not gotten that memo yet.

==========================

"Like The Boat, rail will not provide time competitive service."

For commuters from the West side and Central Oahu, future travel times with a rail system will be less than today. Examples include those traveling from Waianae, Kapolei, Ewa, Waipahu or Mililani to downtown. (Alternatives Analysis, table 3-6). For TheBoat, travel time at peak hour is approximately one hour from Kalalaeloa to Aloha Tower, which is competitive with a rush hour commute by private vehicle.

Prevedouros response: Door-to-door service by TheBoat is over 50% longer than by car and this will be also true for rail. One needs to remember that for 20 out of 24 hours in a day, rail will be slower than car for ALL trips. Rail may have a small advantage for a small portion of the population with long commutes during two to three hours on weekdays, but that’s about all that its good for. Too little for the price tag and that’s another reason why it should be a rejected.

==========================

"Bottom line: the EIS must include regional bus rapid transit (bus only based alternative with many express buses) and a mixed use transitway (Managed lanes/HOT lanes alternative with many express buses) in its detailed environmental assessment."

The EIS will encompass proposed routes for the fixed guideway system, and their impacts on social, environmental, archeological and cultural factors, among many. Earlier in this process, during the Alternatives Analysis and scoping phase, a number of possible long-term traffic solutions were explored at length. These include: managed lanes, expanded bus service, ferry service, a tunnel connecting Pearl Harbor with Honolulu, a monorail, and a fixed guideway.

Prevedouros response: Bottom line, the City asked PB to do a steel-on-steel only EIS and therefore it will have its hands full with lawsuits and violations from the Council on Environmental Quality.

==========================
"The rail project is totally out of line for the size of our community."

Honolulu is fifth densest among cities with populations of 500,000 or more. We are the only one without a rail system.

Prevedouros response: This is not attributable to by blog, but I would like to take a stab at it. Density is one indicator, but if you don't have the population to pay for it then you should not build it. It is like saying that large people drive very expensive cars. Not true! Rich large people drive very expensive large cars. Honolulu is neither large, not rich. Keep the rails off Oahu.

Two Dozen Questions for the City’s Rail Propaganda, Strike That, DEIS

A person in a local government position sent me a list of concerns and questions that the Draft Environmental Impact Statement of the City and County of Honolulu (which simplistically and conveniently narrowed our choices down to steel-on-steel rail and do nothing) should answer but it mostly does not. Any reader of the DEIS will notice that it is big on discussion and small on specific answers and mitigation plans. The owner of this blog did not provide input or alter any information on the following list of 24 items.

1. Building costs are understated, future increases in construction, labor, and material costs are not reported nor mentioned. Also, some of the City's plans for the terminals/terminus are incomplete, missing substructures, rails, handi-access, etc. Was this to artificially deflate the reportable costs? If so the City's entire plan is flawed, and fraudulent.

2. No mention is made of a turn-around or depot. There will undoubtedly be a maintenance yard or some related facility to take the tram down for repairs. This is not mentioned.

3. The Administration has made repeated assurances that the project will be done with minimal impact to neighboring areas, residents, businesses. This cannot be the case. Building and construction guidelines are very specific, requiring x amount of relief space, and will require shutdown of adjoining lots, properties, streets and roads.

4. Many of the people who realized their properties will be (eventually) condemned via eminent domain are under the absolutely mistaken impression that they will be receiving the (at future time) full market value (fmv) of their properties. This is not the case. Research into the City's sojourns into exercising eminent domain muscle reveals that they set aside a lump sum amount, to be paid to defendants served with the Order Putting Plaintiff in Possession (i.e. City). Wording is usually like this: "The sum of $xx,xxx deposited with the Chief Clerk of this Court by the Plaintiff as estimated just compensation..." Usually the award is a few pennies on the dollar of the actual value of the condemned and claimed property. The defendant usually has no recourse. Waianae residents were notified last July that they were losing portions of their property, after construction had already begun for the emergency access road.

5. Regarding property, it is likely the rail system will negatively affect property values. Cities have trended that property values drop near an existing commuter or rail line. The noise negates, for most people, the benefit of proximity to a transit line. Many cities found that rail ridership decreased, in favor of buses, bicycles, and scooters.

6. I personally believe most people would favor a scooter over inconvenience of driving to a depot yard and park their car with thousands of others, to catch a rail to work.

7. The lifespan of a typical rail system is about 30 years. Thereafter, it must be 100% wholly replaced at full value at that future time. It's simply a matter of infrastructure breakdown.

8. The lifespan of a typical tram system (light rail) is about 15 years. Thereafter, it must be 100% wholly replaced, or else repaired to the point where it's economically unfeasible.

9. The mathematics of the City's plan to take 50,000 drivers off the road is not practical nor possible. Let's assume the City is extremely aggressive and forward-thinking in their planning. Let's say they build two rail systems, one that begins in point A (Kapolei area) and the other begins in point B (Downtown). Let's say there are 12 cars to a train (no longer considered light rail), each holding 200 passengers, which is 2,400 passengers total capacity per train, going a single way, or 4,800 passengers for the entire system. Let's say the trains will cross each other in the middle, so there is always a train going and coming in both directions. In order to meet the Administration's goal to take an approximate 50,000 drivers off the road at that future time, the trains will have to travel about 77 miles per hour, nonstop, in order to make the approximate 10 round trips each train will have to make, in an hours' time. This oversimplified math problem underlies the fatal flaw in the plan. The City's plan for light rail does not have the capacity for 4,800 total passengers at any given time. This would be rush hour in the morning, from 5:30AM to 8:30AM, and 3:30PM to 6:30PM. It is not mathematically possible to do it with the above configuration, nor with the City's proposed version, which is much smaller passenger capacity. This may be decried by the Administration as "Mickey Mouse Math" but the figures cannot be doubted. The rail will not accomplish what it is envisioned to.

10. The City's proposed 6,000+ jobs to directly or indirectly support the rail system, operations, maintenance, support services, administration, and vendor services, is not economically sustainable. The vendors have the best bet, at least people will stop on the way to buy coffee, pastries, morning paper, etc. But wait, they can't because the system has to run without stops to make its rush hour quotas.

11. The City's Transportation Department has in effect given their current employees a potential for higher-paying and more executive jobs, "fresh" and new. The current employees are capped where they are at, but the Rapid Transit Division (the most expensive and largest Division by staff and dollars) is a way for them to move up. See their presentation here: http://www.honolulu.gov/dts/dts+fy2008+operating+budget+request.pdf If you scroll down to page 7, you will see "Rapid Transit Division", 35 proposed executive and administrative support positions, costing a whopping $2,338,644 in staff costs, dwarfing their next largest Division by over $500,000, but has only 1 position more. This indicates that, given civil service positions and current pay scales, these are much higher and more executive positions, possibly (POSSIBLY) created this way by the Transportation Department to give their currently “ceilinged” staff someplace to go, and retire happily with a healthy retirement pay.

12. No amount of ridership fees could make up the construction, maintenance, and daily operations costs of the entire rail system. Notwithstanding the payroll costs. The majority of the costs will become personnel-related, such as 41+% fringe rate, immediate salaries plus vacation payouts and other benefits. Throw in maintenance? That's also a personnel cost, with OT attached, at City & County rates. You know, 12 maintenance workers scheduled to perform upkeep, each files OT requests, however only 1 or 2 actually do majority of the work. A recent audit found many road crews operate in this fashion. However the audit was for City internal use only.

13. No amount of taxes can make up the total cost plus ongoing upkeep. The burden on the taxpayers of the state would be astronomical, it could not possibly be estimated.

14. People who voted "YES" did not realize, they were not really indebting themselves, but their progeny, to a lifetime of debt service to this system. It cannot possibly be completed before, say, 2025 or 2030, when most of those who voted will be at or nearing retirement, and it will no longer make a difference for them. Many people simply jumped on the bandwagon without really thinking things through.

15. A raised rail system lumbering many stories above buildings and 1-2 storey homes and apartments in the proposed areas would ruin not just the overall landscape, but many people's enjoyment of the view looking out not to the ocean, but the SKY.

16. The Administration's claim is that if they get this project going now, they can jumpstart the state's economy and provide much-needed jobs through construction. This is short-term a truth, however if there exists no money to begin with, and the Council on Revenue's forecast shows a current year deficit, with factors of debt in the out-years, where is the funding going to come from? It reminds me of a very ambitious building project in Downtown that sat for many years until another investor came by. Only the Federal Gov't can deficit spend. How can you ambitiously plan alternate and future routes (as the Council is debating now) without having any up-front direct revenues, investor venture capital, bond interest, or other form of monies on hand to even "break ground"?

17. Construction costs are years away, when materials, labor, and rates will be much higher. Final completion costs can be many times the $5 Billion thrown in front of the hapless public. And, once construction begins, final completion can be upwards of 20 years away, including the various legal battles and hurdles the City will no doubt face, in battling hundreds of home and landowners, businesses, and action groups. It will be unprecedented in our State's history, and will likely bring embarrassment to us nationally.

18. Speaking of attention, it is likely that people will prefer (as they do now) places such as Tahiti, Fiji, Thailand, and New Zealand, over Oahu anyway. Many tourists surveyed by the HTA recently said they'd never come back if the beaches eroded. What happens if (i.e. by the year 2030) the beach in Waikiki is a memory, hotels are literally flooded, AND there is a lumbering, leviathan, hulking, clackety, metallic silver worm snaking its way through Downtown? Realistically, do you think any tourists would come to Honolulu, except to use it as a springboard from the Mainland USA to their exotic destination in the far Pacific or Asia?

19. Other states that the Administration quoted as having successful rail systems have something that Hawaii will never have, regardless of how much development we want to create - land space. If anything, Hawaii - due to current erosion - can do nothing but lose land space, at least in Honolulu County. In order for the rail to be plopped down, people who are already there have to make way. As our proud and defiant mayor has proclaimed in various ways, "...anyone opposing this will have to just get out of the way..." The first time he said it on TV, we passed it off to his frustration and lack of self-control. Thereafter, it is a clear indication of absolute superciliousness, self-love, and hubris which I do not ever recall seeing in any of our recent mayors of my memory. The sign of a bad publican is to - even modestly - threaten to shove it down the peoples' collective throats when his way is challenged, and his personal progress slowed.

20. The Administration does not inform the public of the following: Chicago Mass Transit (Chicago Transit Authority), one of the original models for an earlier proposed transit system, is bankrupt. If not yet, pretty darn near. The cost of doing business has long overrun the intake due to ridership, which has decreased over the last 30 years. Even their bus ridership is down, largely due to increased crime in poverty-stricken areas near the center of town. Unfortunately for us, Pearl City & Mililani are becoming what Kalihi and Liliha have long been - our native slum.

21. Sound is a pressure wave that emanates radially outward from its source, decreasing as the inverse square of that distance the listener is from it. The City's contention that erecting short walls, combined with the raised platform, will decrease noise to a minimal level, is preposterous beyond laughable. Any system, even a rolling wheeled vehicle, creates a significant amount of noise, and particularly at night. Anyone who lives near the University or along the H-1 between McCully through Pearl City knows this. Even if it is no louder than a small grass whip, it will be noticed, and people will be driven out. I used to live in a small apartment on Thurston Avenue in Makiki, and the simple act of the bus rolling at 11 at night was enough to jolt this young child - at that time - awake from a light sleep.

22. Due to Homeland Security regulations involving public transportation, the City & County would have to establish, and integrate into the Honolulu Police Department, a separate Honolulu Rapid Transit Police force, or else divert current - or future - officers to that duty. Security screens may be necessary at depots as well, adding to delays (but wait, they can't stop right?)

23. The Administration claims that the economy will be stimulated, looking at (i.e.) Denver, Portland, and San Jose light rail development, don't realize that those systems were supported by large tax or other subsidies, something dramatically lacking in Hawaii's economy. Even the current tax collected for transit is far short of proposed levels they would have to be at for the system to be a reality.

24. Finally, no mention is made as to whether this light rail system can accommodate passengers (i.e. from the airport) with large luggage, or whether stowage space is or can be provided for safety, comfort, and security of others?