National Performance Metrics Comparison of Honolulu’s Elevated Rail and HOT Lane Proposals. Goal 2 of 3: Energy and Environment

Let’s briefly analyze how 20 miles of rail with 21 stations and 10 miles of HOT lanes would score in an application in Honolulu based on three goals and six NTPP metrics that were presented in a previous blog.

In order to reach a bottom line, the best alternative for each goal will receive a score of 10 and the second best will receive a relative score between 0 and 10. Note that these metrics address deeper goals and treat congestion as an outcome. For congestion relief alone HOT lanes would score a 10 and rail a 1.

In this part we focus on NTPP goal 2 which is Energy and Environment. This goal has two metrics, petroleum consumption and CO2 emissions. Brief descriptions of the compared RAIL and HOT Lanes alternatives are provided here.

Petroleum Consumption

RAIL: While nationally rail may be powered by a mix of coal, hydroelectric and nuclear power, on Oahu over 95% of electric power is generated by burning oil and coal. Unfortunately during off-peak hours trains tend to run nearly empty. They draw a lot of oil-based electricity power for very little transportation work. Also the rail will only reduce car trips by 1.1%, so oil dependence for cars will not be diminished. Worse yet, congestion with rail will be terrible during construction and after it opens. Overall petroleum consumption and dependence will be high with rail. Score = 3.

HOT Lanes: Have the advantage that from day 1 they can serve hybrid buses, hybrid cars and electric cars. Lanes on the HOT lanes can also provide under-the-roadway induction conduits so electric buses can run on them. Electric buses will draw oil and coal based electricity. However, electric cars and plug-in hybrids can easily be charged at home or work by solar panels and mini-wind mills as shown in this couple of installations near the UH-Manoa.



These devices provide an opportunity for distributed renewable energy which is heavily incentivized today: $7,500 federal tax credit and $4,500 Hawaii tax credit for an electric car; 30% federal tax credit and 35% Hawaii tax credit for solar panels; $2,000 federal and state credit for a car charger at home (actual cost to user ~$200.) The U.S. and Hawaii energy policy favors electric car purchases not usage of fixed rail. Construction of 10 miles of HOT lanes is only one third as disruptive as rail and after they open congestion will improve by over 25%. Score = 10.

CO2 Emissions

RAIL: Unlike the mainland where hydro and nuclear power accounts for almost 30% of electricity generation (and oil accounts for barely over 1.1%), Oahu’s electricity is almost entirely based on oil and coal so the CO2 emissions of rail on Oahu will be terrible because they are proportional to oil dependence. Severe congestion during rail’s construction and its minimal benefit afterward result in a highly polluting final outcome. Oil and coal account for over 95% of electric power generation on Oahu. Strong incentives for solar power roof-top deployments affect individual users and do not lessen the rail’s dependence on oil-based electricity. Score = 2.

HOT Lanes: The future lies in electric automobility as the incentives above clearly demonstrate. The Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) demonstrated that wind turbine energy is best at night, but that is a time that society needs electricity the least… except for thousands of electric cars charging from the grid with wind energy. ORNL has identified this as a perfect synergy. HOT Lanes are perfectly positioned to serve electric cars, vans and buses and dramatically reduce CO2 emissions. HOT lanes dramatically reduce CO2 pollution from day 1 by reducing corridor congestion by 25% or more. Score = 10.

Summary

Based on the Energy and Environment goal and its two metrics, HOT Lanes score 20 points and Elevated Rail scores 5 points.

National Performance Metrics Comparison of Honolulu’s Elevated Rail and HOT Lane Proposals. Goal 1 of 3: Economic Growth

Let’s briefly analyze how 20 miles of rail with 21 stations and 10 miles of HOT lanes would score in an application in Honolulu based on three goals and six NTPP metrics that were presented in a previous blog.

In order to reach a bottom line, the best alternative for each goal will receive a score of 10 and the second best will receive a relative score between 0 and 10.

Note that these metrics address deeper goals and treat congestion as an outcome. For congestion relief alone HOT lanes would score a 10 and rail a 1.

In this part we focus on NTPP goal 1 which is Economic Growth. This goal has four metrics but two of them relate to long-distance commerce and travel; they apply to Hawaii when maritime or air transportation is considered.

Brief System Descriptions

RAIL: Fully elevated heavy rail starting about a mile east of Kapolei in the middle of prime agricultural land (presently Aloun and other farms) and ending inside Ala Moana Center with 21 stations and three or four park and ride facilities accommodating fewer than 5,000 cars. Headways are 3 minutes in peak periods, 6 minutes off peak. Trains have a capacity of 300 people of which two thirds are standees. Double track design with no express trains. The system will recover 0% of the capital costs and only 10%-20% of its O&M costs from fares. Capital cost estimated at $5.4 Billion and annual O&M cost at $70 Million/year.

HOT Lanes: 10 miles of elevated 3-lane reversible expressway designed for High Occupancy and Toll operation where buses and large carpools enter free. Low and solo occupancy vehicles pay a graduated toll (e.g., from $0.50 to $5.00). The toll is “congestion insurance.” Paying the toll guarantees 50 mph travel at all times. Higher tolls are necessary to discourage overloading. The facility has Aloha Stadium as its anchor (mid-point) and has exits at Pearl Harbor, Lagoon Drive and Waiakamilo. It starts at the H-1/H-2 merge and ends in Iwilei. The 2.2 miles from Keehi Interchange to Iwilei is a shovel ready project (signed EIS) as “The Nimitz Viaduct.) The system will recover at least one third of its capital costs and 100% of its O&M costs from tolls. Capital cost estimated at $1.7 Billion and annual O&M cost at $20 Million/year.

Access to Jobs and Labor (metropolitan accessibility)

RAIL: National research has shown that rail’s limited reach does not help the jobless to find jobs and is not helpful for those with multiple jobs; and we have many of the latter on Oahu. Rail is a mode for white collar commuters; this is a relatively small market in Hawaii’s service oriented and dispersed industry. Many workers drop off or pick up children from school before work; rail is no good for them. Combinations of rail and bus and walk for door-to-door travel result in uncompetitive travel times compared to direct bus, carpool or car modes. Rail’s original score of 4 is further reduced by 2 points because rail is incapable of providing transportations for goods and services which are vital for the economy and part of this criterion. Score = 4-2 = 2.

HOT Lanes: Nationally HOT lanes is the solution for rapid transportation and the best way to make express buses competitive with the auto and succeed in getting people “out of their cars.” An express bus from Waikele or Waipio on the HOT lanes would reach downtown in under 20 minutes in the middle of rush hour. These express buses can continue to major destinations in Kalihi, Kakaako, Waikiki, and UH. Also Oahu has among the nation’s highest carpool and vanpool rates. HOT lanes are designed to serve these high occupancy modes. HOT lanes provide fast travel for the provision of services (e.g., an electrician can get from Kapolei to Kalihi in under 30 minutes at 7 AM) and offer congestion relief to parallel routes (e.g., H-1 Freeway) which is used heavily for transporting goods. Score = 10.

Access to Non-work Activities (metropolitan accessibility)

RAIL: A very small portion of the population should be expected to use rail for non-work activities such as groceries, shopping, social visits, school events, soccer practice, night clubbing, out on a date, etc. Rail loses 1 point for being unable to be of any use during an emergency such as freeway closure, flooding, hurricane and tsunami. Score = 6-1 = 5.

HOT Lanes: The Honolulu design is for a reversible configuration which is tailored to serve commuting flows so it only partially improves access to the variety of non-work activities that people engage in. It is tailored however to work well for large events at Aloha Stadium by working in-bound to the stadium before the event starts and out-bound at event’s end for quick evacuation. The HOT lanes can also serve as a reliable emergency-only backbone during an emergency. Score = 10.

Summary

Based on the Economic Growth goal and its two metrics, HOT Lanes score 20 points and Elevated Rail scores 7 points.

NTPP Transportation Performance Metrics

The National Transportation Policy Project sponsored by the Bipartisan Policy Center produced Performance Driven: New Vision for U.S. Transportation Policy

“This report presents the findings of an intensive, two year effort to develop multi-stakeholder consensus recommendations for a forward-looking American transportation policy. This report is the product of a bipartisan group of 26 members of diverse expertise and affiliations, addressing many complex and contentious topics.”

The report states that “Without clearly articulated goals, it is not surprising that there has been little accountability for the performance of most federal transportation programs and projects to date. The result has been an emphasis on revenue sharing and process, rather than on results. There is no federal requirement to optimize “returns” on public investments, and current programs are not structured to reward positive outcomes, or even to document them.”

As an actionable item the Project developed specific performance metrics. “The performance metrics, must be fair, transparent, and free of bias toward particular transportation modes or geographic regions. The list below summarizes the performance metrics NTPP recommends for measuring performance.”

Economic Growth
(1) Access to jobs and labor (metropolitan accessibility)
(2) Access to non-work activities (metropolitan accessibility)

Energy and Environment
(1) Petroleum consumption
(2) CO2 emissions

Safety
(1) Fatalities and injuries per capita
(2) Fatalities and injuries per Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT)

The report provides a lot of details and concludes that “Fundamental reform is needed. The alternative is to allow America’s transportation systems to continue to fall short of meeting the multi-faceted demands increasingly being placed on them—with collective costs to the economy, our quality of life, and the environment that can only grow over time.”

NEXT BLOG: Performance Metrics Comparison of Honolulu’s Heavy Rail and HOT Lane Proposals.

The Triumph of Pork over Purpose [Needs to Be Reversed]

The article with the "spot on" title Pork over Purpose was published on a most unfortunate date (the day before 9/11/2001) in a most unlikely publication, The Blueprint of the Democratic Leadership Council. The DLC provides perspective and advice to elected Democrats.

The Triumph of Pork over Purpose was written by David Luberoff of Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.

Notable highlights of the article include the following.

There is no national purpose driving federal highway and transit funding programs. Instead, a variety of special interests -- from contractors and unions to environmentalists and urbanists -- have come to view the national highway and transit program as an opportunity. [Interestingly most environmentalists and urbanists are strongly against the proposed elevated rail for Honolulu, so the project is politician and union driven.]

Earmarked funding for an increasing number of projects: There were only a handful of earmarks in the 1982 act reauthorizing highway and transit laws, but the 1987 measure contained funding for about 150 specific projects --one of the rationales President Reagan cited in his unsuccessful veto of that law. In contrast, no one blinked an eye when ISTEA earmarked money for more than 500 highway and transit projects or when TEA-21 included more than 1,800 earmarks. [Earmarks is one manifestation of pork over purpose. But there are several other ways to promote pork. For example one can declare carbon emissions an enemy and start throwing money at anything that promises carbon emissions reductions. Then "green" causes a lot of real red. The huge deficits of Spain and California prove this.]

The prospect of significant federal funding drives states and localities to build projects that they never would undertake if they had to fund even a significant portion of the costs themselves. For example, the funding strategy for virtually every major rail transit project built in the last three decades -- from Los Angeles' Red Line to Seattle's current troubled project -- has been predicated on securing significant federal funding for those projects because local officials knew that local voters would never have approved local taxes needed to fully fund those projects. [It's worth repeating that 80% to 90% of the funding for H-1, H-2 and H-3 freeways came from FHWA, but only about 25% of the funding for rail may come from the FTA.]

The pressure for special projects and programs creates a process that is politically compelling but one that also is far from economically efficient. And that means that we're not spending the money we have in ways likely to produce significant positive payoffs by either making the economy more efficient or improving the quality of many people's lives. [This is another spot on statement: Infrastructure is paid by taxes. If the wrong infrastructure is built, then taxes are simply wasted.]

The four highlights above --that are worth about 30 Billion Dollars in Hawaii and over One Trillion Dollars in the U.S. as a whole-- explain why I am motivated to seek high elected office with power over infrastructure decisions.

Congestion, Rail, APEC and Hurricane Preparedness: Problems and Solutions

Severe Traffic Congestion Wastes Time and Fuel; Cripples Economy and Tourism
Fix traffic lights, install six underpasses, PPP reversible expressway and express buses, Ewa Beach ferry; intelligent traffic management systems. Read the summary of University of Hawaii Congestion Study for details.

Elevated Heavy Rail Costs Too Much, Does Too Little and Will Be a 20 Year Construction, Eminent Domain and Lawsuit Nightmare for Iwi, Environmental Law Abuses, Agriculture Extinction and Hawaiian Lands Invasion
There is no construction for rail. It is not a legal system to build now; maybe in 2012. Stop the paperwork and the money bleeding now, and move on to real solutions with far smaller cultural, environmental and economic impacts. Assess light transit options such as the Oahu Rail Line that has an over 90% preserved right of way between Waianae and airport.

The 2011 meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) will be held in Honolulu -- heads of state, Cabinet ministers, business leaders and other officials will attend summit, Nov. 12-20, 2011, at the Hawaii Convention Center. As many as 10,000 people may attend. Event management is critical.

Management by experts with past experience with large special events is necessary. For example I organized two conferences and helped with the 2004 Olympics, as follows:

• 1st ISFO, Athens, Greece, June 4-7, 2006
• 2nd ISFO, Honolulu, Hawaii, June 21-24, 2009
• Halkias, B., Prevedouros, P., et al. Attica Tollway Management in the Athens 2004 Olympic Games. 12th World Congress on Intelligent Transportation Systems, San Francisco, CA, November 2005.

Emergency Resiliency is Non Existent
It is clear that there is no action plan for clearing roads, restoring electricity and providing medical and other vital services to Oahu neighborhoods after a hurricane hits. There is no preparation for it. For starters:

• Core streets need regular tree trimming and proper handling of poles and utilities.
• Placement of trucks, front loaders, ambulances and power units at key locations is essential.
• Emergency docks and “plugs” for Navy Submarines.
• Public second access for Waianae (tunnel to Kunia.)

Parks, Homeless, Water Mains, Sewers and Trash: Problems and Solutions

Park Maintenance and Beautification
Partial privatization and Adopt-a-Park corporate and club programs. Private Moanalua Gardens is in top shape. Fully restore the War Memorial Natatorium. Keep Hanauma Bay in top shape -- both visitor side and nature.

Homeless in Parks and Beaches; Kuhio Park Terrace All Full with Micronesians
Shrink the $30,000 Hawaii Homeless Benefit Package. Repatriate mainland homeless. Receive much more support and accommodations for the Federal PACT with Micronesia. Remove mentally ill homeless from streets, parks and beaches and provide them with proper care. Use decommissioned TheBus for overnight sheltering. No sleeping on public parks, etc.

364 Water Main Breaks per Year
High priority replacement of old mains, especially those in corrosive low lying areas. Our fixing rate needs to accelerate.

Sewers Consent Decree with EPA Will Cost Over $7 Billion If Done by the City
A Public Private Partnership (PPP) for reconstruction, maintenance and operation to infuse private capital, to share risk and to operate sewers like a utility. With PPP, construction costs decrease, quality and timeliness improve. Better management. Bottom line: lower monthly bills and better infrastructure.

Oahu’s Recycling Is a Glorified Sorting and Exportation of Trash. Yard Waste Recycling Is Basically Mulching and Dumping. 20% of Trash Burnt is Flyash.
Re-use tires and glass into pavements. Convert flyash into pozolanic cement. Remanufacture plastics into benches, bump stops and other simple and useful parts. Incentivize a private biomass plant to generate electricity out of the voluminous routine green waste collection by the city.

The Destruction of Oahu by Heavy Rail

Waipahu Now


Waipahu in 2020 with Rail



Any Questions?


Click here for the easiest way to avoid this.

Tampa Expressway Spurs Tons of Development

Let me first quickly remind the reader about our Kapiolani Boulevard re-development lesson which I first posted in 2008, and then we will go to the pictorial tour of the 10 mile, $320 Million, 60% elevated on single posts Tampa Expressway.

Does Rail Stimulate Long Term Redevelopment? We do not need rail for development and opportunities to flourish. We 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.

On to Tampa now... Dr. Martin Stone, Planning Director for the Tampa-Hillsborough County Expressway Authority estimates that about $1 billion in new development at its urban end has occurred since the opening of the Tampa Expressway.

Unlike regular Transit Oriented Development (TOD) which are highly subsidized, no tax incentives were needed for these developments.

2052 Streetscape showing the Grand Central (residential, parking, multiple floors of office and commercial on first floor) development, the Slade (residential and commercial on first floor) development and the Towers of Channelside (residential, parking and commercial on first floor at the far end of photo)

2053 Grand Central and Ventana (3 separate buildings - Madison Street view)

2054 Grand Central and Ventana (3 separate buildings - Kennedy Blvd view)

2055 The Slade on Meridian

2057 The Slade with Grand Central in background

2060 Towers with retail on first floor and Cruise ship parking garage in background

2061 New History Museum (on left) with Towers on right

2062 New History Museum

Tourism Industry: Fact, Action, and Possible Destruction

Fact: Tourism is important to all of us on Oahu but the grim reality is that since the 1996-1998 high, tourism has been at a fairly constant slide, as DBEDT monthly statistics since 1990 show.


The graph above of international arrivals shows that 9/11 and SARS and Iraq war had strong negative impacts. Add to this the weak national economy since 2008 and domestic arrivals also have dropped sharply. See below.


Today's visitors observe a congested, aging and increasingly unappealing Oahu with potholed roads, tired looking parks, and hordes of homeless.

Action is needed now. My vision is to restore the postcard image of Oahu as a great tourist destination by focusing on fixing the infrastructure and maintaining our parks, beaches and tourist attractions. That is real value to the tourist industry and all of us.

The more attractive we are as a visitor destination, the more the hotels can get higher rates and higher quality jobs in the hospitality industry can be had.

Destruction. My opponents in the mayor race will significantly harm Oahu's tourist industry in three ways:

(1) Both advocate rail which is a giant project that will involve 10 years of messy construction to deliver a system that very few will use, according to the city's forecasts. The construction mess and the very ugly all-elevated rail line will be tourism killers for Oahu.

(2) The rail is gigantically expensive so other needs such as dilapidated parks and beaches, homelessness and potholed roads will be under-funded. Thus they will get worse and Oahu's tourist appeal will worsen.

(3) The taxes needed to construct and maintain rail and the sewers add up to $10 billion which means heavy extra taxes. How heavy? The typical sewer bill 15 years from now will be about $2,500 per year plus another $1,000 for rail for each taxpayer.

People in the hospitality industry will find it increasingly difficult to afford to live in Hawaii. Hotels may increase wages and will have to pay higher city taxes. So hotels will have to charge much more for their rooms to offset the costs, thus making a visitation to Hawaii more costly and less competitive.

My competitors' model for "rail jobs" is a long term disaster.

Hawaii's Energy Options

Status quo, Part 1: oil and coal -- Coal will remain affordable for decades (excluding made up carbon taxes). Oil prices will reach $150/barrel again in the future and at anything over $200/barrel using 2010 as a base (barrel under $80) will stress transportation budgets on Oahu, cost of goods, and price of flights.

Status quo, Part 2: burn trash is profitable now and probably still doable at $150 per barrel of oil. Oil is essential to mix with trash for the incineration process. The downside is that about 20% of the trash volume is converted into trash so every five years the pile that needs to be land-filled is as big as one year's worth of land-filled trash.

Other energy from trash: Collect methane from decommissioned trash land fills. This is a remote possibility for the Waimanalo Gulch and the power gain will likely be small.

Geothermal is a great option, very clean, but for the Big Island only. With all the volcanic activity, it makes little sense to burn oil on the Big Island for electricity generation or for other renewable energy installations.

Then there is a host of renewable energy technologies some of which have known risks, costs, reliability and effectiveness. Others are heavily dependent on subsidies to make their cost per mega-Watt (MW) competitive when oil costs less than $150/barrel. The mix that is worth investigating for feasibility, planning and costing in producing electric power includes:

• photovoltaic (PV) or solar,
• wind, various technologies,
• wave, various technologies,
• biomass, various technologies,
• nuclear, various sizes, configurations and location options,
• other less known technologies, some of which appropriate for small scale deployments.
  

The state needs a detailed 20 and 50 year plan for the four main islands completed by 2012.

Nuclear Power in Oahu's Future?

My statement at a recent mayoral debate that Hawaii should consider a nuclear plant for electricity stirred up some interest and apprehension.

Nuclear power for electricity in Oahu's future?

The likely answer is yes in order to sustain one million people and six million annual visitors 2,000 miles away from most resources, given that over 90% of the electricity is now fueled by oil. Planning for it, including a senate vote by over 2/3 in the affirmative, will take well over 10 years. So nuclear power is possible perhaps in 20 years, about 20 miles off-shore, for one 1,000 MW power plant.

The fact is that at the present time Oahu has nuclear reactors totaling over 1,000 MW just 6 miles from Aloha Tower. See picture below.

• 15 nuclear submarines are home-ported in Pearl Harbor
• 440 nuclear power plants are on the planet now

Earlier this year,

1. Bill Gates proposed mini nuclear reactors as the essential means for the future of the human race on the planet.
2. President Obama released over $8 Billion in loan guarantees for a new nuclear power plant in Georgia.
3. Hawaii Legislature proposed a bill to study nuclear power for Hawaii.
   

I wrote this in January...

The scarcity and cost of fossil fuels makes the development of expensive nuclear energy a cost-effective if not essential proposition. France and Japan are leading examples of reliance on nuclear power with minimal ill effects. 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.

Click link to READ MORE and see the list of our Pearl Harbor nuclear submarines.

Managed Road PPP is the Key for Jobs, Low Taxes and Congestion Relief

02 Aug 2010 -- Eight groups eye Puerto Rico’s first toll road deal. A potential concession for two of the island’s toll roads drew interest from a mix of infrastructure funds, including those managed by Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs.

This is five years after the spectacular failure of installing a heavy rail system on the island city of Jan Juan. San Juan rail had a 100% overrun in construction costs and five years after opening achieved far less than 50% of the forecast daily ridership for the opening year.

Roads both bring congestion relief and private money. Managed roadways are a win-win for commuters and taxpayers.

Here is a more eloquent take on solving congestion, providing jobs and keeping taxation in check by Economics Professor William A. Galston of the University of Maryland and fellow with the Brookings Institution.

"The traditional response is to use the federal government's taxing authority to raise infrastructure funds, and appropriations to fund specific projects. This model has hit a wall: not only will it be very difficult to raise taxes in current or foreseeable circumstances, but there's also the problem of how local and special interests influence, even determine, project selection for reasons that have nothing to do with economic efficiency."

"Over the past generation, we have systematically underinvested in the foundation of an efficient economy and society — namely, infrastructure. Anyone who has traveled in recent years knows that our systems of transportation and information are no longer world-class."

Today, we have trillions of dollars of capital sitting on the sidelines earning almost no return, and millions of long-term unemployed workers who would be thrilled to receive a steady paycheck again. The task is to bring these two factors of production together around projects that make sense.

• To attract private capital, projects must earn a reasonable return, which means increased reliance on user fees (tolls or levies per unit consumed) rather than general taxation.
• Because most infrastructure projects generate public goods (such as economic growth in the areas it opens up) as well as private goods (such as easier commutes).
• To promote economic efficiency and growth, projects must be chosen on economic rather than political grounds. The new model requires a shift away from congressional dominance of the selection process toward an empowered board substantially insulated from day-to-day political pressures.

Freeway Multi-car Collision. Three Apparent Lessons.

Sunday, August 1, 2010, 4:00 PM. A friend sent me three pictures from an accident on H-1 Freeway, Honolulu-bound, near Aiea minutes after it had occurred. Here are a few lessons from the three cell phone pictures received.

(1) This police car is parked at the wrong angle. The police car that blocks and protects the accident scene should be parked in a direction that guides unaffected drivers to the safe way around the scene.


(2) The police officer is talking to involved drivers on the freeway. On a freeway scene all unharmed persons need to be relocated to the shoulders immediately.


(3) This truck appears to be the start of the multi-car "spin outs" on the slick pavement. Notice the old, worn, dirty and off-road style tires. A vehicle with proper highway tires might have not caused this half dozen vehicle collision.

Poverty of Dollars is Largely a Statistical Creation. Poverty of Spirit is Real.

Walter Williams of the Jewish World Review makes a powerful argument that poverty as applicable worldwide is almost absent in the US. He says:

"Material poverty can be measured relatively or absolutely. An absolute measure would consist of some minimum quantity of goods and services deemed adequate for a baseline level of survival. Achieving that level means that poverty has been eliminated. However, if poverty is defined as, say, the lowest one-fifth of the income distribution, it is impossible to eliminate poverty. Everyone's income could double, triple and quadruple, but there will always be the lowest one-fifth."

The real malaise in the U.S. is poverty of the spirit which leads to many ills in our modern society:

"Yesterday's material poverty is all but gone. In all too many cases, it has been replaced by a more debilitating kind of poverty — behavioral poverty or poverty of the spirit. This kind of poverty refers to conduct and values that prevent the development of healthy families, work ethic and self-sufficiency. The absence of these values virtually guarantees pathological lifestyles that include: drug and alcohol addiction, crime, violence, incarceration, illegitimacy, single-parent households, dependency and erosion of work ethic. Poverty of the spirit is a direct result of the perverse incentives created by some of our efforts to address material poverty."

Read his full article "Where Best to Be Poor" for a fuller argument why material poverty is almost largely absent in the U.S.

Oahu Statistics: City, State and Federal Employees

The graph below shows City, State and Federal employment counts on Oahu from 1990 to 2010.

City jobs have been above 10,000 employees and over time they grew by almost 30% while at the same time population grew by less than 10%.

Federal jobs were at an all time high from January 1990 to September 1993 and retrenched to below 30,000 due to the combined effects of Hurricane Iniki, the Gulf War and the burst of the economic bubble in Asia. Despite the recent prolonged recession, federal job count has increased to over 30,000 again since 2007.

The number of state jobs fluctuates greatly from month to month. September almost always has the lowest number of employees followed by a sudden spike of a few thousand in October. This pattern clearly depicts the seasonal effect of 9-month public school teachers (state DOE.)

Soon after the 2008 recession the total State employment on Oahu surpassed 60,000 people for the first time but the count receded in 2010. In the 19 years from 1990 to 2009 state employee count on Oahu increased by 10,000 or +20% whereas population grew by less than 10%.

In other words, between 1990 and 2009, the state government on Oahu added an entire Honolulu city government onto itself!

Two more observations. Bloated government comes at a high cost to the taxpayer. According to a recent article in The San Francisco Chronicle, Hawaii tops the list in total state taxes among all states in the union. That's a very pricey distinction.

Oahu state government added a lot more people as soon as Information Technology (IT, that is computer automation of bureaucracies) took hold. It appears that the powers in charge (government, legislature and unions) kept thousands in the dark ages and hired 5,000 new government workers for the new ages.

Rail Lessons from Greece

• Losses at Hellenic Railways continue to mount — at the rate of $3.8 million, a day. Its total debt has increased to $13 billion, or about 5% of Greece’s gross domestic product.

In comparison, the proposed rail for Oahu is 400% the annual amount of Oahu's CIP budget.

• Some have argued that Hellenic Railways should shut down the majority of its routes; trains manned by drivers being paid as much as $130,000 a year frequently run empty.

Outside multimillion population cities in the U.S., metro rail systems run basically empty except for a couple of hours around the AM and PM commute times. Typical U.S. Transit Authority managers are paid $250,000 to $400,000 annual salaries.

• The general secretary for the Greek Transport Ministry, contends that the government’s plan to close at least 35 loss-making routes and cut 2,500 jobs will make Hellenic Railways attractive to foreign investors.

But the former transportation minister responded: "I said I was not going to privatize Hellenic Railways because I knew I couldn’t find an investor silly enough to invest in a company with so much debt.”

How many investors have "Mufi Hannemann and the Pro-Railers" found?

Zero investors but thousands of payers! The 400,000 Oahu taxpayers!

Source: All bullets excerpted from New York Times' Greek Rail System’s Debt Adds to Economic Woes.

The Desperate Statements for a Failed Rail Project

Honolulu's sewers ate Mayor Hannemann's rail. See

Sewer settlement will cost Honolulu $4.7 billion over 25 years

Recall that in 2008 when we voted for rail and 50.6% said yes, the cost of the rail was $4.6 Billion. Now sewers alone are costing us $4.5 Billion.

Now compare items (1) and (2) below to get a sense of the mayor's desperation.

(1) MUFI HANNEMANN

(Wed., July 14, 2010)—Mayor Mufi Hannemann today said he is very pleased that Congressman Jim Oberstar, chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, yesterday publicly referred to Honolulu’s rail project “the premier transit project in the entire country.”

(2) ACTUAL FEDERAL TRANSIT ADMINISTRATION ASSESSMENT

We are listed in Preliminary Engineering for 2011

No money for Honolulu this year

Read Page 139 BARELY passable overall MEDIUM rating.

Capital Costs gets a Low rating

Operating Costs etc. gets a Medium-Low rating

Capital Cost Estimates, Planning Assumptions, and Financial Capacity: Low

· Assumptions regarding growth in GET revenues and Section 5309 bus discretionary funds are

optimistic compared to historical experience. Financing costs appear to be understated.

· The capital cost estimate is considered reasonable.

· The financial plan show the City has little ability to address funding shortfalls or cost increases.

The GET surcharge revenues that will be applied to project-related debt service provide very slim Operating Cost Estimates, Planning Assumptions, and Financial Capacity: Medium-Low

· Assumptions regarding state operating subsidies and growth in rail unit operating costs and bus and paratransit operating costs are optimistic compared to historical experience.

· The operating cash flow assumes a balanced budget, with no accrual of an operating surplus or reserve.

Abandoned, Unfinished, Elevated Rail ... For the Children

When all arguments in favor of a six billion dollar elevated rail boondoggle on Oahu prove to be myths, then proponents say, "we need rail for the sake of our children."

Unfortunately, they fail to realize that the six billion rail is heavily mortgaged and payments will be heavy and permanent "for the children."

Here is how an abandoned, unfinished, elevated rail can be turned into an asset for the children.



This story has two lessons:
(1) Elevated rail can be stopped and abandoned long after construction has started.
(2) A playground is a far better and far more affordable quality-of-life addition than ugly elevated rail.

America's Energy Policy...

... managed by politicians.

A brilliant 7-minute summary by Jon Stewart.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-june-16-2010/an-energy-independent-future

Politicians anyone?

Why Cities Are Broke or, There is Something Tragic About a Train...

Nick Gillespie is editor in chief of Reason.tv and Reason.com. He asks... "Why cities are broke or, there is something tragic about a train or a light rail system or a streetcar boondoggle that just makes people (well, pols and their civilian enablers) wet their pants over the prospect of tossing 19th-century technology and 21st century debt obligations at cities and states and countries that are already dead broke." It's a great brief that you can read HERE.

New Rail Systems – Obama Administration Position is Loud and Clear, but Hawaii Politicians Too ______ to Hear

Published in Hawaii Reporter: New Rail Systems – Obama Administration Position is Loud and Clear, but Hawaii Politicians Too ______ to Hear

Honolulu needs rail transit to “reduce our carbon footprint, save energy and get us off the maddening addiction to cars” NOT!

Railigious Argument: Honolulu needs rail transit to “reduce our carbon footprint, save energy and get us off the maddening addiction to cars.” And, “the environmental community in Honolulu is strongly behind rail.”

AntiPlanner 1: My former colleagues in the environmental movement have become so innumerate that they would support a turkey like the Honolulu elevated rail plan. The final environmental impact statement for that project is now available. Let’s see what it says about saving energy, carbon, and driving.

... Table 4-21 of the FEIS says the project will save 144,540 million BTUs per year. Page 4-206 says project construction will produce 7.48 trillion BTUs. That means it will take 52 years of savings to pay back the energy cost. Long before 52 years are up, huge energy investments will be needed to replace rail cars, worn out track, and other infrastructure.

AntiPlanner 2: The [rail] bootleggers, of course, are the crony capitalists who will make tens or hundreds of millions in profits building this unsightly monstrosity. I hope in the future more environmentalists will open their eyes and support things that are truly good for the environment, not just feel-good projects that cost a lot of money.

Read it all here: http://ti.org/antiplanner/?p=3350

Honolulu's Sewage Treatment -- A Very Costly Problem

I have held several "Talk Story with Panos" this year and I am astounded of how little people know about our sewers. Of course sewers is not a routine matter for a city's residents but nothing about Honolulu sewers is routine.

For starters, our sewer system is quite old, frail and undersized. As a result we have sewage main failures, sewer line failures, and sewage plant failures. This is the good news. They are normal, but we have too many of them. The Sierra Club made a career out of successfully suing the city for these spills. These spills are terrible for our coastal environment which is enjoyed by residents and tourists alike.

Yet our old sewers issue is still the good news because the City has this problem under partial control. The bad news is that Honolulu is the only metropolitan area of its size that does not have secondary sewage treatment. We basically filter the solids and discharge all the rest of the sewage 1.5 miles out in the ocean. Just like the sewage from Waikiki was discharged into the Ala Wai.

The difference is that we discharge almost 10 times the quantity of the Waikiki sewage every day! EPA did not agree with Honolulu's practice. We lost the suit and the appeal against the EPA. What does this mean? A $1.2 Billion liability for the city is a reality. (Yet another reason for Mayor Hannemann to get of the mayor's train.) See this 2009 report in the Star Bulletin: http://www.starbulletin.com/news/20090107_EPA_ruling_could_cost_city_1B.html#fullstory

Now Andrew Pereira of KHON News reports that the City has settled with the EPA.(http://www.khon2.com/news/local/story/City-close-to-settling-wastewater-lawsuit/DTER-Iz07EK6I-wNRa_ShQ.cspx) I am sure that the Hannemann administration is working hard to spin this in a pleasant way. But there is no doubt that Senator Inouye was correct in 2008 when he said that this $1.2 Billion liability "can break the back of the city."

How so? If EPA gives us till 2020 to come into compliance, then that's only 10 years to build a $1.2 Billion secondary treatment infrastructure. So the cost with interest comes to roughly $150 million per year. That's about the same cost of TheBus to operate for one year. So, for example, if we have no other funds, then TheBus has to shut down for 10 years in order to afford this commitment.

This analogy frames the cost of a $1.2 Billion project for Oahu. Rail is five times that. I'll leave it to the reader to frame that cost for Oahu.

The Sneaky Business of Transit Oriented Development -- Part 2: TOD Mean More Taxes, and Less Appeal to the Citizen

Honolulu Council Member Donovan Dela Cruz’s TOD angle about rail is a tired and by U.S. conditions largely false argument. First he needs to be reminded of Tom Berg’s excellent 2009 article in the Honolulu Star Bulletin “Fruitless in Fruitvale”:

See http://archives.starbulletin.com/2007/12/09/editorial/commentary4.html.

Ironically, the city's monthly propaganda on rail, paid by Honolulu taxpayers, May 2010 issue, pictures Oakland's Fruitvale Village TOD as a success. If success is noise and abandonment, then it is a success. This video proves it.

Many TOD as "automobile hate zones," their mobility is abysmally low and no small or large business can survive there unless it has its own (costly) parking.

Then there are these three fundamental points for the City Administration's and Dela Cruz’s enlightenment.

• TOD is Taxes Offered to Developers in multiple ways, (1) Upfront incentives which means taxes handed out to them as incentives, and (2) Reduced or waived property taxes for a number of years. Our city is in bad fiscal shape and in bad repair. Yet the typical politician proposes more taxes to benefit special interests but, as politicians do, they window dress taxes as a benefit for the "little guy."

• In January, 2009, The Urban Land Institute’s local chapter (ULI-Hawaii) commissioned a survey of housing attitudes among the public. The phone survey was of 600 Oahu residents. They are huge proponents of transit and smart growth, yet, among the conclusions is this: “there is relatively much less support for the smart growth idea of higher-density use of existing urban areas – perhaps in part because people here generally still would rather live in suburban/rural settings themselves.

• Portland, Oregon is the “poster child” of Light Rail advocacy and TODs. Research by Bruce Podobnik of the Department of Sociology at the Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon dated July 15, 2009 concludes as follows:

“This study examines the extent to which specific social and environmental objectives have been achieved in the new urbanist community of Orenco Station (Portland, Oregon). House-level surveys were conducted in Orenco Station, as well as a traditional suburb and two long established urban neighborhoods.

“The analysis also reveals a higher level of walking, and an increase in the occasional use of mass transit, in the new urbanist community. However, the majority of residents in all four neighborhoods (including the new urbanist neighborhood) rely on single occupancy vehicles for their regular commute.”

So when it comes to rail-based Land Use for TODs and Smart Growth, the argument that these work is all political hot air. Buses and roadways can do much much better at a fraction of the cost to the public.

A great example of this is the total remake on Kapiolani Boulevard between McMully and South Street with the Convention Center, the doubling of Ala Moana Center, the Nauru Towers complex, multiple other residential towers, the large, elegant dealerships, etc.

What's the Kapiolani Boulevard lesson? Huge investment for development and redevelopment and much increased densities took place in the absence of rail. However, if Mayor Fasi’s rail was built along Kapiolani Boulevard in the early 1990s, then rail proponents would have credited all this billion dollar investment to rail.

The Sneaky Business of Transit Oriented Development -- Part 1: Additional Land Controls that Distort Real Estate and Destroy Agriculture

We are being deceived, tricked, conned, and trapped.
Dr. Kioni Duddley
========================
Full credit goes to Dr. Kioni Dudley for getting the scoop (in time) before this monstrosity takes a hold. Please read Dr. Dudley’s assessment below.

I read through the TOD proposal last night. Thank God I did. We are being duped in to voting support for zoning of Ho'opili that forbids agricultural uses!! Two of the three stations are on Ho'opili land. By voting support for the "East Kapolei Neighborhood TOD Plan April 2010," the Board is being suckered into voting for zoning for Ho'opili that would mandate dwellings, cabarets, markets, schools, hospitals, consulates, retail establishments, manufacturing, and heliports for Ho'opili land, but would forbid "all agricultural uses" and "farm dwellings."

This is the way the rail boys do it -- They send us a 117 page CD that they know we are too busy to go through. It is perfectly titled: "East Kapolei Neighborhood TOD Plan Public Review Draft April 2010." No one can ever question what it was about. No one can ever question that the Plan has undergone public review. Buried fifty pages inside, amid boring minutiae is the secret they really want us to vote for, a whole new zoning category called the "TOD Special District," a new category of mandatory zoning which unquestionably has been clearly tied to Ho'opili land.

They get a member of the Sierra Club to come and support their concept in order to give it credibility. (She, of course, likes higher density rather than urban sprawl, and that's all she speaks about.) Then they get the Board to vote support for the "East Kapolei Neighborhood TOD Plan Public Review Draft April 2010.

In future months, they will use our vote to convince the Land Use Commission, and then the city Planning Commission and the City Council that after two public review meetings with our Board, where they explained the whole concept, we voted to support zoning that would mandate houses and commercial operations on Ho'opili, and would forbid farming on Ho'opili. No one will have the chance to say we didn't know we were voting for zoning at all, that zoning was buried in the document on pages 50 and 51, and that it was never mentioned at the meetings.

We are being deceived, tricked, conned, and trapped.

We need to be clear that this is not Transit Oriented Development. It is Developer Oriented Transit. Everything is being done for the developer.

Three polls by KHON and the Advertiser show that 78%, 87%, and 87% of the people want that land kept in farming. Our door-to-door campaign bears out these high numbers.

The document can be found at the link below. Brief excerpts from pages 49, 50, and 51 are copied below. http://honoluludpp.org/planning/TOD/NBPlans/EastKapoleiTOD/W3/EastKapoleiPubRevDraft041510.pdf

TOD SPECIAL DISTRICT

The TOD special district is intended to ensure the community vision for the station areas through zoning standards that enable and promote transit-oriented development.

Special district regulations are mandatory, not optional. The proposed TOD Special District regulations may supplement or modify the underlying zoning district regulations. If any TOD Special District regulation conflicts with any provision contained in Article 3 of the LUO (Establishment of Zoning Districts and Zoning District Regulations), the more restrictive regulation takes precedence. A property owner must follow the provisions of the TOD Special District in order to develop property. In doing so, the property may be subject to different permitted and conditional uses, modified densities and building heights, modified yards and modified parking requirements. To take advantage of such increased entitlements, additional design-related criteria may be required. All applications are subject to design review.

The recommended Special District boundaries around each transit station take into account distance from the transit station, natural topographic barriers, extent of market interest in development, planned land uses and the overall benefits of transit including the potential to increase transit ridership.

The TOD, or transit-oriented development, precincts are generally within 1/4 mile of the stations, or in areas with greater development potential. The areas will likely be developed sooner and should include larger building forms and higher-intensity mixed-use, employment and residential options.

The TIZ,or transit-influenced zone, precincts are located beyond the TOD core, between 1/4 mile to 1/2 mile from the stations and should be less intense by nature. Properties within the TIZ precincts will most likely redevelop over a longer time frame and should include smaller buildings that “step down” to meet surrounding lower density neighborhoods.

Permitted in both TOD & TIZ precincts
• Dwellings, multifamily
• Group living facilities
• Cabarets
• Office buildings
• Universities, colleges
• Commercial parking lots & garages
• etc.

Permitted in TIZ precincts
• Self-storage facilities
• Dwellings, detached, one-family
• Dwellings, detached, two-family
• etc.

Prohibited Land Uses
• All “agricultural” uses
• All “animal” uses
• Farm dwellings
• Vacations cabins
27 more prohibitions

Rail Final Environmental Impact Statement -- What is the Rail Going to Do about Traffic Congestion?

The residents and commuters of Leeward Oahu expect traffic relief from rail. Congestion reduction is an important goal and many taxpayers are willing to pay for congestion relief. So what is the conclusion of the FEIS regarding congestion?

1. Traffic congestion in 2030 will be far worse than it is now (basis is year 2005).
2. Traffic congestion in 2030 will be the same with or without rail.

The remainder of this post provides some pertinent explanations using direct numbers from the FEIS. City statements proclaim that the planned rail will remove 40,000 cars from the traffic. This sounds good. Is it?

Let’s look at the FEIS. (That’s the Final Environmental Impact Statement.) Is this number correct? Sort of. It’s not 40,000 cars, but 40,000 car trips. The FEIS says that rail will reduce 40,000 car trips from the total number of trips made in a typical weekday on Oahu in 2030. The FEIS also says that the total number of daily trips on Oahu in 2030 will be 3,989,300. That’s four million trips and rail will reduce those by 1%. That's a $5.5 Billion expenditure for a 1% reduction!

Various other statements by pro-rail politicians and city administration representatives proclaim a substantial reduction in traffic congestion. The answer is in the traffic analysis, and their own FEIS Tables 3-9 and 3-10 show that rails produces no traffic relief. Let me back track a bit to explain this. The U.S. standard description for quality of traffic flow (accounts for speed, wasted time, etc.) is called Level of Service or LOS. It is a simple rating from A to F. A is great, B is good, C is acceptable, D is bad but tolerable in large urban areas, E is very bad and F is unacceptable.

To give you an idea of what congestion relief means, in the early to mid-1990s, the town-side of Likelike Hwy. operated in LOS E. Once the H-3 Freeway opened up in 1998, the LOS for Likelike Hwy. improved to C. There was a clear and substantial improvement in traffic conditions. H-3 Freeway after 12 years in operation still operates in LOS A or B. That is a win-win outcome for two major roads. Something similar was realized when Kal. Hwy. from Kahala to Hawaii Kai was widened from 4 to 6 lanes. I remember nightmarish Saturday visits to Hanauma Bay taking about an hour. Now under 20 minutes is the norm. From level of service F to B. That’s what adding 50% capacity in lanes does!

So what’s in the future of Leeward Oahu’s residents in Kapolei, Makakilo and Ewa who commute to and from Honolulu? Will the rail change their E and F level traffic into a C or D? What change in traffic quality does the FEIS predict without and with the rail? The answer is summarized in the table below or it can be worded as follows: NONE!



Instead of rail, a city, state and private partnership can deliver express lanes and real congestion relief: Level of service B on the express lanes and LOS D or better on the existing roads. No modern rail has ever succeeded in congestion relief.

In contrast, no modern express lanes have failed to provide major congestion relief. There are many more express lane projects planned in the nation’s congested cities as there are rail systems.

Mid-June 2010 Update of the Honolulu Rail NEPA Process

City administration representatives mislead you that the feds have accepted the FEIS. The FTA allowed the city to release the FEIS in mid-June 2010. This is a step, but not a major milestone in the environmental process.

The FEIS is not an FEIS until the Governor signs it. Only then the FTA signs it and publishes that fact in the Federal Register.

At that point, the public comment period begins, and if there are significant remaining concerns then a Supplementary EIS may be required. An SDEIS had to be done for Mayor Harris' Bus Rapid Transit system in 2002.

The Programmatic Agreement (PA, or section 106 compliance) needs to be completed. As of mid-June 20101 it is incomplete. Upon PA completion, the FTA can issue a Record on Decision that completes the environmental (NEPA) process.

After that the city can complete Final Design. After Final Design is complete, the city can negotiate the actual funding level. That leads to the FFGA, or Full Funding Grant Agreement, that defines how much federal subsidy the city will receive.

This is a long way to go. You may safely ignore the pro-rail politician propaganda that rail is a done deal and that construction is about to start.

Honolulu's Top Eco-city Ranking Threatened by City Management

On May 30, 2010 the Honolulu Star Bulletin (now Star Advertiser) reported that Mercer generated eco-city rankings rating the livability quotient of major world cities, and “Honolulu came in second at 145.1 points, right behind Calgary” in Canada.

Eco-City Ranking 2010 includes the following criteria: Water availability, water potability, waste removal, sewage, air pollution and traffic congestion.

Water availability and potability are provided by the aina and have little to do with city administration actions. In fact, archaic water proportioning has forced the Board of Water Supply to manage about one quarter of Oahu's total water capacity.

Thanks to this biased apportioning of potable water resources Oahu may be forced to install desalination plants if its population exceeds one million people, while Oahu's aquifers can provide enough water for about four million people!

In addition Oahu's aging water distribution system experiences many failures as evidenced by the frequent water main breaks. According to BWS, there were an average of 364 breaks between 2005 and 2009, or one water main break per day!

Water main breaks affect water supply and quality, cause congestion, destroy roads and in some cases flood businesses and residences.

Honolulu is undeniably top ranked in air quality thanks to our location and wind patterns. Suspiciously however we spend 4 times as much money to buy hybrid buses instead of regular ones to gain no measurable pollution advantage or any bottom line savings.

Traffic congestion is bad but the average commute on Oahu is under 30 minutes, making it a fairly short one compared to large cities.

As for waste removal and sewage, a lack of investigation by Mercer and perhaps misleading reporting by the county has painted a rosy picture whereas the real condition is substandard.

Bottom line, nature blesses Honolulu with a stellar eco-city ranking and festering issues of trash, sewage, water management and traffic management are clear threats to its long term lead in eco-city ranking.

Costly Transit or Efficient HOT Lanes?

Dr. Steve Polzin is a fellow civil engineer with whom I share identical paths in graduate school. He is also earned Master's and Ph.D. degrees from Northwestern University, a leading institution in transportation studies.

Steve is the director of mobility policy research at the Center for Urban Transportation Research at the University of South Florida and is on the editorial board of the Journal of Public Transportation and serves on several Transportation Research Board and American Public Transit Association (APTA) Committees. He knows what works and what doesn't in public transit. In 2006 I nominated him to be the City Council's coordinator of the Transit Task Force, but everybody else ganged up on me and hired the pre-selected person.

His June 4, 2010 article on "The Cost of Slow Travel" is eye-opening about the pitfalls of mass transit. (Some of the pitfalls can be effectively corrected by running express buses on HOT lanes.) Here is an excerpt from his assessment:

"Transit’s slower average travel speeds result in approximately 3 billion hours annually of additional travel time. If valued at the TTI time value of $15.47 per hour, this equates to approximately $44 billion annually in lost productivity due to travelers having or choosing to use transit. Thus, the few percent of persons who use transit (approximately 2% of total person trips are on transit {5% of work trips} and approximately 1% of person miles of travel) incur 70% as much lost time relative to driving as is incurred by the total of auto travelers due to congestion, $44 billion for transit users versus $64 billion for driving in congestion."

His conclusion is the inescapable truth that speed leads to effective transportation of people and goods, which in turn generates a strong and competitive economy. In his words:

"One of the reasons the country and individuals have become more productive and the country has had growing gross domestic product over the past several decades is that we have been highly mobile and travel has gotten faster until recent years. Part of the reason for faster travel has been the shifting from slow to faster modes and facilities. There are lots of good reasons to enable and encourage use of alternative modes but analysis of the consequences should strive to be objective about the travel time and productivity consequences."

The correct alternative in the case of Oahu is HOT lanes between the H-1/H-2 merge and downtown which:

• provide the choice to pay for express travel
• combine with free vanpools which reduce the amount of solo driver cars by encouraging the successful VanPool Hawaii! that the Feds support
  
• facilitate point-to-point express buses; example Waikele to downtown in under 15 minutes; Mililani to Waikiki in under 30 minutes (these sample commute times are for the middle of morning rush hour)
  
• serve as a resilience and recovery transportation corridor in case of major storm, severe congestion on parallel freeways or other emergency.
  

Saddle Road: From 15 to 55 miles per hour for $100 million

It is rare to see a major road project in Hawaii -- unless you are on Maui where the transportation committee chairs for both House and Senate come from.

The re-alignment and upgrade of the Saddle Road is a major project. For me this is a bittersweet experience. As a holder of a (now expired) car racing license, the challenge that was the Saddle Road in the 1990s is no more. The twists, turns and elevation changes made it a challenge even at 25 miles per hour! But having fun with a challenging drive is not an excuse for maintaining a road in a primitive condition.

When the project is completed, the benefit to the Big Island commuters between the Hilo and Kona sides will be grand. Major savings in travel time and in safety. Here's a March 2010 photo of the construction.



The comparison of Saddle Road on Big Island with Kaukonahua Road on Oahu is an interesting example of facts and choices. Kaukonahua Road near the North Shore of Oahu is a short, winding stretch of rural highway that is vital to the Wailua and Haleiwa communities.

This fun one mile of road (which is not scary or unsafe compared, for example, to the Road to Hana or Oahu's Tantalus Round Top Drive) manages to be the locus of about one dead motorist per year. So on one hand we have one mile of winding road that kills roughly 20 people every 20 years (see end note) and on the other hand we have over 22 miles of winding road that kills one or two persons every 20 years. And we choose to spend over $100 million to straighten the second one!

Other than that, the new Saddle Road is a phenomenal improvement in roadway alignment.

From this...



To this...


I could not get a complete picture of the phases and costs of the Saddle Road project. I found two milestones dated May 2007 and March 2009. Here is the respective information and the website for the project.

May 2007 -- The Federal Highway Administration-Central Federal Lands Highway Division (CFLHD), in cooperation with the Hawaii Department of Transportation and the Department of the Army awarded a $59 million contract to Goodfellow Brothers, Inc. of Waikoloa, Hawaii for construction of the first 16 miles of the new Saddle Road. The plans and specifications for the project were developed by Okahara & Associates, Inc. of Hilo, Hawaii.

March 2009 -- A $34.6 million construction contract to Goodfellow Brothers, Inc of Waikoloa, Hawaii for grading and paving of a new section of Saddle Road from mile marker 35 to 41.5. The contract was awarded on October 24, 2008; construction officially began on November 19 and is expected to be completed by late summer, 2009. Upon completion, 22-miles of the 48-mile long Saddle Road route will have been upgraded to modern standards and opened to public traffic. http://www.saddleroad.com/archived/index.html

Endnote: Recent Kaukonahua Road crashes

• May 1, 2010 -- Crash on Kaukonahua Road kills one woman, injures another
• Oct 12, 2009 -- Fatal motorcycle crash on Kaukonahua Road
• Apr 12, 2009 -- Elderly Man Killed on Kaukonahua Road