Honolulu has the best bus system in America, taking a higher percentage of commuters to work and carrying more daily riders per capita than any other bus system. But just having the best bus system isn’t good enough for some people, who just have to have a rail line to have “real transit.” So the city is about to break ground on a 20-mile-long elevated rail line that is expected to cost $5.27 billion ($260 million per mile), and will probably end up costing more. The city has already spent $350 million just planning the rail line–enough to operate its bus system for nearly two years–without laying a single inch of track.
The project even has Bette Midler upset. She grew up in Honolulu but now lives in New York which, she notes, went to a great deal of trouble to remove many of its ugly elevated rail lines. “That this project is going to be so small, cost so much, and have such a terrible impact on the environment is dreadful,” she says. “The very idea that the state would sacrifice the most important amenity it has to offer the world, the beauty of its environment, is beyond belief.” Not beyond belief: some people want rail transit no matter what the cost.
The latest news is that former Hawaii Governor Ben Cayetano is running for mayor for the specific purpose of killing the rail line. The Honolulu Star-Advertiser “objectively” reports that, if Cayetano wins, “money and jobs may disappear.” Yes, money will “disappear” back into taxpayers’ pockets, who will foolishly spend that money on things that will create jobs that are a lot more useful than building an elevated rail line that will only have to be torn down in a few years.
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Someone (actually several someones) once asked “why do conservatives hate trains?” The real question is why do so many liberals so love trains that they are willing to overlook the high financial cost, environmental justice costs (when buses to low-income neighborhoods are cut to pay for trains to middle-income neighborhoods), the deteriorating state of our existing rail transit lines, and the failure of any rail line built in the past fifty years to significantly increase transit’s share of travel. The answers may depend on the liberal in question, but I can’t help but feel the real answer lies in the innumeracy of so many Americans today.
350 million to design, how much do cocktail napkin drawings cost. Why do conservatives hate trains……………A) Their slow, B) Their expensive, C) Their financially unprofitable (except for freight, which isn’t that much of an issue for a place as small as Hawaii)….Still elevated rapid transit systems visual appeal is no different than a elevated highways. Honolulu has “The Bus” (seriously called that, no original or complicated title whatsoever).
What happened to the massive twin Superferries that they would run through the islands that they said would have been more efficient than flying planes from island to island.
Either way Hawaii has more pressing environmental concerns namely the Pacific currents which dumps hundreds of tons of garbage all across it’s beaches annually from the Great Pacific Garbage patch. Almost 40 percent of the endangered species observed in the United States are from Hawaii, while nearly 75 percent of all U.S. extinctions have occurred there as well; with problems such as domestic cats killing native birds and feral pigs tearing out vegetation causing soil erosion or destroying nests of ground laying birds. Hawaii is known as the “extinction capital of the world”.
Was the same squawking heard when Interstate H1 was built as an elevated freeway through Honolulu? How about when the Pacific Ocean was landfilled to expand the Honolulu Airport? Does SR92 destory the natural beauty of the Oahu coastline by its occupation of it? Why doesn’t Bette discuss the stunning beauty of the oil terminals, warehouses, and container handling cranes on Sand Island and the adjacent “mainland” of Oahu? Or maybe all this concrete and asphalt just sprouts out of the ground in Hawaii as a part of nature instead of being an ugly constructed eyesore like a horrible lieral train?
And Bette Midler is such an expert on this topic because …. ?
And why will the line need to be torn down in a few years?
Do what France did, in Paris they built an entire ring road (beltway in America); The 2.2 billion Euro, A86 West Tunnel forms the final link of the 80km A86 ringroad around Greater Paris. Completed in January 2011, the tunnel allows the journey from Malmaison to Versailles to take only just 10 minutes, rather than 45 minutes. The A86 West consists of two toll tunnels; one is an innovative 10km double-deck tunnel (duplex motorway) for light vehicles, the other, at 5.5km, is along more traditional lines with just a single deck designed for all vehicles such as trucks. I believe it’s entirely privately financed and built. They could have a setup like this on the Big Island and Oahu (the most populated island) and handle a vast majority of it’s congestion problems. They can be built to the configuration of the people that use them or use entrances and exits to connect to the major highways such as H-1. Although it comes into question how much it would cost to tunnel through volcanic rock; I hear that stuff is basalt and pretty tough.
Additional: I doubt most would complain if it’s majority were underground, the only visible portions would be the vents and the entrance/exits of which can be disguised or gussied up to look nice.
http://www.roadtraffic-technology.com/projects/a86/a869.html
Though expressways make up less than 2% of the roads in the USA. You’re always conveniently over looking the road in front of your home.
I wonder how much the salary of the senior managers of Oahu Transit Services will be increased if this rail line gets built.
Transit managers that run bus-only systems are (as best as I can tell) not nearly as generously compensated as those that run rail systems.
And speaking of rail transit, from a place that’s pretty far from Hawaii, it seems that Maryland’s Transit Administration may have to condemn quite a few properties in order to build the so-called Purple Line light rail.
Was the same squawking heard when Interstate H1 was built as an elevated freeway through Honolulu? How about when the Pacific Ocean was landfilled to expand the Honolulu Airport? Does SR92 destory the natural beauty of the Oahu coastline by its occupation of it? Why doesn’t Bette discuss the stunning beauty of the oil terminals, warehouses, and container handling cranes on Sand Island and the adjacent “mainland†of Oahu?
I don’t think anyone would argue in favor of the scenic qualities of these projects, but at least they are functional and productive in a way that the current vanity project Honolulu is considering will never be.
CPZ, property gets condemned for road projects as well.
Like O’Toole, you’re a hypocrite!