Search Results for: honolulu rail

Not in Time for the Election

By | | Transportation, Urban areas
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Honolulu is voting today on whether to spend $4 to $5 billion on an elevated rail system. The city is hoping the federal government to match local funds, but the mayor is so eager to have the rail line that he wants to start construction before the feds give their approval.

After a campaign in which the mayor used his own campaign funds to pay for newspaper ads slurring rail skeptics, opponents managed to collect enough signatures to put the rail project on the ballot. As it happens, the city published a draft environmental impact statement (DEIS), needed for federal approval, just a few days before the election. (The DEIS is dated October 28, but it wasn’t posted on line until November 1st or 2nd.)

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Want to Save Energy? Take a Van

By | | Transportation
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The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) has published “provisional” data for 2006, including transit ridership, passenger miles, operating costs, energy consumption, and similar numbers for almost every transit system and mode of transit in the country. The data tables are not exactly straightforward, so the Antiplanner has compiled a summary showing the most important numbers by agency and mode and totals by urban area. Don’t say I never did anything for you.

Earlier this year, the American Public Transportation Association (APTA), the transit industry’s lobby group, was thrilled to report that 2006 transit ridership exceeded 10 billion trips for the first time in 49 years. As exciting as this sounds, it was only 2.9 percent more than in 2005, even though 2006 fuel prices were a lot higher than in 2005.

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Judging Planners by Their Intentions

By | | News commentary, Urban areas
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A group called Sustainlane has ranked America’s largest cities for their sustainability. Which is number one? Why, Portland, of course.

But I have a few questions about how they calculated their rankings. Most of their data are based on secondary sources. Take public transit, for example, which, they say, is based on the “2003 Texas Mobility Study.” Based on whatever this study is supposed to say, Portland gets a greenish score of 20 while Honolulu gets a yellow 28 (apparently, smaller numbers are better).

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Transportation: Planning or Procrastinating?

By | | Transportation, Why Planning Fails
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According to the Texas Transportation Institute’s annual mobility reports, traffic delays due to congestion have been growing at nearly 8 percent per year since 1982. Those who closely scrutinize urban transportation planning in the U.S. increasingly believe that planners are doing everything they can to avoid solving this problem.

Case in point: Portland, Oregon, which sits astride the Willamette River and has ten roadway crossings of that river. One of them, the Sellwood Bridge, is structurally unsound and in 2004 the county engineer has banned all trucks and buses from the bridge. I can testify that the bridge is also one of the least bicycle-friendly bridges in the city.

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