Thanks for staying home this Thanksgiving

It’s a busy holiday weekend of planes, trains and automobiles as national Thanksgiving travel is expected to continue its gradual rise of last year, after recent seasons of recession-driven cutbacks.

In its annual holiday travel survey, the American Automobile Association and research/forecasting firm IHS says some 42.5 million people will travel at least 50 miles from home during the long weekend of Wednesday through Sunday, a 4 percent increase over the 40.9 million trips a year earlier.

About 90 percent of the travel is expected to be done by car — so drivers can expect heavier traffic on roads, especially in areas like the Pacific Northwest and East Coast being hit by severe weather. Luckily for those of us staying put in Hawaii, it should be a breeze on the way to tutu’s house on both those fronts: relatively short distances and expected sunny weather. Be thankful.

News flash: Rail structure won’t be beautiful

It’s not so surprising that The Outdoor Circle, perhaps Hawaii’s pre-eminent organization with a mission to protect the islands’ beauty, has taken a firm stance against the city’s proposed rail line. These are the people who famously fought to restrict the size of signage in Honolulu. Hawaii has them to thank for the fact that billboards don’t blight the landscape.

But the head-scratching element in this week’s policy statement is the timing. What changed the group’s mind at this juncture? Everyone might have understood that a beautification organization was likely to oppose an elevated rail structure marching across the landscape.

Could there have been a split on the issue, with the looming courtroom battles and recent boardroom chaos for the project’s intended builders, Ansaldo Honolulu, turning the tide? Just a theory.