Where did you go and how did you get there?
This, essentially, is what city and state transportation officials are trying to find out in the Oahu Regional Travel Survey that they expect will help in planning for the Island’s transportation needs.
Starting today, and continuing for four weeks, certain residents are being asked to fill out, for one day, a 24-hour travel log.
The log is the most important of three surveys being conducted by the Oahu Metropolitan Planning Organization (OMPO) and the state and city transportation and planning agencies, according to Cheryl D. Soon, OMPO executive director.
The first survey, help Oct. 16-22, consisted of questionnaires passed out on selected bus routes and which asked for information about the bus ride of each rider.
A third survey, Nov. 9-20, will consist of brief interviews with people arriving at or leaving a number of sites, such as shopping centers and parks.
The bus and special site surveys will be used to supplement information obtained from the travel logs.
Total cost of the project will be $143,000, with $60,000 being for the three surveys and the remainder going for computer analyses of survey results, report writing, and making models to describe travel patterns, Soon said.
A comparison will be made with travel patterns established in Michigan and Florida where similar surveys were recently made, she said.
Eighty percent of the project funds will come from the federal government, 10 percent from the state, and 10 percent from the City-County of Honolulu, she said.
The surveys represent the first major effort to update Oahu’s transportation forecasting abilities in 20 years, she said. Once updated, no further updating will be needed for another 10 years, she said, and transit patterns don’t change rapidly. …
The surveys will allow the state and city to make more specific analyses of transportation policies, such as putting in more express-bus service or car-pool lanes. …
Surveys made 20 years ago had much to do with state planning for the H-1, H-2 and H-3 highway projects and for widening of roads, she said.
