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20120829-2809 CTY ALAPAI The new parking garage above the Alapai Transit Center (as seen from the mauka side) is empty because it is reserved for employees of the yet to be built Traffic Management Center. There are no bathroom facilities for people using the bus even though many people gather waiting for the bus. The bathrooms in the Alapai Transit Center have a combination lock and are reserved for bus drivers and workers which outraged many bus riders. The city today will introduce a measure to designate it as an employee parking garage and allow others to park there. PHOTO BY DENNIS ODA. AUG. 29, 2012.

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Spaces, spaces everywhere, and not a spot to park

It sure took a while, but at least common sense has prevailed.

After more than a year of sitting mostly empty due to red tape, the new five-story parking garage at the Joint Traffic Management Center on Alapai has finally gotten clearance to start, well, letting in vehicles to park.

The $100 million center is being paid for mainly by federal funds, which came with a Federal Transit Administration stipulation that only transit-related employees, and mainly those working at the traffic center, could park there. Problem is, most of the traffic center hasn’t even been built yet, and isn’t due to open till 2016. Meanwhile, there’s scarce parking in the area; city employees are on a waiting list for a lot nearby. Did we mention that only about 40 stalls in the new 410-stall parking garage, opened since May 2012, are currently being used?

But now, the FTA has signed off on allowing the city to use the garage on an interim basis, with generated monthly revenues going to the city’s bus transportation fund. Win-win — or so we hope. The city is now meeting with union officials to see who gets to park there, a process expected to take one to two months.

Expiration dates a suggestion, not a command

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They’re all around us, printed onto almost every product we ingest: those expiration or "best if used by" dates. Now comes new research that recalls the adage, "Do not believe everything you read."

A study by Harvard Law School and the Natural Resources Defense Council finds that those dates printed on packaged foods are inconsistent in meaning, misunderstood by consumers and result in much food being thrown out prematurely and wasted. The dates are meant to help retailers cycle through their stock and allow manufacturers to indicate when a product is at peak freshness. But there’s a lack of consistent standards, the study found, and manufacturers often decide on their own how to calculate shelf life and what the dates mean.

Pity the poor consumer. Probably best to just view the dates as a guideline, but the fuzzy mold growth as a sure sign of spoilage.