I knew this would happen: Charles Djou has no other plan but to go along with rail. So in the end, we should not base our votes just on rail; it’s about other issues, like how to handle the homeless.

Djou has said the homeless need counseling. The way they handle this issue to me shows the candidates’ character. I’m for the one who puts roofs over the heads of the homeless.

Sylvia Thompson

Makiki

Ala Moana Center beats UH as end point for rail

I am sure many people are sick of hearing about the rail adventure.

However, this much is true: Rail has been approved. Rail construction is well underway and suggestions to stop it or tear it down are ludicrous.

If it is not completed, think about life and traffic in Honolulu 10, 20, 30 years from now. We do have to think about the future.

The rail was planned to end at Ala Moana Center. It would be nice to have an extension to the University of Hawaii-Manoa, but more people go to Ala Moana Center in one day than students to UH. Also, there is a sharp dropoff of UH students in the summer.

Middle Street, I’m sure, is a fine neighborhood — though in nearly 40 years of living here, I can’t say much about it other than a transitional point from H-1 to Nimitz Highway, or as a place to find some otherwise hard-to-find service, or for some, a prisoner visitation.

Yes, the rail project is expensive but anyone with the slightest foresight knows that it will only be much more expensive 10-15 years from now.

I imagine there were doubters in the horse-and-buggy days who felt the automobile was a useless, noisy fad and that a highway system in Honolulu would be a wasteful boondoggle — but time changes everything.

Geoffrey V. Davis.

Aiea

End rail now, forgo cash from feds, save billions

It would be cheaper to end rail now than to see it through to Ala Moana Center.

We would have to pay only $1 billion back to the feds as they are currently withholding $500 million.

The rail cost could go to $10 billion, more than doubling the $4.3 billion we were first told.

Where are the billions to pay for this? No one can say what the final cost will be.

Already, the disruption to business and traffic is bad in Pearl City and Aiea. Wait till it gets to Dillingham, where there is no median.

The yearly cost for operation and maintenance will be north of $100 million a year.

Ridership is estimated to be 25 percent of what was forecast.

For a 2 percent increase in traffic, better to run express buses to Middle Street over the rail lane.

Peter Chisteckoff

Mililani Mauka

Hepatitis A problem still not fully addressed

Many of us are not impressed with Genki Sushi’s sanitization of its locations, nor its employees’ immunizations for hepatitis A.

The outbreak was due directly to contaminated food stock from a country with substandard food safety standards.

What kind of assurances has Genki given customers that this won’t happen again? None.

Neither have any state Health Department officials done anything to address the heart of the problem.

Scott Sato

Wahiawa