It’s not too late to make right call on rail
The Federal Transit Administration says it will demand its money back if rail does not reach Ala Moana Center.
Both mayoral candidates now say the city has no choice but to do what the Federal Transit Administration says.
Fortunately, neither the FTA nor the winner of the mayoral election will decide rail’s fate. Legislators and City Councilmembers will decide whether to raise taxes enough to cover the cost.
These decision-makers should address four questions:
>> How much more money is needed to finish rail?
>> Where will that money come from?
>> What will be accomplished?
>> What could be accomplished if the same amount of money is spent on something else?
We believe that they will reach the following conclusions:
>> Another $5.75 billion, over and above the non-recoverable $3.5 billion already spent, will be needed to reach Ala Moana Center (i.e., total construction costs of $10.8 billion, less $3.5 billion already spent or irretrievably committed, less $1.55 billion federal money yields $5.75 billion).
>> The chances of getting an additional federal grant are virtually nil.
>> The private sector will not provide more than an insignificant portion of the needed money.
>> The bulk of the new money will have to comefrom local residents, who will pay an average of $200 per person ($800 for each family of four) every year until construction ends.
>> The rest — roughly 15 percent of $5.75 billion — will come from tourists or other nonresidents.
>> After construction ends, each family of four will continue to pay an average of $800 per year, to operate and maintain the rail system.
>> Traffic congestion will be much worse when rail becomes fully operational than it is now.
Those who question this last statement should see the final environmental impact study in where the city admits, “traffic congestion will be worse in the future with rail than what it is today without rail.”
Other ways to spend the money: Working together, the city and state could reduce traffic congestion, for example, by aggressively adding new traffic lanes to existing roads, as has already been done on the central part of H-1 Freeway; by installing flyovers and bypasses in chokepoint areas like the Middle Street merge; and by adding new contra-flow and bus-on-shoulder options. Each is a proven strategy that, unlike rail, would benefit all commuters.
The city could also afford to greatly improve its award-winning bus system. This might include increasing the number of express buses that go where commuters want to go, rather than eliminating most of them as is part of the rail plan.
All of the above could be done for less than half of the money saved by pulling the plug on rail now. The Legislature and City Council could spend the rest on other areas of need, such as a comprehensive homeless plan, improvements for our schools, sewer and road repairs — or simply leave it in the pockets of island residents.
The existing guideway could be modified for walking, biking and other community activities, and provide unique views. New York City’s High Line is a wildly popular public park built on an abandoned rail line. While no one would set out to spend $3.5 billion for a High Line trail/park in Hawaii, it could become a tourist attraction.
Twenty years from now, traditional mass transit will be functionally obsolete for cities like Honolulu thanks to autonomous vehicles and ride-hailing apps.
Who’s the future of urban transportation: Apple, Google and Uber, or Kirk Caldwell, the FTA and the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation?
Panos Prevedouros is a civil engineering professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Randall Roth is a law professor at UH-Manoa.
34 responses to “It’s not too late to make right call on rail”
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There’s no graceful exit from this mess.
“The existing guideway could be modified for walking, biking and other community activities, and provide unique views.”
100 year lease to Zoroastrians for use in sky burials. DLNR would have to approve introduction of vultures.
Speaking of vultures: … Construction contractors, unions, crooked politicians, and stupid journalists produced this fiasco. Fire Caldwell.
Randy Roth and Panos have been right from the start of this fiasco. The truth is that Mufi never told the truth about the union-driven project that was passed during the Great Recession. This was sold as a make-work project. Sadly, more jobs would have been created if we had done what Roth says: we could have done a massive infrastructure rebuilding. Now we don’t have a viable rail and we still have to rebuild the infrastructure. The dishonesty of our monopoly party and secrets made this bad project pass. Horrible work and the time when the monopoly party can continue to hurt the public is growing short.
Let”s all remember Panos and Randy want to replace rail with a ten lane tolled freeway. They have yet to come up with a realistic alternative to rail.
So much room to put that 10 lane toll road. Fasi just lied when he pushed rail decades ago.
And let’s all remember that Mufi touted the real as costing under 5 billion or so, let’s all remember that Kirk told us “on time and on budget”,let’s all remember the reporting on KHON 2 about the cracking structure, the sinking holes on the westside near the rail, let’s remember that no one has a clue how the real will be powered and who is going to build the power source, let’s all remember the the landowners, private special interest, for their TOD’s along the rail line, let’s remember how PRP did a smear job in the last election, let’s remember that Mufi touted that there would be 4-10 workers on the rail, let’s ……….
LOL!!! VERY well put, MalcolmK!!!
Why are Roth and Panos rejecting the idea of adding two new highway FREEWAY lanes from West Oahu and Central Oahu to and from downtown? The existing 28 feet wide guideway can easily be converted to a REVERSIBLE EAST
The practical option is to convert the rail guide way to a 2-lane, HOV(2) Reversible Expressway (no toll) from Kapolei to Aloha Stadium for less than $4 Billion already collected via GET. The two-lane reversible can be used for single passenger vehicles during non-peak hours. Tampa has built a Reversible Express Lane for $42 million per mile in year 2006, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkM-MC3N-oY. The Tampa elevated structure is built similar to the Oahu Rail guide way (see typical cross section for both structures).
On/Off access ramps can be built at Kalaeloa, Farrington/Ft. Weaver Rd/H-1/H2 merge vicinity and Aloha Stadium. The 28 ft wide, two lane guide way can be widened from two lanes to three lanes without exceeding the $4 Billion cost.
The reversible expressway can carry up to 17,000 commuters per hour (200 express buses and 3800 vehicles per hour) versus 3,000 RAIL commuters per hour. The express buses can continue on to Kaneohe, UH Manoa, Waikiki and beyond. . New buses are 80% Federally funded and would cost the city $40 million for 200 new buses. HART plans to purchase 80 rail cars at $2.0 million (Oahu taxpayer funded) each for $160 million.
Delete all rail related costs to include rail cars, maintenance facility, 21 rail stations, new power plant, utilities relocation, land acquisition, etc to keep the cost below $4 Billion.
Ben you need to turn in your engineering degree. The existing rail infrastructure cannot be converted for cars.
The pavement on the guide way box girders can be leveled to provide a 28 ft wide corridor for two freeway lanes. The guideway are designed for rail cars which are are two to three times heavier than buses, cars much lighter.
The cross section of the guideway is similar to the three lane Tampa
Expressway. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkM-MC3N-oY.
The city has another option, conversion from steel wheels to urban magnetic levitation (maglev). The HART Chair has mentioned a peer review by transit experts; those experts must include a maglev engineering team. Maglev that uses American technology can meet (and even exceed) the terms of the 2012 Full Funding Grant Agreement with the available funding options and within the timelines. With the billions already spent, why not spend a few thousand to determine whether or not maglev can be implemented here? Critics state that no U.S. city has maglev. That fact primarily points to the sad state of the nation’s rail infrastructure compared to, for example, Asia where urban maglevs operate in Japan, China, and Korea.
The move toward maglev overseas has much to do with operations and maintenance costs. We can save billions in O&M with maglev over 30 years vis-à-vis steel wheels. If the city administration, the mayoral candidates, and HART ignore maglev, it will be up to the City Council to do something constructive for a change after abrogating its responsibility to select the rail technology eight years ago. This is no time for taxpayer complacency as steel wheels costs continue to escalate. Why not implement 21st Century maglev and regain public confidence in the rail project.
Isn’t maglev only used for long distance rail with stops about 50 miles apart? What is the electrical cost to operate this system? That is why it is not used for commuter rail systems. It will also need exclusive right of way and straight lines to be efficient.
FrankGenaldio is to Maglev what Panos is to killing rail….never give up…dead and buried…but, still slugging.
Frank is beating a dead horse. Frank please stop.
Sorry for not responding sooner; was not on the computer. Urban maglevs are not high-speed trains (i.e., like the maglev in Shanghai and the system being developed in Japan, which holds the world’s train speed record of 374 miles per hour). They are commuter systems that do not require straight guideway, are operationally superior (especially in quietness) to steel wheels, and much more cost-effective. The systems I mention are in Nagoya, Incheon, and Changsha. O&M costs, including electricity, are perhaps a little over half of that for steel wheels.
Obviously traffic congestion will be worse in the future than it is today due to projected population increase and our traditional car-centric mentality. However traffic conditions will be better with rail than without rail. Rail will provide an alternative for those who don’t wish to drive and suffer in the traffic congestion. Our urban community deserves to have the same transportation options including rail rapid transit as do other major cities all over the world. The future benefits of rail definitely justify the cost.
This is all you have?
Did it occur to you to actually address any of the points they made instead of lazily pasting in the same vague nonsense. These guys have been proven right again and again, while your self serving rail cheerleader lies keep getting exposed.
Are you ever going to reveal where it is on the mainland that you live and what your connection is to this mess of a rail project?
Poor ukuBS’s arguments are getting weaker and weaker as of late… It’s must be mentally taxing for him to try to think up more lies and obfuscations after running them by HART and Krooky.
But he’s such a defender of “average locals” he feels he must lie on…
uku=BS!
Even if rail relieves some traffic, it won’t be worth 16 billion to build rail from owhere to Ala Moana.
Ukuleleblue says, “traffic conditions will be better with rail than without rail.” That’s not necessarily true. As Prevedouros and Roth point out, a potion of the money saved by not building rail could be used to relieve traffic congestion. The simple truth is that there isn’t enough money to both build rail and relieve traffic congestion.
The authors simply don’t understand “multimodalism,” the concept that you provide commuters many modes to commute and let them choose the path of least resistance. Unlike the authors, I actually suspect the number of rail riders will grossly exceed those forecast in the EIS because locals will choose to not drive cars, pay car loans, insurance, fuel and maintenance while sitting in traffic congestion which will be much much worse without rail. As said many times by those who know, when you build more freeways you simply get more cars. It is not a solution.
“locals will choose to not drive cars, pay car loans, insurance, fuel and maintenance while sitting in traffic congestion which will be much much worse without rail.”
You must really NOT know your “average locals”.
Why do you think sales of massive and luxury SUVs (think Tahoe, Cayenne, LS470, Merc GLS, BMW X5, etc) has SPIKED??? Because people want COMFORT when sitting in traffic transporting Keaalii, Maile, Blaise and Zooey to MidPac/Punahou/Kam/St Louis…
They sure ain’t gonna be doing it on the RAIL FAIL
Actually, commuters now already have a “multimodalism” type of transportation. They can either drive, ride the bus, bike, or walk. With rail, the only thing that will be eliminated is the bus part, except for the fact that they will have to do multiple transfers to reach their final destination.
“locals will choose to not drive cars, pay car loans, insurance, fuel and maintenance”
Total bull. The rail will not be sufficient enough for people to not own cars.
Thanks to Panos Prevedouros and Randall Roth for this reality check. They have consistently opposed this boondoggle from before it began; and they have every right to say “I told you so” even if they exhibit the “Hawaiian value” of ha’aha’a by refraining.
Roth is a truth teller and routinely stands up to the money interest in the monopoly party. I very much respect him.
AGREE
However we have too many S T U P I D voters and elected officials who seem to have ZERO common sense.
Its hard to even listen to the Pro-Rail B$ anymore, so glad we moved from Mililani to the east side.
Let all the F O O L S who want rail and live on the west side ENJOY THIER GRIDLOCK TRAFFIC. We told you so 🙂
Thank you Panos Prevedouros and Randall Roth!!
I hope this editorial isn’t this well hidden in the print edition.
This is the kind of critical thinking Hawaii desperately need, based on facts and reason not political platitudes and hollow promises. Lawyers and politicians have already wasted $3.5 billion on the most embarrassing and mismanaged infrastructure project in state history.
Thanks, Randy and Panos, for continuing to speak up about better alternatives to wasting $5-10 billion more on rail. Let’s hope our leaders have the wisdom and integrity to follow your advice.
The Tax Foundation gave us the numbers for our “Skin in the Game”. $200.00 per person for 21 years (this is after the Tourists pay their share). So every family of four is going to pay $16,800.00 in the first 21 years. What do we get for this money? The only benefit the city and HART talk about is something called “Quality of Life” improvement. We need to demand they explain what this means. We are paying over 80% for this project. It is time to seriously consider stopping the project. Sell the guideway to a private developer – let them change our State laws and allow for a one lane toll road.
The Kiewit’s story tells it all, why a reputable company like Kiewit chose not to submit a bid for the Rail System’s 2nd phase. They simply lost, confidence. What a disappointment as they have contributed a lot to our local community as an employer and corporate citizen.
Reputable? Subpar work on the rail that will be revealed in time. Contributing to the economy by bringing in workers from the mainland? LOL
Mahalo Panos for your voice of reason. Best to kill this thing now and focus future construction on realigning roadway, fixing sewers and etc.