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DENNIS ODA / OCT. 2018
A vacant parcel is shown along Kualakai Parkway and makai of the on-ramp to H-1 freeway heading east. The large parcel is on both sides of Farrington Hwy. that includes the HART mass transit rail line (from UH West Oahu) as it bends east toward Waipahu.
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Now that California has finally decided to put the brakes on its ill-conceived, over-budget, bullet-train pipe dream, it’s time for Honolulu to cut its losses on the equally ill-conceived, over-budget, low-speed sky train. As fantastical and expensive as the California rail project was, the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation exceeds that by a multiple when comparative population size and state budgets are taken into consideration.
As the support columns now reach the airport from Kapolei, it is time to reconsider ending the system at Middle Street and reformulating a reasonable and achievable alternative to ultimately connect it to Downtown and Ala Moana, or not to do so at all.
Voters and the project they voted for are blind to the concept that a billion dollars equals one thousand million dollars. Imagine the improvements in the quality of life for all in Hawaii that a few of those thousand-million-dollar bundles could make, if our leadership had the courage and vision to re-think the project beyond a Middle Street transportation hub and bring it down to Earth, budgetarily, figuratively and literally.
James Reilly
Aiea
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