On Earth Day, Honolulu officials rode the city’s driverless, all-electric Skyline trains to not only tout the benefits of mass transit but laud current and future sustainable projects along the West Oahu line.
Monday’s media event highlighted the release of the Mayor’s Office of Climate Change, Sustainability and Resiliency’s 2024 Annual Sustainability Report for Oahu.
That city document outlines the progress the city says it has made in terms of its operations, its climate plans, its clean and affordable modes of transportation, its food security, its water management and its disaster preparedness.
“This report is really about ensuring that we are transparent in tracking our efforts for a whole variety of city sustainability and community resiliency and initiatives,” Matt Gonser, executive director of the Office of Climate Change, Sustainability and Resiliency, told reporters at Halawa Station.
He noted two “great successes.”
“This is the fifth year in a row that the city has reduced our electricity usage,” he said. “And that’s because of really important partnerships and investments all across city facilities, where we can then take those savings to continue to invest in other (projects).”
The city also experienced “ lower water usage in the last three years,” he added.
According to the city, Honolulu’s so-called energy savings performance contracts, or ESPCs, continue to reduce energy consumption, water usage and demand on utilities.
“In just one year of performance, phase 1 of the citywide project has already produced $2,746,750 in utility and taxpayer savings,” Ryan Wilson, a Mayor’s Office spokesperson, said via email. “These cost savings pay for the upgrades being installed at over 80 city facilities like LED light replacements, HVAC retrofits, and EV chargers.”
ESPCs “have provided energy efficiency upgrades to over 80 city facilities, including LED light conversions at the Ala Wai Golf Course Clubhouse,” he added.
Wilson said the city Department of Parks and Recreation’s ESPC is projected to offer $97 million in utility savings over 20 years while also improving park experience and resource conservation.
“In response to the Board of Water Supply’s request for a voluntary 10% water-use reduction following well closures from the (Red Hill) fuel contamination, the city, with the help of park users, successfully decreased water usage in parks by more than 15.4% last year,” he said.
Aboard Skyline, city staffers traveled to project sites near rail stations.
Jon Nouchi, city Department of Transportation Services deputy director, said planned projects near the Pearlridge Station will include a mobility hub which “will be built right between the water and this station.”
The proposed $13.5-million project — slated for construction within the next two years — “is a place where all of our buses can come in and meet passengers who are getting to or getting off of Skyline,” he said.
The hub also will accommodate TheHandi-Van as well as pedestrian and bicycle traffic.
“We want to have a place of shared mobility whether it be car-share or bike-share or any other kind of device,” he said.
He added adjacent to the future mobility hub is the Pearl Harbor Historic Trail, deemed “one piece of the South Shore Trail that DTS is working to develop.”
Over many years, the city plans to connect a “whole bunch of existing and some new transit infrastructure that will result in a 30-mile trail, all the way from Nanakuli and will span to the University of Hawaii at Manoa and Waikiki,” he said.
With construction of rail to Oahu’s urban center, the city will have a “high capacity pipeline so that Skyline is linked with electrified buses at Pearlridge mobility hub that will distribute people through this neighborhood and through this region,” he said.
“And linked to this bike and (pedestrian) super highway that the South Shore Trail and Pearl Harbor Historic Trail is related to,” he added.
He said the “South Shore Trail is a $6 million planning exercise that identifies all of the existing infrastructure and links that all together.”
“So we have an Ewa Bike Trail and we have different street (routes) in Kapolei,” Nouchi said, adding the planning study will take time to complete. “It’s a very large-scale study … that’s years in the making.”
City officials also made connections between higher education, jobs and mass transit.
At the Leeward Community College Station, city Office of Economic Revitalization Executive Director Amy Asselbaye said the Good Jobs Hawaii program offers $5 million in free training to residents attending University of Hawaii community colleges.
“As well as through private partners like the Carpenters’ Union,” she said, noting the program trains for skilled trades like health care, technology and creative industry jobs. “And, of course, clean energy.”
The program will “help people to get good jobs,” she said.
“We can get them to up-skill for opportunities in these areas, and to be in more economically-resilient jobs that are sustainable in case we have (the) next natural or healthcare disaster such as what we experienced with the pandemic,” she said.
She added rail’s close proximity to Leeward Community College campus made it more “Earth-friendly” to get to courses but noted many courses were online.
Vincent Kimura, Good Jobs Hawaii’s program manager, said job training included solar installation, technicians for electrical vehicles and arborists for native plants for landscapers.
Over the past four years Good Jobs Hawaii has trained more than 3,000 students, he added.
At Waipahu Transit Center Station, DPR spokesperson Nate Serota said local parks have undergone improvements nearby.
That includes tree plantings at Bill Balfour Jr. Waipahu District Park and new LED lighting for athletic fields at Hans L’Orange Neighborhood Park.
“They’re two of the 49 parks that are part of our NORESCO energy efficiency project,” Serota said. “Basically, we’re looking to upgrade some of our facilities to make them more efficient with water and energy consumption.”
The city’s 2024 Annual Sustainability Report may be viewed at resilientoahu.org/sustainability-report.
