City council members discuss mass transit research

Sunday’s Hon­olulu Star-Bulletin fea­tures an inves­ti­ga­tion of the Hon­olulu City Council’s travel expenses for the mass tran­sit project.

Coun­cil mem­ber Todd Apo had an inter­est­ing quote:

“We’re mak­ing a huge deci­sion… If peo­ple have not made the effort to get them­selves fully edu­cated, then I’d be concerned.”

Per­haps Apo was refer­ring to fel­low coun­cil mem­bers Charles Djou and Bar­bara Mar­shall. Both Djou and Mar­shall have argued against the project.

Mar­shall hasn’t spent a dime on travel related to the pro­posed project. Is it pos­si­ble that she hasn’t been on one sin­gle trip to study tran­sit sys­tems in other cities?

Thrifty or shifty?

Djou has made sev­eral trips but has only charged the city US$26. He paid for his own travel:

“It’s a very expen­sive project and I’m try­ing to be care­ful with tax­payer dol­lars… These tran­sit trips paid for by the tax­payer and by the tran­sit man­u­fac­tur­ers are noth­ing more than junkets.”

It helps to keep an open mind about these trips. Ven­dors do want to fund these trips, but that does not mean that coun­cil mem­bers would be swayed towards their bids.

Yes, the travel expenses could have been used to fill pot­holes. But com­mon sense dic­tates that our coun­cil mem­bers should be study­ing exist­ing sys­tems that resem­ble the cur­rent pro­posal. Isn’t that the Council’s job?

Djou recently declared his can­di­dacy for Neil Abercrombie’s con­gres­sional seat — in the 2010 elec­tion. If Aber­crom­bie needs to go, why doesn’t Djou run now, in 2008? Djou has been plot­ting this run since 2006. He ran unop­posed for reelec­tion, but he still ran polit­i­cal adver­tise­ments telling vot­ers to “[r]emember the name, Charles Djou”.

Djou and Mar­shall need to stop vot­ing “no”, as they risk join­ing for­mer coun­cil mem­ber Rene Man­sho on Honolulu’s tran­sit hall of shame.

Where the rub­ber meets the road

Hon­olulu needs mass tran­sit solu­tions now. Our city has tried and failed to select a com­pre­hen­sive fixed guide­way solu­tion twice before. In today’s Star-Bulletin, coun­cil mem­ber Romy Cachola states he may sup­port fixed guide­way buses instead of steel-on-steel rail. He also wants con­struc­tion to start with a seg­ment from Aloha Sta­dium to down­town, via Salt Lake Boule­vard. That’s through his district.

Cachola used his swing vote last year to get the sys­tem rerouted away from Hon­olulu Inter­na­tional Air­port and through his dis­trict. For many tax­pay­ers, this move made no sense. The pro­posed mass tran­sit sys­tem would help tourists and res­i­dents get to and from the air­port, and avoid high park­ing fees. Any rea­son­able pro­posal that gets more rental cars of the road would be wel­come on Oahu.

Cachola is also ranked num­ber 2 among coun­cil mem­bers in terms of their travel spend­ing for the pro­posed project. Romy’s op-ed piece this morn­ing is another veiled threat that he may vote “no”, because he is plac­ing his district’s needs ahead of the island’s.

Related posts on billso.com

• 2 April 2008: Still on track?
• 20 March 2008: Like a fifth wheel
• 21 Feb­ru­ary 2008: Delhi catches mono­rail fever: Is Hon­olulu next?
• 6 Feb­ru­ary 2008: Hawaii has high­est car own­er­ship costs in the USA
• 21 June 2007: Mayor: state could pay for air­port mass tran­sit line
• 19 June 2007: City coun­cil, plan­ners still argu­ing over mass tran­sit routes, modes

Tagged as: authority, government, Hawaii, Honolulu, mass-transit, Oahu, research, USA