Honolulu newspapers to City Council: Enough already!

by billso on Sunday, 20 April 2008

This morn­ing, both major daily news­pa­pers in Hon­olulu pub­lished edi­to­ri­als that were highly crit­i­cal of the City Coun­cil. As I dis­cussed last Thurs­day on billso.com, Mayor Mufi Han­ne­mann has pre­vailed in his quest for a steel-on-steel rail mass tran­sit sys­tem, despite the laugh­able efforts of sev­eral coun­cil mem­bers to amend, post­pone, revisit, second-guess, and micro­man­age the proposal.

Today’s edi­to­ri­als are sig­nif­i­cant. Any mem­ber of the City Coun­cil who wants a news­pa­per endorse­ment in upcom­ing elec­tions should be con­cerned. In Hon­olulu, the main­stream media still wields con­sid­er­able influ­ence over voters.

Enough is enough

I’ve writ­ten sev­eral arti­cles on this issue because the fixed guide­way mass tran­sit project is the largest ever pro­posed in the state of Hawaii. The deci­sions that have been made over the last 3 years have led to a US$3.8 bil­lion pro­posal that will deter­mine how Honolulu’s res­i­dents will com­mute, park and live for the next 50 years.

Oahu has far too many auto­mo­biles already. Adding and expand­ing the roads and high­ways would only bring more cars and traf­fic problems.

“A bewil­der­ing bill”

The Hon­olulu Star-Bulletin’s lead edi­to­r­ial today asks the City Coun­cil to let steel-on-steel rail go for­ward. Their oppor­tu­nity to make this deci­sion has passed.

The editorial’s descrip­tion of Wednes­day night’s meet­ing is apt:

Only two mem­bers voted for a bewil­der­ing bill nam­ing three tech­nolo­gies — rail, rubber-tire and mag­netic levitation.

This edi­to­r­ial ended with James Oberstar’s assess­ment that Honolulu’s train sys­tem might become the country’s most effi­cient light-rail project. Ober­star runs the US House com­mit­tee on trans­porta­tion. Hawaii’s senior sen­a­tor, Daniel Inouye, is his coun­ter­part on the Sen­ate com­mit­tee. Oberstar’s promise of US$900M in fund­ing seems linked to steel-on-steel rail.

Today’s Hon­olulu Adver­tiser has a front page arti­cle about the height and place­ment of the tran­sit sta­tions and guide­way. Much of this infor­ma­tion was avail­able last year, when the city pre­sented its pro­pos­als along with computer-generated images of the project.

An edi­to­r­ial in the same edi­tion implored the coun­cil to “stop the games” and rec­om­mend one tech­nol­ogy in their final vote this Wednes­day. The front page arti­cle acknowl­edged that the Mayor Han­ne­mann can veto the Council’s final rec­om­men­da­tion, and that the Coun­cil prob­a­bly does not have enough votes to over­ride his veto.

Call­ing out the opposition

The edi­to­r­ial also asked Bar­bara Mar­shall and Charles Djou to abstain from the vote, cit­ing their long-standing oppo­si­tion to the fixed guide­way tran­sit project. Romy Cachola is called a flip-flopper who put his dis­trict ahead of the island’s greater interest.

Finally, Ann Kobayashi got a reminder that the Coun­cil had three years to do their home­work and make a deci­sion. Kobayashi and Dono­van Dela Cruz both fought hard and long for a bus-based sys­tem that resem­bled pre­vi­ous Mayor Jeremy Harris’s rec­om­men­da­tions. Fel­low coun­cil mem­bers were not swayed then or now.

There will be more hear­ings and deci­sions about the exact route of the trail, and the place­ment of the rail sta­tions. Bills have already been pro­posed to reg­u­late build­ing activ­ity and growth around the project. The Council’s inabil­ity to rec­om­mend a tran­sit tech­nol­ogy may become the endur­ing legacy of the cur­rent coun­cil members.

It’s time to end the dis­cus­sion and move for­ward on light rail.

Related posts on billso.com

Share

Tagged as: congress, economy, government, Honolulu, mainstream, mass-transit, media, rail, USA

  • http://billso.com billso

    From the front page of this morning’s Adver­tiser comes word that Cliff Slater is ral­ly­ing the anti-rail groups again.

    The goal: 40,000 sig­na­tures by the end of July 2008, to force a bal­lot ref­er­en­dum in Novem­ber 2008.

    The ref­er­en­dum is sim­ple enough: no bus or rail for Honolulu’s mass tran­sit project. Seems like there’s lit­tle time to gather and cer­tify the signatures.

    What a train wreck.

  • http://billso.com billso

    From this morning’s Hon­oulu Star-Bulletin comes a report about yesterday’s anti-rail rally. The anti-rail groups will be lucky to get 44,000 cer­ti­fied sig­na­tures in 60 days.

    Inter­est­ing to note that the lone dis­senter on the spe­cial advi­sory panel, UH-Manoa pro­fes­sor Panos Preve­douros, is sup­port­ing the peti­tion orga­niz­ers. Who will be the first city coun­cil mem­ber to back the peti­tion? Djou? Mar­shall? Cachola?

    There’s also an op-ed piece from a city plan­ning employee about the UH-West Oahu sta­tion fiasco.

  • http://billso.com billso

    Today the City Coun­cil will hold a fifth and final vote on mass tran­sit tech­nol­ogy. See <a href=http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080423/NEWS09/804230415″ rel=“nofollow”>this arti­cle in the Hon­olulu Advertiser for more details.

  • http://billso.com billso

    Another vote, another 4–4 tie. Coun­cil chair Bar­bara Mar­shall missed the meet­ing because of another “fam­ily emergency”.

  • http://billso.com billso

    This morning’s article’s about last night’s dead­lock vote, cour­tesy of the Hon­olulu Star-Bulletin and the Hon­olulu Adver­tiser.

    Coun­cil mem­ber Romy Cachola, who rep­re­sents the Salt Lake area, said he would have pre­ferred con­tin­u­ing to con­sider qui­eter tech­nol­ogy options. How­ever, Cachola said he’ll still sup­port the project.

    “If that’s the selec­tion of the (Han­ne­mann) admin­is­tra­tion — steel on steel — and I said I sup­port mass tran­sit, that’s what I’ll do.”

    It’s unlikely the council’s cur­rent divi­sion will spill over into future tran­sit votes, Cachola said.

    “It’s a pos­si­bil­ity, but I doubt it,” he said.

  • http://billso.com billso

    The City Coun­cil just can­not let go of the rail deci­sion. For­tu­nately, yesterday’s bill endors­ing buses and maglev will get bot­tled up in a com­mit­tee meet­ing on 15 May 2008.

    Coun­cil Chair Bar­bara Mar­shall is back and vot­ing “no” with her fel­low trav­eler, Charles Djou. I was sorry to hear that her pro­longed absence from the Coun­cil was the result of her mother’s recent death in Florida.

    The Coun­cil did approve the loca­tions of 34 tran­sit stations.

    An air­port line, and the two spurs to Waikiki and UH-Manoa may be added.

    Of course, all of this can be jug­gled about again, but here’s the Advertiser’s map of the lat­est sta­tions and alignments.

    See today’s arti­cles in the Adver­tiser and Star-Bulletin for more details.

Previous post:

Next post: