Have the wheels come off the bus and rail in Honolulu?

by billso on Sunday, 27 July 2008

As Yogi Berra might say, “The game isn’t over until it’s over”.

Even then, the game is still not over.

Let’s review the last week of Honolulu mass transit hilarity. Pardon the pun, but this entire process has become a train wreck that may well be decided in the courts.

I’ve made it clear in my previous articles that I favor the fixed guideway mass transit project. The island needs a better, scalable transit infrastructure. We already have too many cars on Oahu, and there’s not enough residential or commerical parking to handle them. There’s little or no room to expand the major surface roads. The US Department of Defense will not allow the state to build a tunnel, road or causeway around or under Pearl Harbor to handle the western suburban traffic that surges into Honolulu every morning.

Light rail has its advantages. It’s a widely used technology on the mainland. Other vehicles can’t use the rails, so a rail fixed guideway would not be used by city and county trucks and cars on “emergencies”.

But I like the flexibility of buses. The city has decades of experience with The Bus, and there are several thousand trained drivers, mechanics and other staff on Oahu. The new buses will require much larger elevated roadways than a rail system would need. It will be difficult to put these new buses on existing surface roads, but they’ll be able to service more areas than a rail line might.

A fixed guideway bus system could be built much more quickly than rail.

At this point, I wish we could just go ahead with a project. But first, we’ll need more elections. The special-interest groups and politicians have made sure of that.

I just hope we won’t have referendums to decide where the stops will be located, or what color to paint the crosswalks!

Kobayashi throws a wrench in the works

On Tuesday, 23 July 2008, City council member Ann Kobayashi, who prefers busses to rail, filed as a candidate in the mayoral election on the last day. Fellow council member Donovan Dela Cruz and former Hillary Clinton state campaign chair Colleen Hanabusa will run Kobayashi’s election campaign. See the Honolulu Advertiser’s article, Kobayashi gives up seat for mayoral bid, and the Honolulu Star-Bulletin’s article, Rail row prompts Kobayashi to run.)

Her filing set off a chain reaction as island politicians scrambled to the clerk’s office to file for elections. Duke Bainum, a Kobayashi supporter who was narrowly defeated by current Mayor Mufi Hannemann in 2004, filed for Ann’s seat on the city council — even though he’s lived off-island since he lost the election. State Representative Kirk Caldwell (D –24) also filed for the race, but Republican and Democratic Party officials are sparring over technicalities. (See the Honolulu Star-Bulletin’s stories Republicans cry foul and Last-minute decision sets off political flurry).

Mayor Mufi Hannemann and Hanabusa have been touted as likely candidates for the Democratic gubernatorial primary in 2010. On Thursday evening, 24 July 2008, I was driving east on King Street, when I saw a few dozen people waving Mufi signs in front of the Blaisdell concert hall. Mayor Hannemann may have lost his re-election campaign this past week, but he will go down fighting.

Let the mayor decide?

The next day, Wednesday, 24 July 2008, the Honolulu City Council unanimously approved Charles Djou’s proposal to put rail on the November general election ballot. While this proposal needs two more votes to get the measure on the ballot, and a potential veto by Mayor Hannemann, council members seem ready to abandon representative democracy and let the people decide rail’s fate on Oahu.

It’s really up to Mayor Hannemann at this point. He can veto the measure, and the Council cannot override his veto. The clerk’s office is also running out of time to get the measure on the general election ballot.

No matter how a rail referendum turns out, council members can blame the voters for the outcome. As Todd Apo said at the meeting, “let’s get this over with”. See the Honolulu Advertiser and City council wants rail on the ballot.)

What’s next for the toll road supporters?

StopRailNow and its allied organizations are not endorsing a mayoral candidate yet, even their own member Professor Panos Prevedouros of the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Panos may want to step out of the race now, as it’s becoming clear that Ann will be a proxy candidate for the anti-rail groups. Ann has enonugh experience and backbone to spar with Mufi in a mayoral debate, while the professor is a one-issue candidate who lacks political campaign and debate experience.

The anti-rail groups have nothing to celebrate in the short term, as the fight over rail has accelerated and will likely end up in a Federal court. Incredible as it sounds, Honolulu may lose a billion dollars in federal funding if the fixed guideway mass transit question is not settled soon. It may be cheaper to build toll roads and reversible elevated lanes, but people will need cars or vans, and money for the tolls. These won’t be freeways.

If some of these groups use the election to oppose any form of fixed guideway mass transit and promote elevated toll roads, Ann Kobayashi may surpass Linda Lingle in the informal competition to become the 21st century successor to Rene Mansho.

Updated 10 am, 27 July 2008

Both Honolulu newspapers ran front page stories in today’s Sunday editions about their respective public opinion polls. Of course, each poll had its own questions about rail, and each poll concluded that about 2/3rds of the respondents wanted rail in Honolulu. A majority or respondents in each poll wanted the rail question on the ballot.

Each poll was carried out with a local television station as a partner.

The Honolulu Star-Bulletin (see Transit planning has many on board) and KITV4 included questions about Mayor Hannemann’s preferred system, steel-on-steel. Detailed results on are on these two pages.

“I have always been in favor of mass transit, I voted for the fixed-guideway, but I am opposed to steel-on-steel,” Kobayashi said.

She argued that the transit system needs to be widely discussed in the community and said Hannemann has not been open to discussion.

The Star-Bulletin’s lead editorial called for a rail ballot, and recommended Charles Djou’s proposal for a city charter amendment. (See Let voters decide how to end debate on rail transit.)

Meanwhile, KGMB9 and Gannett’s Honolulu Advertiser (see 76% of Oahu voters want rail on ballot) focused on reader comments. Many of the remarks were about the increased tax burden, and the lack of service for specific areas of Oahu. The detailed survey results are posted in this PDF document. The Advertiser will continue the story over the next 3 days, while KGMB starts a series about rail on its newscasts tomorrow evening.