Tunnels and toll roads around Honolulu?

I wish I’d seen Trevor Yee’s excel­lent arti­cle called Why HPT Lanes Won’t Work in Hon­olulu before I wrote my pre­vi­ous billso.com arti­cle on the pro­posed rail sys­tem. Trevor raises sev­eral good points about toll lanes. These lanes are much larger than a fixed guide­way, and they depend upon toll rev­enue. I am see­ing fewer cars on Honolulu’s roads these days, even as the school year gets underway.

Doug Carl­son also had some good points in his recent post called The Closer Rail Gets, the More “Way Out” the Alter­na­tives Are; a Sea Tun­nel Around Oahu?! Doug takes on the fool­ish notion that a tun­nel could be built in the Pacific Ocean. Envi­ron­men­tal­ists, the US Depart­ment of Defense, and a host of other groups would block an Oahu tun­nel or cause­way pro­posal if tax­pay­ers didn’t scream about the costs.

Carl­son also men­tions a Hon­olulu Star-Bulletin com­men­tary in which Hans Rosendal sug­gested that elec­tric vehi­cles might make a good alter­na­tive to rail and tra­di­tional auto­mo­biles. If gas prices con­tinue to rise, such vehi­cles may be the only prac­ti­cal alter­na­tive for peo­ple who want to drive a car to Hon­olulu from the Wind­ward side of the island. I’m just not sure an all-electric vehi­cle could make it over the moun­tains. See the Star-Bulletin arti­cle called Tran­sit Mat­ters: Elec­tric Vehi­cles for more details.

Yes­ter­day morn­ing, I saw Hon­olulu may­oral candidate/UH-Manoa professor/rail oppo­nent Panos Preve­douros on the cor­ner of the Pali High­way and Vine­yard Boule­vard. He was out there hold­ing his sign and wav­ing by him­self. I heard two honks within 5 min­utes, which was sur­pris­ing. That inter­sec­tion gets a lot of auto­mo­bile and bus traf­fic from Kailua and Kaneohe every week­day morn­ing. I thought there were more Panos sup­port­ers out there, but per­haps they’ve switched to Ann Kobayashi’s camp.

Recent arti­cles and pages on billso.com

• Hon­olulu mass transit
• 27 July 2008: Have the wheels come off the bus and rail in Honolulu?
• 23 July 2008: The 100 mpg solar Prius
• 12 July 2008: My side­walk nightmare
• 8 June 2008: Why Hon­olulu needs rail
• 6 June 2008: Can the blind hear hybrid cars?
• 20 April 2008: Hon­olulu news­pa­pers to City Coun­cil: Enough already!
• 17 April 2008: Back on track
• 15 April 2008: City coun­cil mem­bers dis­cuss mass tran­sit research
• 2 April 2008: Still on track?
• 20 March 2008: Like a fifth wheel
• 2 July 2007: Park­ing in Chi­na­town is get­ting harder
• 21 June 2008: Mayor: state could pay for air­port mass tran­sit line
• 19 June 2007: City coun­cil, plan­ners still argu­ing over mass tran­sit routes, modes
• 15 June 2007: Telecom­mut­ing isn’t a free solu­tion for Honolulu’s traf­fic woes

Tagged as: bus, cars, election, Hawaii, Honolulu, mass-transit, rail