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The City and County of Honolulu has been developing yet another proposal for mass transit. Mayor Mufi Hannemann has long preferred train technology involving steel wheels on steel rails.

Related tags on billso.com

• mass-transit
• Honolulu

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• 5 August 2008: Tunnels and toll roads around Honolulu?
• 27 July 2008: Have the wheels come off the bus and rail in Honolulu?
• 12 July 2008: My sidewalk nightmare
• 8 June 2008: Why Honolulu needs rail
• 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
• 4 September 2007: Segways patrol the crosswalks
• 10 August 2007: Databases won’t keep you safe
• 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

Tomorrow, the Honolulu city council resumes its discussion of the rapid mass transit project. The city council has to make its decision: rail, bus or maglev. Bobbie Slater in the Hawaii Reporter has a good overview of what the meeting might be like.

Despite Todd Apo’s last-minute amendment, magnetic levitation may be eliminated. The German government canceled a major maglev train project in Munich last week, according to Wired. One of the lead contractors in the proposed project, ThyseenKrupp, may sell its maglev business unit to a Chinese company, according to Deutsche Welle. This Reuters article describes the controversy as German politicians and executives scurry to escape blame.

Nothing has been set in stone, of course. The location of the transit stations may shift for many reasons. This article in revealed that the UH-Weat Oahu train stop has been moved 1000 feet away from campus to accommodate existing roads and a planned housing development. Some Salt Lake residents are concerned with noise from the proposed train system. Councilman Romy Cachola managed to divert the system through his district, in exchange for his vote last year.

No Aloha

Mazie Hirono has already spoken to Jim Oberstar about Aloha Airlines. Dan Inouye may hold his own Senate hearing on Aloha. See today’s Advertiser for details.

The state cannot afford to build mass transit or highway systems on its own. Transportation is a public utility, much like the water, electric and telephone systems. As the state’s tax revenues dip, other companies like Hawaiian Telcom are struggling to preserve their revenues.

Federal money is the key

Jim Oberstar is chair of a powerful Congressional transportation committee, and he’s promised US$900M in Federal money for the Honolulu rapid mass transit project. He does like to use his power. It’s part of a long tradition of upper Midwestern congressmen like Walter Mondale, Hubert Humphrey, Jim Sensenbrenner and others.

Currying favor with Oberstar is smart lobbying. Without Federal funds, Honolulu can’t keep up with its traffic problem. The state cannot afford any sort of solution on its own.

I still prefer the big buses to trains. The lone dissenter on the technology panel, Panos Prevedouros, has an article in yesterday’s Hawaii Reporter about the panel’s abbreviated decision-making process.

The UH professor also notes that San Francisco’s BART system faces a US$11 billion bill to refurbish its trains and tracks. Honolulu would face a similar bill after 20 or 30 years of rail service, especially if the tracks start rusting like Aloha Stadium did.

Dksopedia’s article on Honolulu fixed rail has been updated recently, and it has a nice reference list and timeline.

Related articles

• 30 March 2008:Aloha Airlines shuts down
• 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
• 5 February 2008: HawTel replaces CEO with turnaround specialist
• 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

From today’s Honolulu Advertiser and Honolulu Star-Bulletin: Honolulu city council members have voted to continue the rapid mass transit project. However, the council also decided to reconsider three system types: rail, bus and maglev. After 6 hours of discussion that focused on potential noise problems with rail and bus systems, Todd Apo added magnetic levitation to the list in a last-minute amendment.

 ”Tonight’s vote means that rail is still moving forward,” Mayor Mufi Hannemann said in a statement last night. “But it is a shame that the Council could not support the process it voted to create. The Council did not fully support the findings of the technical panel that a majority of the Council members voted for.”

On 22 February 2008, a panel appointed by the City Council recommended rail on a 4-1 vote. The Council’s unanimous vote yesterday means that councilmembers have broken their earlier promise to let their own panel’s decision stand. A few council members saw this panel as a mayoral attempt to sway the decision towards rail. See my 19 June 2007 article for more details.

I followed a link on BoingBoing to this Times of India article: Delhi is getting a 45-kilometer monorail system.

The technology panel will announce their selection for Honolulu’s proposed fixed guideway mass transit system tomorrow, according to this article in the Honolulu Advertiser. The five panel members are evaluating four technologies, including:

1. trains (steel wheel on steel rail)
2. buses (rubber tire on concrete)
3. monorail
4. magnetic levitation

The decision will also be announced on the Honolulu High Capacity Transit Corridor’s web site. The video simulation of the proposed Aloha Tower station is pretty good. Most of the site’s content is trapped in PDF files, however.

As I posted on 6 February 2008, I support the bus option. This option could create a two-lane elevated road that can also be used by emergency vehicles. The buses for this system might also be deployed on surface roads as demand warrants. The other three technologies are less flexible and more expensive. City councilmembers Donovan Dela Cruz and Ann Kobayashi appeared on the byline for this article in the Honolulu Star-Builletin on 26 August 2007. The article includes a picture of one bus model. Below is a promotional video for the Eindhoven bus system.

As I gear up for the fall semester, this morning’s news bucket brought me two stories about databases.

Local legislator Wll Espero wants to create a registry for violent criminals. It’s similar to registries that track pedophiles and rapists. In dribs and drabs, other Hawaii lawmakers have announced their support. Norman Sakamoto made a statement yesterday, and Clayton Hee spoke up a few days ago.

Databases are not force fields!

The ACLU has pointed out that these registries cannot keep a convicted criminal out of a neighborhood. Privacy concerns take a back seat when momentum builds for “feel-good measures that do not increase public safety”, according to Hawaii ACLU legal director Lois Perrin.

Local supporters of these registries believe these databases will only help them. But what happens when a local government compiles a database that invades the privacy of “upstanding citizens”?

Every couple of months, some local group or politician suggests building toll roads in Honolulu, in place of a train. These efforts are laughable. There’s little space to put new expressways in Honolulu, unless the new lanes are stacked on top of existing highways. That’s a poor idea on a volcanic island. Tunnels won’t work well on an island, either.

New highways only add more cars to our roads

Mass transit makes much more sense. It’s difficult to get across town or find a parking space in Honolulu. Oahu’s economy already suffers from the thousands of cars that flit back and forth to work, home and school with only one or two passengers in each vehicle.

Many mainland toll roads offer electronic tags or E-ZPasses that let drivers travel through an express lane at tool booths. These systems let drivers prepay their tolls and avoid long lines that seem to stretch forever as other drivers fumble for paper money and change. Monthly and online statements let E-ZPass users review their journeys. That’s an excellent aid when filing for corporate reimbursements or income tax deductions. It’s also a great way to monitor fleet drivers.

Chris Newmarker of the Associated Press reported today on a growing trend in divorce cases – subpoena a spouse’s E-ZPass records to see where and when they were driving. When a spouse says they were in Pennsylvania on business but their E-ZPass account shows a tool transaction in New Jersey, credibility flies out the window.

Cheating spouses think no one will notice if they are somewhere else

Some states will not release E-ZPass transaction data to a civil investigation. These logs make excellent evidence in some criminal cases. Melanie McGuire was recently convicted of murdering her husband, cutting up his body, loading the pieces into three suitcases and dumping his remains in the Chesapeake Bay. Prosecutors used her E-ZPass records in court to describe her travels. She could have left her E-ZPass at home and paid cash, of course.

UPDATED 13 August 2007 11:05 HT: Dave Shapiro seems to agree with me.