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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

People are stealing cows in Wisconsin?

Starbucks sells more milk than coffee?

Apparently this is all true. As some regional and national standards of living continue to rise around the world, milk consumption has surged and milk prices have followed suit, according to this article in the New York Times:

What is unusual, and somewhat confusing, about the milk boom compared with other booming commodities is that milk is not like oil: You cannot stick it in barrels and stockpile it. It goes sour. Even in powder form, the most commoditized version, milk has a shelf life. As a result, only about 7 percent of all the milk produced globally is traded across borders. The rest is consumed in domestic markets, which are protected by geography and just as often by tariffs or subsidies.

One of my favorite memories from my move to Honolulu was my first trip to the Safeway. The price of milk was a shocker. It still is… then again, I don’t drink much milk… except when I go to Starbucks.

Photos: The photo of John Kerry crawling through the space shuttle Discovery doesn’t look as goofy as the cringeworthy 1988 Dukakis tank photo. That was a low point for Mike in the 1988 campaign.

If Mike had won in 1988, W might be commissioner of baseball today. Think of it. We might never have seen the scorching global trauma of the last few years. Harry Turtledove, are you reading this? I think I have a short story to write.

At least Michael Dukakis and John Kerry did actually serve in the US active military, unlike AWOL 43. And Dukakis had the sense to ride around with a machine gun. What’s W gonna do, stick a thumb up my nose? Nice hat, guv!

The GOP has little room to play with Kerry’s space shuttle picture, but the weasels are gonna try hard today. Yes, John Kerry was also Dukakis’ lieutenant governor for a term, in 1982 to 1984. Former fatty and reformed drug-fiend Rush Limbaugh wants to make something of that connection. Michael Moore and others have already documented some of Bush’s interesting connections. The photo of Kerry and the USS Wisconsin in Norfolk is a nice contrast to the Bush photos.