honolulutraffic.com

seeking cost-effective ways to reduce traffic congestion in Honolulu

November 30, 2007.

Tolling concept being covered on Olelo:

Watch for Olelo Channel 54 throughout December on Sunday nights at 7:00 pm for a show on the tolling concept and local /transportation initiatives. Also at roughly 6:50 pm this Sunday on Olelo channel 49- watch Tom Berg provide same to Mililani Neighborhood Board.

USA Today: "Ethanol E85 fuel loses cost-benefit test to diesel":

Yesterday's USA Today carried the story that, "Anything's better than ethanol blend E85, even ordinary gasoline, a new cost-benefit analysis of alternative fuels by researcher John Graham at the Pardee Rand Graduate School finds. Diesels scored highest, surprising even the researchers. "We were kind of expecting that hybrids would outperform diesels when we went into the study. It's close, but the advanced diesel" provides better performance and fuel economy for the price, he says. Compared to gasoline, a driver could spend as much as $1,600 more on fuel over a vehicle's life burning E85, a mix of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline, Graham calculates, while a diesel could save as much as $2,300." READ MORE

November 26, 2007.

San Diego opens new Parsons Brinckerhoff expressway:

Tollroads News carries the story of the new 9.3 miles expressway that opened last Friday. The story reads,The local press has been very positive about the new road, quoting people happy they can get to places they want to go, much quicker and with less strain. Two other stories are included. One from the Los Angeles Times and the other from Road Traffic Technology,  READ MORE

November 15, 2007.

Mayor appoints Parsons Brinckerhoff executive as DTS head:

Yesterday Mayor Hannemann announced that Wayne Yoshioka, a PB top executive in PB's local office was his choice for City Transportation Director. The Mayor's press release said, "Yoshioka is manager of transportation planning and traffic engineering and a senior supervising transportation engineer for PB Americas, Inc., the multinational engineering firm." Accordingly, Yoshioka cannot plead ignorance. He must have been involved if only peripherally with the design and evaluation of the Managed Lane Alternative (MLA aka HOT lanes). Now that he is working for the City does that mean that he cannot legitimately answer anything for the Council about what happened in specifying the MLA aka the Unmanaged Lane Alternative during his employment with PB? If this is not the case then our councilmembers could have some fun with him. If it is the case, then does he have to plead the 5th? This could get quite interesting legally.

Mayor on Mike Buck Show yesterday misspeaks:

The Mayor reportedly said on the Mike Buck Show yesterday that the Council voted 7-2 for rail. WRONG: The Council voted for fixed guideway, which could be bus or rail. He also said that a busway would be far more expensive than rail because it has a larger footprint and will require very expensive ramps. WRONG: It is only projected to be more expensive. In fact, it is projected to cost the same as H-3 (allowing for construction cost inflation) despite H-3 having 64 lane miles tunneling through the Koolaus while the MLA has only 28 lane miles. Then he said that the MLA doesn't have the capacity of rail. WRONG: The capacity of a single bus lane is 32,000 passengers per hour; the rail line plans on only 6,000 passengers per hour. Then he said that if the MLA is added to the alternatives, we would have to go back to square one and start all over on the alternatives analysis after we've spent $15-million and two years in planning. WRONG: First, $15 million is peanuts in a $6 billion project. Redoing the AA would be a wise investment if it prevented a $6 billion error.

November 14, 2007.

Residents believe traffic actions on wrong track:

The quarterly Pulse Survey by the Business Roundtable and the Pacific Resource Partnership finds that our residents believe that we are on the wrong track in dealing with traffic problems by a margin of 74-18 percent. This is an extraordinarily high number for such a poll. This is even greater than the disapproval rating for Congress. The survey also says, "To the surprise of many, unaided responses focused on the ability of families to continue to live here, good jobs that would keep their children here, and maintaining the unique Island lifestyle." Why the Pulse Survey should find that surprising is in itself surprising; it has been a major complaint of small business and other lower-tax proponents that the continued tax increase burdens placed on local residents are making living here unsustainable. The rail tax increase already in place with more rail taxes to come is one of the major threats to local folks and their families being able to continue living in Hawaii. READ MORE

November 13, 2007.

Today's Star-Bulletin op/ed: Rail is not so environmental:

Making the case that rail is not so energy efficient after all, Cliff Slater has written an op/ed in today's Star-Bulletin, which gives the full details of why and is buttressed by footnotes showing the source of the information. The footnoted version is here. READ MORE

November 10, 2007.

League of Women Voters Forum panelists now on-line:

On Saturday October 27, the Honolulu League of Women Voters held a Transportation Forum at the State Capitol with four panelists, Mr. Toru Hamayasu, City Director of Transportation Planning, Dr. Panos Prevedouros, UH Professor of Traffic Engineering, Councilmember Ann Kobayashi and Councilmember Gary Okino. The video tape of the League's entire forum will air on Olelo Ch. 49 at the following times:

• 11/11/07 Sun 12:30 pm
• 11/12/07 Mon 2:00 pm
• 11/18/07 Sun 10:30 am
• 11/26/07 Mon 2:00 pm

Do not miss this program. Since a good deal of it revolves around the accusations made about lying it would be useful if you first see the "21 Lies" video, which lasts 26 minutes, otherwise Mr. Okino's presentation will not make sense. While we recommend seeing the entire program, for those who wish to select just the panelists' individual presentations, we have broken them out separately. SEE PANELISTS PRESENTATIONS.

November 8, 2007.

Engineering News Record says Prop 1 a boost for pricing:

Today Engineering News Record, the lead engineering paper said of Seattle's defeat of Proposition 1 that, "The defeat is an apparent boost for "congestion pricing" -- the use of pervasive tolling that varies with traffic, to discourage so-called nonessential trips. It would also raise money where taxes are lacking."

Sound Transit proposed 50 miles of new light rail, worth about $10 billion in current dollars, as the biggest piece of Proposition 1, which also included 186 miles of road expansions. Earl emphasized that construction is 80 percent complete on the first light-rail line from Westlake Center to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, to open in late 2009. That job will continue, and there is plenty of work to do, she said."  READ MORE

Olelo to show "21 Lies about rail transit":

This video is based on statements made by City Transportation Planning Director Toru Hamayasu and Councilmember Gary Okino during an August Island Insights show on PBS Hawaii. The show will air on Olelo at the times and on the channels that follow:

11/11/07	Channel 54
11/12/07	Mon 7:30 pm, Channel 54
11/14/07	6:00 pm, Channel 49
11/15/07	Thu 8:00 am, Channel 49

November 7, 2007.

Seattle Times: "Huge roads-transit plan gets trounced":

Proposition 1 news: "Voters rejected a multibillion-dollar regional roads-and-transit package on Tuesday, likely leaving state lawmakers with a transportation mess that could take years to sort out."
In addition, Initiative 960, which would require a two-thirds vote of the Legislature to approve any increase in taxes, appears to pass.  READ MORE

 

Please welcome the newest members of HonoluluTraffic.com
 

November 5, 2007.

Why hundreds of U.S. light rail lines were ripped up — and then replaced

      Hundreds ofU.S. light rail (streetcar) systems were built between 1890 and 1920 in cities as small as 25,000 population.Honolulu had a population of 39,300 at the time its first electric streetcars ran in 1900.

      This happened before the automobile and the bus became competitive with light rail. Most of these rail systems were then taken out in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s because they had become cost-inefficient relative to the newly developing buses.

      Cities then began to re-install light rail in the 1970s after public transportation was socialized and costs no longer mattered. This story is an interesting one and essential if one is to understand the current problem.  READ MORE 

Great coverage of the transit issue at HawaiiReporter.com:

Just in the last few days, www.hawaiireporter.com has published these five articles. Search on their site using RAIL TRANSIT and you'll get them and many others.

What $4.6 Billion Could Buy for Hawaii

By Bob Sigall, 11/5/2007 10:20:53 AM He is the author of the best selling book, "The Companies We Keep".

Cutting Through the Plannerspeak

By Cliff Slater, 11/3/2007 1:18:44 PM  Submitted in response to City Transportation Planner's article below.

City's Fixed Guideway Project is Best Traffic Solution for Honolulu

By Toru Hamayasu, 11/2/2007 12:59:59 PM. More spin from the City.

Rail Transit Not Worth the Big Financial Risk

By Cliff Slater, 11/1/2007 11:13:35 AM

Faith and Facts About the Proposed Rail Project

By Philip Blackman, 10/29/2007 1:31:12 PM. Sensible opinion piece by Phil Blackman.

Olelo schedule for the League of Women Voters forum video:

Wall St. Journal: "Life in the slow lane":

Reason Foundation's Bob Poole in today's WSJ details the rapid spread of not only electronic toll collection but also cashless tolls — if you don't have your electronic toll card in your car, your license plate number is recognized and you are billed at home.  READ MORE

October 31, 2007.

A reminder to get your friends to see the 26-minute video "21 Lies":

This video contains clips of an August PBS Hawaii Island Insights show with Dan Boylan moderating, with participants Councilmembers Ann Kobayashi and Gary Okino, City Chief Transportation Planner Toru Hamayasu and Professor Panos Prevedouros. In addition to this location, the video can also be found on "Our video channel" tab.

Listing of Managed Lanes now available:

This listing officially called "U.S. Managed Lane Projects with Pricing Component" was produced by the Transportation Research Board's Joint Subcommittee on Managed Lanes and was accurate through February 2007. It lists seven existing projects, two under construction and 30 under development together with links to all their websites. We will maintain this list under both the "Publications" and "HOT lanes" tabs.  DOWNLOAD LIST

Video of  League of Women Voters forum on Olelo:

There are three versions in existence of the video covering the League's forum that took place last Saturday. Our version should be up on this website in a day or two. The one produced by Tom Berg and it will air on one of the Olelo channels at the following times:

11/2/07 Fri 3:30 pm Channel 54; 11/4/07 Sun 11:30 am Channel 49; 11/9/07 Fri 3:30 pm Channel 54;11/10/07 Sat 1:00 pm Channel 49

October 30, 2007.

FTA makes the definitive statement on forecasting failures:

The following statement from the Federal Transit Administration confirms three issues which the City has argued against. First, the majority of transit forecasts are unreliable. Second, the US DOT still stands behind the Pickrell report. Third, the FTA finds the Flyvbjerb studies credible. Perhaps this statement might keep the City quiet on these issues:

      "FTA has long been concerned about the reliability of the cost and ridership information used in the planning and project development process. The Department of Transportation’s 1990 [Pickrell] report on this subject, several studies by Bent Flyvbjerg, and analyses by FTA have documented the fact that the majority of rail transit projects have significantly underestimated their construction costs and overestimated the actual ridership at the time those projects were chosen locally as the preferred alternatives, compared to the actual cost and ridership figures after the projects were constructed." CPAR, pp. 1-2.  READ MORE

Another good quote from our "Quotations" section:

This one from the Long Beach Press-Telegram last week in an op/ed, "Toll Roads to the Rescue," by noted transportation economist, Gabriel Roth.

     "Most U.S. road systems are like relics of the former Soviet Union: socialist enterprises run by well-intentioned planners with no regard to the pricing and investment criteria that allocate goods and services in free societies. Moscow citizens got relief from food lines by abolishing socialism. The market economy could similarly liberate road users from excessive congestion."  READ MORE

      And check out the Quotations section

Parsons Brinckerhoff reliably "client-focused" — whoever it is:

• “The light rail transit alternative was dropped because subsequent analyses revealed that Bus/Rapid Transit using electric-powered vehicles could accomplish virtually all of the objectives of  light rail transit at substantially less cost.” MIS/Draft EIS of the Bus/Rapid Transit Program, August 2000. pp. 2-2 to 2-4. Prepared by Parsons Brinckerhoff Quad & Douglas.

• "The Fixed [Rail] Guideway Alternative is substantially more cost-effective than the Managed Lane Alternative when the respective transit user benefits per dollar of cost relative to the TSM Alternative are compared." Honolulu Alternatives Analysis prepared by Parsons Brinckerhoff, November 2006.

October 29, 2007.

Dr. Prevedouros and Councilmember Kobayashi triumph:

     City Transportation Planning Director Toru Hamayasu and Councilmember Gary Okino were totally outclassed at the League of Women Voters Forum Saturday morning. We will have the video of the event up and running in a couple of days and we understand that Olelo will also be running it. Stay tuned for the video and Olelo schedule.

     Mr. Hamayasu emphatically stated that HOT lanes was properly studied in the Alternatives Analysis as the Managed Lanes Alternative and therefore would definitely not be considered in the current Environmental Impact Statement analysis.  Ann Kobayashi pointed out that the Fixed Guideway must include a bus alternative and that it is proper since the City Council has not designated the technology. Professor Prevedouros said the HOT alternative was not properly engineered, that it was purposely designed to fail.

     Councilman Okino refuted the claim that the Vancouver rail system loses money, showing a newspaper clipping.  No statistics were provided from the Vancouver transportation authority, however.  

     Okino was angered by charges that impugned his honesty and integrity about his statements in KHET’s Island Insights program.  But he was unable to back up his several claims with official government statistics or peer-reviewed authorities.  He asked the public to trust his statements based on his religious piety.

Toru Hamayasu and Cliff Slater battle it out in the Advertiser:

Last Friday in the Advertiser's editorial page Toru and Cliff had side by side op/eds on the rail issue. Toru's was titled "City transit and sensible solution,"  READ MORE  and Cliff's, "Rail transit not worth the big financial risk."  READ MORE  The umbrella title for both was "The cost of rail: Money pit or not?" accompanied by a graphic of greenbacks going down into a pit.

Seattle transit official turns his back on rail and embraces HOT lanes.

Seattle Times: "Four years ago, when Sound Transit asked the federal government to approve construction of aSeattle light-rail line, King County Executive Ron Sims was the chairman and public face of the agency. Now, Sims won't endorse a tax measure on the November ballot that would extend those tracks toLynnwood, Overlake andTacoma over the next two decades.  Lately, Sims has embraced a different strategy to address traffic congestion: so-called congestion pricing, which aims to reduce traffic by charging drivers a variable toll at busy times of day."  READ MORE

October 23, 2007.

Compare the Texas state and county governments to ours — and weep:

Here's the TxDOT Plan — "Our plan calls for faster completion of transportation projects with additional money to get the job done right. The plan is focused on five goals.

• Reduce congestion
• Enhance safety
• Expand economic opportunity
• Improve air quality
• Increase the value of transportation assets

Our plan is based on four strategies.

• We will use all financial options to build transportation projects.
• We will empower local leaders to solve local problems.
• We will drive down cost through competition.
• We will demand consumer-driven decisions.

Our Commitment

The entire TxDOT organization is committed to achieving these goals. Our present and our future depend on it. We are moving forward to give Texans the first-class transportation system they deserve."  READ MORE

        And now for the Hawaii Plan: Hawaii has no plan to increase the capacity of H-1. What else do you need to know.

Video: Drew Carey on traffic for Reason Foundation:

Reason.tv Host Drew Carey examines the costs and consequences of traffic jams and explores several solutions that can get our roads moving. How does a speedy trip on the "Drew Carey Freeway" sound? Plus, one lucky commuter gets a helicopter ride to work, courtesy of Drew, in this short nine-minute video presentation:

October 22, 2007.

Video: Ted Balaker on how to build our way out of congestion:

Reason's Ted Balaker debunks the myth that "we can't build our way out of congestion" in this short video presentation: 

October 20, 2007.

Video: Bob Poole of Reason Foundation on Bloomberg TV: