Don’t miss Paul Krugman’s column in today’s NY Times, which takes a closer look at California’s fiscal crisis and its national implications. He writes: …Proposition 13 made it extremely hard to raise taxes, even in emergencies: no state tax rate may be increased without a two-thirds majority in both houses of the State Legislature. And [...]
Tags: Rail transit
Earlier this month, the Advertiser reported that the city is about to abandon its shift to hybrid fuel-efficient buses because the promised 60% savings have not materialized and, basically, we can’t afford the price of this “green” technology. Unfortunately, the Advertiser story doesn’t link to the report it quotes, so it’s difficult to evaluate what’s [...]
Tags: Rail transit
If the city budget scheduled to be passed next month includes the more than $1 Billion requested to fund the first large contracts for transit cars and initial construction of the elevated guideway and stations, it will be a major political coup for Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann achieved as much through political trickery as political [...]
An op-ed column by Honolulu City Councilmember Duke Bainum appears in today’s Star-Bulletin. He makes a very good point. Say you needed a new car and you’re eyeing a beauty on the showroom floor, but your brother calls and says he can get you a car for half the price, that is more energy efficient, [...]
Tags: Rail transit
City Councilmember Duke Bainum warned last week that the city’s rush to begin construction of the proposed rail transit system coupled with its insistence on a train running on an elevated concrete guideway for its entire distance “will create a Superferry-Like legal limbo for the rail project”. Bainum pointed to choices made by the city [...]
An independent transit consultant predicted that Honolulu’s rail transit system could be “in trouble” because the city failed to deliver an environmental impact study that fulfilled what was promised in the official notice published in the Federal Register. Consultant Phil Craig told a gathering of architects that the Federal Register notice for the transit Environmental [...]
Tags: Rail transit
