Today’s Honolulu Advertiser reports this as breaking news: “The city has opened new comfort station at the popular Ka’a’awa Beach Park.”

While true, the problem is that the opening took place months ago. Hardly “breaking” news by any definition.

Those who are interested can now download my interview with Ted Hong in MP3 format. It’s still about 14 MB, a substantial size, so download with caution if you’ve got a slow Internet connection. I haven’t edited it or added a nice intro yet, but you’ll get the substance. And Jeff Garland reworked it to a smaller Real Media file. Much appreciated. This was my first effort using an iPod as a recorder, and the result audio-wise was pretty good, except for the ringing phone at one point and the siren on the street outside. Now I’ll try to look ahead to other potential interviews. And suggestions for reducing the file size even more would be much appreciated.

I wouldn’t go so far as to dismiss Hong’s complaint about differential access to certain community audiences as “silly”, as Charles did in a comment here yesterday, but the situation clearly reflects one of those natural advantages that an incumbent enjoys, along with legislative reports to constituents by mail, access to news media, ability to produce CIP funding for district projects, and that little thing called name recognition. These can add up to quite a considerable advantage for incumbents even before getting to the task of campaign fundraising.

But there are relatively clear rules that prevent an incumbent from using district meetings and legislative mailings directly for campaign purposes. In the House, official mailings are reviewed to avoid campaign content accidentally getting included, and the State Ethics Commission has guidelines that attempt to keep a separation between official conduct and campaign activities.

I happened into a conversation with a former Honolulu city council member last week and the conversation turned to transit. He was critical of Mayor Hannemann’s decision to immediately abandon the bus rapid transit option in the quest for rail, pointing out that a bus system could have been well underway by now at an ultimate system cost just a fraction of what we’re looking at for rail.

He rather cynically saw Hannemann’s commitment to rail as part of plan to take the political contributions “up front” from those who will benefit from the rail and from the transit oriented development it will produce.

Here’s how the GAO saw the relative costs of bus and rail in 2003 Congressional testimony:

Bus Rapid Transit capital costs, when adjusted to 2000 dollars, averaged$13.5 million per mile for busways, $9.0 million per mile for buses on HOV lanes, and $680,000 per mile for buses on city streets. 11 To put this information in perspective, we also determined the capital costs for 18 existing Light Rail lines and found that, when adjusted to 2000 dollars, they averaged about $34.8 million per mile, ranging from $12.4 million to $118.8 million per mile. Bus Rapid Transit has some capital costadvantages because it does not require certain features typical of rail systems, such as train signals, electrical power systems, and overhead wires to deliver power to trains, nor does it need rail, ties, and track ballast. As a result, Bus Rapid Transit projects typically cost less to build than some alterative approaches. The operating cost associated with alternatives also need to be considered in selecting a transit option. Our 2001 report analyzed operating costs for six cities that had some form of Bus Rapid Transit and Light Rail systems. 12 In general, we found that the operating cost of Bus Rapid Transit varied considerably from city to city and depended on what cost measure was used. In considering operating costs, we did not find a systematic advantage of one mode over the other.

There are also other interesting reports on bus systems such as this 2001 report on the promise of bus rapid transit and the 2006 final evaluation of Honolulu’s limited bus transit improvements submitted to the Federal Transit Adminstration.

Despite my bias in favor of rail because of the experience as a transit user in cities with rail systems, questions of long-term cost in our relatively small city has caused me to reconsider the question of rail’s viability here. But such questions don’t appear likely to derail the political momentum that the Hannemann administration has built up on this.

Here’s a batch of my favorite Kaaawa photos from the month of January 2008. I’m backlogged but trying to deal with it.

Just click on this lovely sunrise to enjoy the rest of this series.