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 Impact Study committed the city to providing an analysis of alternatives, including “light” rail at grade as well as the “heavy” rail system favored by the city administration. But Craig said the available alternatives were never explored adequately or seriously considered, a flaw which he said could open the EIS to challenge.

But Wayne Yoshioka, the city’s Director of Transportation Services, said it was too late for a significant change in design.

“With all due respect, the decision has been made,” Yoshioka said.

Their dueling commments came as part of a panel discussion of the city’s transit plan sponsored by the Honolulu Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, the major professional organization in the field of architecture.

AIA favors rail, but says the type of system favored by the city administration is bad architecturally, will create visual blight, is not conducive to transit oriented development because it is separated from street-level activities, and costs twice as much and will take twice as long to build as comparable at-grade technology.

A short video prepared by the AIA points out that none of the urban rail transit systems started in the past 25 years uses the technology favored by the Hannemann administration. Instead, all use a so-called “light rail” technology like that used in Portland, Oregon, which is flexible enough to allow trains go run at street level, on elevated tracks, in subways, or in separate rights of way along roads and highways.

The city’s preferred technology has to be “grade separated” from street level for safety reasons because it requires an electrified “third rail” to provide electrical power.

“At grade” systems, which can run at street level or on elevated guideways, are powered via a network of wires running above the roadway or, with the latest technology, wirelessly or with rails that are only “live” when a train is passing over them.

The massive shift to the exclusive selection of light rail technology in mainland systems has not received much public notice but is now being highlighted by the AIA.

But Yoshioka said the city’s choice was driven by past experience with political pressures when the city tried to implement a bus rapid transit system when Jeremy Harris was mayor.

At that time, anti-transit and pro-automobile groups attacked the bus system because it would convert lanes of traffic along the key Kapiolani corridor from cars to transit.
Yoshioka said city planners learned a lesson.

“They (critics) were not willing to sacrifice roadways,” Yoshioka said. In order to avoid wasting time and political capital in a public fight over roadways vs. transit, Yoshioka said the city decided to press ahead with a system that would elevate trains above existing roadways.

Yoshioka dismissed other issues, including visual impacts and cost, as necessary “tradeoffs”.

Because city officials believed the public would not support narrowing of key roads in order to accommodate transit, they decided that an elevated system “was inherent in the preferred alignments.”

Many of today’s most vociferous opponents of the planned elevated heavy rail system were in the front lines of the attacks on the street-level system previously envisioned by bus rapid transit project. It looks like a classic case of the old adage, “Watch out what you wish for”.

AIA argues that the “light rail” option is still viable because it meets the city’s stated “steel wheel on steel rail” criteria.

John Whalen, a former chief planner for the city during Mayor Frank Fasi’s administration who spoke as a representative of the local chapter of the American Planning Association, invited the audience to look at a series of photos from Portland and Phoenix, which just completed a 20 mile light rail system costing just $1.5 billion.

“Let’s gaze, perhaps somewhat wistfully, at these images of at-grade systems,” Whalen said, noting that the human-scale design options are not what are being called for in the city’s design.

Yoshioka said the city was open to considering alternatives for future “spurs” to Waikiki and the University, but did not intend to reopen debate on the main system.

The AIA has posted a number of documents and reports regarding Honolulu’s transit project on its web site.