I received an email from a friend yesterday on the rail issue. He wrote:
just for your edification:
the city rejected at-grade light rail because (a) it would have to run on existing roadbed and compete with other transportation (b) it would require short trains and defeat the idea of large-carrying-capacity transit from the west end to the city (c) safety concerns in mixing high-speed rail with other traffic and (d) the need to move this high-speed rail out of other traffic in the city core so it always moves on schedule.
all these reasons seem to me to make great sense.
we’re not building a city streetcar.
I responded, friend to friend.
The problem is that rail technology and solutions have changed dramatically since the all-elevated plan was developed in the late 1980s.
At that time, the Vancouver system was considered “state of the art”.
That is no longer the case.
In fact, the vast majority of systems in the US as well as internationally in the past 10-15 years have been so-called “light rail” systems that can operate either at grade or elevated, depending on the circumstances.
The city has taken advantage of this in one sense–its public presentations often feature photos or video of light rail systems in Denver, Phoenix, Portland, Seattle, and elsewhere on the mainland. These are all systems using the more flexible, light rail technology being backed by AIA, and not the technology chosen so far by the city.
The studies I’ve seen so far show only a modest difference in carrying capacity. And once the rail gets into town, with stations much closer together, the train can’t get up to speed anyway and there would be only modest differences the time between stations. That’s especially the case if you figure in the time taken for passengers to reach the elevated train platforms vs. the simplicity of just stepping off the curb into the train.
The city people point to the bus rapid transit approach, which would have run transit down the center lanes with stations on a large median, requiring closing several lanes to traffic. The current approach taken elsewhere, where at-grade is used, is to run in the outer lanes already used by city buses, with “stations” being merely wider sidewalk areas.
The modestly longer commute times, measured in minutes, are offset by the user friendliness of at grade trains in the city, and the substantial cost savings of building at grade, along with extreme reduction in visual pollution in sensitive areas such as along the waterfront, through to Waikiki, etc.
Procedurally, the issue I see is that the city was supposed to study alternatives, including light rail. That was the commitment when it wrote the scope of the promised EIS. Issues such as those you raised were supposed to have been considered, with each alternative assessed.
The city didn’t do that, although it set out on the EIS process publicly proclaiming that it would.
That leaves me concluding that the city didn’t like the answers it was likely to find and, instead, avoided consideration of those alternatives.
There are a lot of pro-rail folks out there who want a Portland or Denver type of system rather than the huge overhead system in Vancouver that Honolulu has modeled after. It’s hard to understand why the city doesn’t want to at least give this alternative a very close look, especially given the savings involved.
AIA has a short video I would recommend.
They also have an informative web site on the flexible light rail option.
I would urge you to check these out before so easily dismissing the issues.
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good one, Ian. It drives me crazy that the issue has been reduced to “either/or” when you’re trying to solve two problems: bring in long-distance commuters and serve a dense urban zone. Paris has two systems, one for each (RER and Le Metro). That is too costly for Honolulu so some hybrid makes sense. A system optimized to bring in commuters in the a.m. and then get them home in the p.m.–is that financially viable? It really needs to “work” for in-town commutes too.
Great summary of the issues Ian. I hope that the budget crunch will force the administration to open their eyes to flexible light rail.
I’m with you, Ian.
I lived in Boston and San Francisco before Honolulu and each of these cities has a combo of at-grade and underground systems. Notably, each of these cities has also demolished hideously ugly elevated highway structures that had divided their downtowns from their waterfronts. Even assuming that, on a fair considerartion of the uissues, we would have come to agree with the elevated system approach, the bait-and-switch pulled by the Mayor suggests that he knew his preferred alternative would not survicve the EIS process.
So, it appears to me, that the City has failed us on both the substance and the procedure. And that makes it very hard for this rail supporter to be very enthusiastic about the project. It seems pretty short-sighted for the administration to alienate a constituency it may need when push comes to shove, as it most certainly will.
Very diplomatically written response, Ian. Maybe we could increase ridership by also adding tolls to the roads in the proximity of the rail served routes as well, at least at high traffic times. Perhaps that last part should wait until connections to downtown and UH are complete.
An at-grade system might look nice, but it would require more land acquisition, which would lead to more disputes, and would likely impact traffic lanes, which would absolutely inflame the forces that are already out to stop rail no matter how much sense the current plan (or any other) makes. They will come up with any conceivable excuse to create or bolster opposition, and align themselves with anyone willing to be manipulated if it serves their short-term interests too. Ann Kobayashi’s EZway nonsense and cheesy marriage of convenience with Panos to tap into his groupies was a good example. I’m still shaking my head in disgust at that one.
Hannemann’s rail dance has been a classic bait and switch. He *always* referred to “light rail” systems as did his minions in presentations.
Suddenly now, surprise, we have heavy rail. The “alternatives” compared in the EIS was (a) Rail and (b) Nothing.
The Farce of Farces continues and meanwhile $5BLN is being pulled from local pockets of hard working folks to line the pockets of the Ruling Alii Class of Unions, Bishop Street, and the Political Class.
A sad time in Honolulu, for sure.