Sean Hao has another good story this morning on Honolulu’s rail plans in today’s Honolulu Advertiser, this time focusing on the city’s failure to revisit the “at grade” or street-level option.
Speaking of trains, check out the Brookings Metropolitan Infrastructure Initiative, which is compiling information on the nation’s urban scene. Lots of good material here.
From one of their reports, “Making Transportation Sustainable“:
Americans travel by car twice as much per year as Germans and use transit only a sixth as much. Differences in car reliance between the United States and Germany are not solely due to income or residential density. Germans in the highest income quartile make a lower share of their trips by car than Americans in the lowest income quartile. And Germans living in low density areas travel by car about as much as Americans living at population densities five times higher.
The result is a transportation system in the United States that is less sustainable than in Germany. The per capita carbon footprint of passenger transportation in the United States is about three times larger than in Germany. Although gas prices in the United States are half those in Germany, Americans spend five percent more of their budgets on transportation than Germans. In government outlays as well (federal, state and local), Germany spends less per capita on transportation than the United States.
I spotted an interesting update on former Seattle Post-Intelligencer reporters in “Safety Net“, a Northwest blog. Of 71 who responded to a survey, only a dozen have new full-time jobs in journalism.
Say goodbye to paid journalism: Only 15 percent have found fulltime paid work in journalism. Another 25 percent are blogging, freelancing or working on journalism start-ups like Post-Globe or InvestigateWest for little or no money.
“I didn’t realize how difficult it would be adjust to the solitude and isolation of working alone instead of in the newsroom. Nor did I expect that fulltime job prospects would be this grim.” (John Marshall, former P-I book critic)
“Freelancing is busy but may not be financially sustainable…I’m stunned and offended by the number of major businesses (wait — including the online PI) who expect professionals to write for free…There are very few opportunities to do the sort of important work that the old P-I invested in, because it is expensive and unsexy. The point that it is important to society has become irrelevant. And I am no dinosaur – I am Twittering, Facebooking, and Flip video-ing along with the rest of the world.” (former P-I reporter)
Taking notice: The Utah Supreme Court has upheld the country’s first tax on strip clubs that feature nudity in a decision that ” could clear the path for other states to place similar taxes on adult-oriented businesses,” according to an AP report posted by the First Amendment Center.
Andrew McCullough, an attorney who represented the coalition of adult businesses, said if he can get his clients to agree, he will try to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“The implication is that the Supreme Court said that they’re not taxing dancing, they’re taxing nudity. Frankly, that’s just preposterous. They are taxing artistic expression and it’s just wrong,” he said.
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You or your readers might know this: has anyone ever tried to figure out what the average user-cost of the different rail systems would be? As in, how much would someone pay for one trip between points A & B?
What strikes me about Mr. Hao’s article is how much of it is rehashing things that have been said in the past two years and even 10 years ago. I’ve found Mr. Hao’s reporting style to be full of conjecture and occasionally containing errors that could either be seen as woefully incompetent or intentionally missing. (A recent article by Mr. Hao cited Sen. Hemmings as the majority leader, the Advertiser’s later retraction failed to describe either the substance of the error or the impact it had on the story).
Although I am a big fan of Portland’s MAX, I feel that grade-separated rail would better serve the needs of the people of Honolulu. Portland’s at-grade system benefits from geography as well as a relatively tight urban footprint, and as such does a splendid job of transporting its riders in and around the city in conjunction with the bus and trolley system. Unfortunately Honolulu lacks Portland’s layout, it’s trolleys and our bus system is lacking despite whatever awards they like to crow about. We are spread across the entire southern shore and a large part of our traffic comes from outside the immediate metropolitan area. This necessitates higher speeds to ensure that the cost-benefit analysis to riders from the suburbs, in particular the West Side and Mililani, make it so that the economic cost to commute to Honolulu without needing to incur the extra expenses of owning, fueling, and consequently sitting in the H1 or H2 parking lots, is less in terms of time and money than getting in your car. A MAX style system simply doesn’t provide that. Add to that increased congestion from an at-grade system and you have a train that doesn’t go fast enough and causes traffic. To put it mildly, I think the Council made the correct decision. Kamehameha Schools and and AIA are the worst sort of interference, johnny-come-lately’s who waited for the public discussion and debate to conclude before adding their two-cents. Perhaps the Council decided hastily, although I count the previous aborted attempts to implement rail as having relevance to the current debate. The Council spoke then and the Council speaks now.
What is really needed now is citizen and government oversight to ensure that the process going forward is carried out fairly, efficiently and with a minimum of waste. Engaging in continuing angst ridden pleas to consider the “other” system merely muddies the water. We elected the Council and the Mayor, voted in favor of the administration favored solution (even if the question was skewed and failed to present alternatives) and for better or for worse our elected representatives as well as the electorate have spoken. Bottom line? If they made the wrong decision vote them out. I suspect this issue’s ultimate referendum will be decided on whether the Council members (who aren’t termed out) are reelected and if Mufi Hanneman gets elected Gov.
(PS, I’m good friends with the programmer who writes all the code for the MAX, and I would dearly love to advocate for MAX if for no other reason than to give them a good excuse to move to Hawaii and get a good job, but I still don’t think MAX-style rail is right for Honolulu)