Honolulu Managing Director and potential mayoral candidate Kirk Caldwell held a Washington D.C. fundraiser last Friday, according to a notification filed with the Campaign Spending Commission.
The $250 per person breakfast event was hosted by Washington attorney Robert E. Barnett, a named partner in the law firm of Barnett, Sivon & Natter. Barnett is a lobbyist for Citigroup Inc. and the Financial Services Roundtable, according to OpenSecrets.org. The firm also represents several other finance-related organizations, including the Council of Federal Home Loan Banks and the American Bankers Association.
According to Caldwell’s filing with the Campaign Spending Commission, the fundraiser was held at the law firm’s 15th Street offices.
The amount raised for Caldwell’s potential mayoral campaign won’t be known until the end of July, when the next campaign spending report would be due.
In other news, rail proponents, including Caldwell, have cited safety issues as a reason for refusing to consider a light rail option which could avoid the visual blight of huge concrete rail lines through the city by running in certain areas at ground level. The ground level or “at-grade” option has been advocated by the AIA.
A blog by public relations pro Doug Carlson highlighted these safety concerns in a recent post, tying the idea of running the train on city streets (as is now done in cities across the country) to pedestrian deaths.
Carlson, who was reported to have been paid $210,045 as a subcontractor on Honolulu’s rail transit team between August 2007 and November 2009, makes the train sound like real scary stuff. Of course, he is well paid to put the facts together in a way favorable to the client.
But safety data from the Federal Transit Administration seems to tell a very different story.
I did a quick search yesterday for data, and turned up several basics from the FTA. This table shows ten years of fatal accidents. Both heavy rail–the type being promoted by the Hannemann administration–and motor buses have, over time, a higher number of fatal accidents than light rail of the type advocated by AIA.
Another report, citing data for 1999-2001, reported the following rates, with light rail having an accident rate substantially below highway vehicles.
![[text]](http://ilind.net/misc /2010/rail-table-1.jpg)
Additional Transit Safety & Security Statistics can be found at this FTA site.
I think the point is that it never hurts to look at the data, but that extra hype–which, in Carlson’s case, came close to just saying “rail will kill senior citizens, watch out!”– doesn’t contribute to serious assessment of the issues.
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I really can’t support any rail project. It just is not affordable or sustainable.
That Caldwell is pulling money from the banking industry is not a suprise. His wife Donna Tanoue was FDIC chair.
http://nndb.net/people/112/000168605/
Not just that. Tanoue is now a big wig with one of the two big banks in town (not to mention one of many proteges of Dan Inouye, through whom she got the FDIC job). Also, Caldwell’s former private law practice concentrated on representing financial institutions.
“Show me the money!”
Thank you for doing the research on light rail accidents.
I knew inside me that the accident claim was bunk, but never got around to looking for numbers.
Thanks for doing very little research and making a sweeping conclusion based on one table.
The critical point is not heavy or light, although you have been stressing that point, erroneously.
The critical point is how many of the accidents involved at-grade transit vs. elevated transit. For example, Vancouver’s elevated light rail system has never hit anybody since it opened many years ago. Phoenix’s at grade system had a collision with a car in its first week of operation.
And what is proposed for Honolulu is a light rail system, not heavy rail.
The definitions used by the FTA accompany the table with accident data. According to that FTA definition, Honolulu’s proposed system would be considered Heavy Rail.
Ian, your numbers are off; I wasn’t even working the project in August ’07. But that’s not the reason to write you.
What do your figures say about pedestrian deaths on elevated transit systems? That’s the issue, right? It’s a no-brainer that at-grade systems are inherently more hazardous to pedestrians than grade-separated systems. And if you don’t think they’re also hazardous to vehicles, check out some recent media posts in Phoenix. This one will do:
http://tinyurl.com/ydkx9da
Like any good pro, I have all the answers about at-grade vs elevated, and I’ll be happy to debate the issue with you if you want a direct dialogue. Read the last couple weeks of my blog for all the reasons why at-grade would be horrible for Honolulu and why, therefore, the architects do not know what they’re talking about when they advocate it. They’re architects — not transit planners and engineers, for Pete’s sake!
Regarding the dates: The list of rail contracts and subcontracts, the only official public record so far, lists your contract among others captioned, “List of Subcontractors, August 2007 to Present”. I’m sorry more specific information isn’t publicly available on those contracts.
Ian, as I noted in my first comment, what I’ve been paid isn’t important unless the fact that I DO get paid completely clouds your ability to view the facts. What IS important is your acknowledgement that the death rate statistics you cited did not compare elevated vs. at-grade rail fatalities. THAT’S the issue, and I hope you will agree that elevated/grade-separated rail is much safer than at-grade transit, which the architects are pushing.
You know the architects skirted right past the at-grade safety issue because you were at Monday’s “hearing.” They’re pushing a much more dangerous rail system on this community to preserve a narrow view plane between the high-rise buildings they’ve designed that have walled off the ocean. The hypocrisy is amazing.
These architects know how to design houses and high-rises, but they don’t know transit. It’s that simple. Here’s another URL link to the safety issue they won’t acknowledge from just two days ago — about Phoenix’s crash-a-week at-grade system:
http://tinyurl.com/yh4kqdd
“death trains” hahaha
It’s not just view planes, Doug. As Portland has demonstrated, grade-level transit is a boon to retail commerce and increases property values.
Overhead rail (or overhead highways) creates noise and shadows, and development opportunities for the big boys. You say that what you have been paid doesn’t matter, but I think it demonstrates this.
In Portland, people were involved in a legitimate planning process. Who knows what Honolulu residents would have chosen had they had the opportunity to participate in the same way. Portland is getting what the people wanted, and Honolulu is getting what developers pay for. We have propaganda instead of planning. We’ve been cheated.
$210,045 would have gone a long way towards the kind of community effort lead by architects and planners such as Portland chose to undertake.