Fair warning: Personal opinion follows….
I had an “Alice in Wonderland” moment yesterday when it was announced that 39 members of the House of Representatives had signed a letter to the Governor requesting that she quickly approve the final environmental impact statement for the Honolulu rail project.
According to the Star-Bulletin:
“There’s no reason, in our minds, the governor should hold this up anymore,” said Rep. K. Mark Takai (D, Newtown-Pearl City), who led the effort. “This is too important an issue — too important an opportunity — to miss.”
The problem, of course, is that the final EIS has not been made public, so neither the governor, nor the representatives, have been able to review it or determine what issues might remain.
So we’re there, along with Alice, down the rabbit hole.
First issue the judgement (“it’s a great EIS, no reason to delay”). Then, after the fact, review of the evidence (i.e., actually examine and evaluate what’s in the final EIS, not yet available).
Actually, yesterday’s “Rush the Rail” pep rally starring Mayor Hannemann and the House 39 did clear things up for me.
I’m a supporter of rail, having enjoyed using rail transit in many mainland cities. But I’ve been puzzled over the city’s single-minded pursuit of this particular rail system, including many things that have not seemed reasonable. Why would we choose to ignore the flexible, modern light rail technology developed over the past 20 years and used in the vast majority of mainland and international cities for urban transportation, and instead select what was “state of the art” back in the mid-1980s but has now been surpassed by systems that are cheaper, quicker to build, more able to be integrated into urban environments, and so on?
Why did this administration work to maintain the appearance of weighing public opinion while keeping its hidden thumb on the scale? Community meetings to invite input on the rail plan were little more than opportunities to comment on what color scheme should be chosen for the pre-designed stations. Professionals wanting to offer suggestions were first told they should wait until the EIS was completed, then told their comments were too late because the draft EIS was already done. Technology decisions were buried in unilaterally adopted complex specifications that quietly ruled out alternatives at the same time officials were denying the decisions had already been made.
My mistake, and the mistake made by the AIA and others, has been to wrongly assume that this process is about planning the best, most efficient, and most appropriate transit system for Honolulu’s needs.
Now I realize we should take the mayor at his word. This is not about transportation, community planning, or envisioning how we want to live in the future.
This is simply about money. Pork. Profits. Jobs. And, of course, politics. They’re all connected, and time is of the essence because a key player, Dan Inouye, our senior senator, is of an age when, well, health issues can get serious on short notice. So just get it done, take advantage of his position and get the most federal money possible while we can, then make the best of it. Not perfect, but….Live with it.
Even though a more flexible system could probably be built at substantial savings, and be ready for use sooner, this is really about maximizing those federal dollars.
If you just give up those notions of best practices, community design and transportation planning, and just think dollars and jobs, it all makes sense.
From that perspective, I can start to see why the powers-that-be would want to just resurrect Frank Fasi’s original rail design, do some minor updating, then rush ahead while deflecting any other considerations or opinions.
I think the message is simple. We’re not really concerned about the best planned transportation system. Aesthetics? Not even worth worrying about. We’re talking money and real politics. Get real. Get over it.
The mayor was direct and forceful yesterday in delivering that message. He does, it seems, mean exactly what he says.
Discover more from i L i n d
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Sad that full-time amateur commentators like Kolea are so misinformed about the very reasonable opposition. The AIA foks were smart enough to be very involved with Stop Rail Now, by collecting signatures, distributing flyers, etc. Perhaps if you hadn’t sat on the sidelines, the fight would already have been won. Instead, the fight drags on.
If we get rail wrong, we will have pretty mcuh crippled the city structurally, visually and financially. It is one of the few projects where we seem to be planning more than an election cycle into the future so give some credit for that but the planning up to now has been frightening.
We will have a much bigger and more costly infrastructure issue of sealevel rise to deal with and, based on rail, Oahu hasn’t a prayer.
I think you’re right about the rising ocean levels.
I wonder whether insurers are starting to look out 30+ years and worry about mortgages on oceanfront properties.
IF the Mayor really wants and believes in Rail, truly believes we need it for the money, the jobs, the traffic, he he truly truly believes that if we dont do this, its going to be even worse for us — and he really wants all of us to believe him –
then…
Stop right now running for Governor.
Just dont run. Tell us right now that you are staying put to get this thing done, even if it means passing up the Gov seat.
This will tell all of us that this project is MORE IMPORTANT than your political career. It was send the critical message that WE are more important to you than being Gov – and the benefits of this rail project for US is so important to Hawaii and to you that you will step away from something that is also obviously as important to YOU to ensure that this desperately important project goes through, all the way, done well, done right.
Kolea, Hipoli, there is almost nothing left to say after reading your comments.
I say “almost” because I just wanna hurl over the Governor’s new-found respect for the environmental review process. Have you heard the PSA in which the same Governor that blew off an EIS for the SuperFerry — a project that we could really have used but that was killed by her efforts to circumvent the EIS law — goes into great detail about her legal obligation to review the EIS for the Honolulu Rail project?
What an unmitigated crock of hypocritical BS!!! She’s about 5 years late and a few billion $ short on this one.
Speaking of which, who paid for that shameless piece of Lenny Klompus-spun propaganda? Better not have been the taxpayers!
Unbelievable. Outrageous. Disgusting. Really.
Im actually not even interested in whatever the Gov is or is not saying, doing or not doing. I certainly dont give a rats okole about Stop Rail or whatever. If we need rail, Ok. So be it.
Mayors problem on this is his credibility. Im more interested in just trusting this man. Am I the only one who looks at him and thinks — GoodLord is he bullshitting all of us or what? I cant look at him and think, billions and billions and billions of dollars, so this man can be Governor?
He wants us to believe in him – he wants MY trust – well then put his damn money and all the money associated with this project where is big bully mouth is. He’s being this passionate, this adamant that this project is this important — than make this more about US than HIM and his ambition.
Shut up and put up, Mayor. Stay put and earn my trust that you care more about ME than YOU.
Overheated narcissism in the irrational cyber peanut gallery, anyone?
Puuulease.
“Shut up and put up, Mayor. Stay put and earn my trust that you care more about ME than YOU.”
Amen. What a novelty THAT would be . . . . .
While You might work for Your Man, Your Man works for Me. Like any good manager, I happen to think that if my employee wants a promotion, which Your Man does, well, he gets to earn it.
Your Man has an ego the size of this rail project. He needs to check that ego at the nearest next $1000 fundraiser, and show all of us that this project is everything that he is saying it is, even if that means giving up his run for Gov. When Your Man shows me that he’s that much of man, that much of a leader – then he gets my trust –
and my vote.
An overheated peanut in the irrational cyber narcissism gallery.
Get Real? Why on earth would you dismiss this group like that? Besides being voters with actual brains, we are providing meaninful feedback for Your Man.
I think your new name should be Get Smart.
The Grateful Free World With Brains hereby officially and publicly thanks and praises “hipoli” for invaluable and unselfish service to truth, humankind and democracy, and bestows upon “hipoli” a vaunted place of honor and leadership in the Exalted Order and Gallery of the Narcissistic Peanut in Irrational Overheat.
Congratulations on a job well done.
You are now Dismissed.
As the Mayor surrounds himself with types of flippant and ill-advised employees as we are all seeing here on Ian’s blog (is that you Bongo? Bill?) who have the gall to berating (read: try to BULLY) me (Im NOT in Neil’s campaign, people, Im actually just a voter who you have now totally turned away), coupled with his own narcissistic (my, how ironic) need to run for Governor while saddling us and simultaneously seeking to abandon us all with the gagillion dollar rail project is why, unless someone shows me something more substantive than this idiocy and mediocrity, why I am seriously considering voting for the raging angry old man.
Goodness, what sad choices We The People – us stupid little peanuts that we all are – must make.
Is anyone else completely insulted by these Mufi-Mongers?
mon·ger (mnggr, mng-)
n.
1. A dealer in a specific commodity. Often used in combination: an ironmonger.
2. A person promoting something undesirable or discreditable. Often used in combination: a scandalmonger; a warmonger.
tr.v. mon·gered, mon·ger·ing, mon·gers
To peddle.
______
Next time you Mufi-Mongers feel the need to BULLY a lady, just remember youre disrespecting my mother and father.
Now go back to playing with your little toy trains, little boys.