There’s an interesting item by architect Bob Crone written for the League of Women Voters in which Crone examines whether Honolulu’s population base is large enough to support the mayor’s chosen rail system.
First, Crone challenges the often-heard claim that Honolulu is the country’s 12th largest city, pointing out that this is the case only if you compare the population of all of Oahu with the urban core of other cities. When you compare Honolulu’s overall population with the larger metropolitan areas of other cities, we drop to down around #50, give or take a few ranks, depending on the list. Here’s one listing from Wikipedia that ranks Honolulu as #55.
Then Crone gets to the point:
In the census estimate, Honolulu is ranked 53rd in the US (by metropolitan population) and 49th (by urban area population). Grade separated rail systems (heavy rail such as the mayor’s proposed train) are in the top 12 US metropolitan areas (from 1-New York thru 12-San Francisco), plus Baltimore at no. 21. US metropolitan areas ranked 13 thru 48 (Phoenix thru Salt Lake City) plus Dallas-Ft Worth at no. 4 and Houston at no. 6 use light rail mostly at grade. There is no rail in metropolitan areas no. 49 thru 52.
So, the question is – How can Honolulu with the tax base of a metropolitan area ranked 53rd in the country even be contemplating an expensive grade separated heavy rail system? Obviously, for a city it’s size, the right rail is light rail!
It looks like this is the type of assessment behind Gov. Lingle’s reported statement that Honolulu’s proposed rail project would be the most expensive transit project in U.S. history on a per capita basis.
The actual cost per resident drops when you factor in the proportion of the general excise tax paid for by visitors, which is likely in the neighborhood of 10-20%, but rail still has a very hefty price tag.
Meanwhile, Advertiser reporter Sean Hao provided an update on transit-oriented development along the rail route and reports interest is slow in developing.
A couple of observations.
First, it’s interesting that Hao quotes a number of people but the city’s manager of transit-oriented development is not among them.
That omission stands out after Honolulu Weekly’s interview with TOD manager Terrance Ware just last week.
Second, while Hao collects comments on the slow pace of development plans, it strikes me that this could also reflect the relative difficulty of TOD with an all-elevated rail system compared to a light rail system running at grade in some areas. I also notice that a 2007 report by the Hawaii Chapter of the American Planning Association differentiated between “transit-oriented” and “transit adjacent” development. Different beasts from a planning perspective.
Two final notes. Honolulu Weekly editor, Ragnar Carlson, announced in an “editor’s note” that he is turning over duties relating to the rail issue to Adrienne LaFrance, HW managing editor, to avoid the appearance of a conflict.
Late last year, in connection with a freelance piece that ran on our cover, some concern arose inside and outside the paper about the connection between my job as editor and the role my father plays in the City’s rail efforts.
My dad, communications consultant and longtime rail advocate Doug Carlson, is a paid consultant to Parsons Brinckerhoff, the City’s prime contractor on the current stage of the rail project. Beyond that, he has been both a professional and an avocational rail advocate going back to the Fasi administration.
I have no reason to believe that his business affects my judgment in this case more than it has relative to any of the other high-profile clients he’s had over the years.
Nevertheless, after a lot of thought and discussion on our end and some consultation with outside ethics experts, my boss, my staff and I are in agreement: The perception of a conflict is as real a threat to our mission as any potential conflict itself. Readers need to trust our coverage implicitly.
Finally, with the city’s admission that the rail system’s final environmental impact statement won’t be completed until “late summer”, a vague target that could slip further. That will allow Mayor Hannemann to peak his push for final approval just as his campaign peaks in the Democratic primary for governor. I imagine this is seen as a major plus in Hannemann’s political circles.
It also raises the possibility that Hannemann, if he gets himself elected governor, would just move across the street and approve the EIS that, as mayor, he forwarded over for review.
Now, wouldn’t that be a tight little circle of power and control?
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Power and control could be so tight everything on the island will have to be done Mufi’s way. Scary!!!!
Ian,
A few observations on your observations:
I can appreciate a differing view on the rail finances from in a newsletter article from the League of Women Voters, even though that group has always opposed this rail plan. I hope you and your readers can appreciate the words of Don Horner, the CEO of First Hawaiian Bank and member of the business CEO group Hawaii Business Roundtable: http://is.gd/95Kme
Horner says the bottom-line oriented Roundtable tore apart the rail plan’s financials and found that it works. He was also excited about the expected federal cash of $1.55 billion.
Re: Lingle. Here’s the entire interview that AP picks up into a four paragraph story: (Hawaii Reporter: http://is.gd/95KKp). Notice that she doesn’t back up her assertion about the expense of rail. She simply throws out the statement with no facts behind it.
It’s also interesting that in the same interview Lingle denied being pro-rail. She said she is “pro-transit.” Huge difference to my mind and very telling about her motivations.
A quick look turns up different data sources on cost.
Here’s a story last year from the Advertiser:
http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20090816/NEWS09/908160421/Honolulu%5C-s-per-capita-cost-for-rail—4-000
A table of comparable costs from Hawaii Reporter.
http://www.hawaiireporter.com/story.aspx?661f6afe-76b6-4cd3-accf-d2700843dd6d
And, if I’m not mistaken, the Honolulu figures are for the initial segment that would end at Ala Moana Center. Extending to the full planned lenth, with spurs to Waikiki and Manoa, will add substantially.
At the same time, I’ll say clearly that I support rail, but wish the city were being more reasonable in utilizing light rail technology.
I noticed this reference in the mayor’s speech this week regarding transit oriented development: “The other three were Portland, Denver, and Indianapolis, putting us in great company. ”
Except that Portland, Denver, and Indianapolis have light rail systems. I wish we were in their company.
We should be cautious in assuming that the expected contribution by the Federal Government is guaranteed. Paul Rogoff recently denied Seventy million dollars of previously allocated funds to Vancouver as it is expected that moving forward would run the risk of litigation.
Since the expected federal funding is so much higher than most of the much larger mainland rail systems it is highly probable that it will be greatly reduced when it gets to Congress. Especially when the mainland learns about a ” high capacity” commuter rail that is starting in an open field resulting in becoming known as the train from nowhere.
Vancouver is experiencing serious financial problems that are causing lay offs, fare hikes and service cuts.
Ian,
Re: the chart from Hawaii Reporter. It’s clearly in error. It says that all figures are “are all shown in 2009 dollars.” But the cost shown for the Honolulu project is inflation adjusted over time, not the 2009 figure. Of course the chart is sourced from the anti-rail Honolulutraffic.com, so else would you expect =)
What’s the deal with the Honolulu Advertiser chart? It splits up the costs for different rail projects on the same system. I don’t think that’s accurate, since they are all ongoing projects and presumably being paid for at the same time.
I think it would be more accurate to combine the costs for the three NYC lines, the 2 Seattle lines, the 2 Denver lines, and the 2 Salt Lake City lines.
According ot the Advertiser chart, their per capita cost is still less than ours, but you have to wonder about veracity and fact checking when you see stuff like this.
I’ve heard all the arguments about cost. But how do you put a price on your time? When you spend hours stuck in west bound traffic it is costing you a price either better spent productively at work or more importantly quality time with your families. Most hacks jsut focus on the GET surcharge. Just for the sake of argument, the AAA says it cost Honolulu drivers over $8,000 per year to own and operate a car. So if you take transit and get rid of the second car, you save money.
The Sean Hao story you linked to above is interesting in that he apparently failed to draw the obvious distinction you did regarding the percentage of GET surcharge paid by visitors (and what about the military?). It seems he simply divided revenue estimates by census figures and declared his conclusions fact, without any attempt at verification or further analysis (or even a cursory explanation of methodology relied upon — you figure it out by looking at the info box attached to the story, which is completely meaningless because it lumps apples, oranges, bananas, baboons and kumquat pies together and treats them as equals).
That’s half-assed grade school math and fake news, not journalism. There’s been a lot of that lately, and it says more about the Advertiser than the rail project.
The loaded nonsense on Hawaii Reporter isn’t even worth a comment.
My impression is that the AIA is drumming up reasons to build a street level train in downtown by pointing out cost. Their main objection focuses on visual impacts in town, the high rise buildings notwithstanding. They don’t object to an elevated system from Middle Street west to Kapolei, or impacts to views of Pearl Harbor and the Waianae Coastline.
Ian,
You continue to say that Honolulu will not have light rail, but the system proposed for Honolulu is a light rail system, comparable in the size of the cars to those running on the elevated system that Vancouver runs and and on the at-grade system that Portland runs .
Please provide references to back up your continuing assertion that the proposed system will not be light rail.
Always good to read your posts, Ian, and I invite you to read my blog — especially the four posts since last Friday (2/19). Yesterday’s post lays out the AIA’s obvious and deliberate obfuscation of the at-grade safety issue in Peter Vincent’s participation in the “Insights on PBS Hawaii” show last week. Mr. Vincent clearly misrepresented at-grade rail’s safety while completely ignoring facts, such as Phoenix’s crash-a-week experience. Monday’s post details his fanciful representation that at-grade rail can be nearly as fast as elevated, and we detailed in Friday’s post his statements about the EIS process that were refuted by Gary Gill, Gary Okino and Kirk Caldwell.
For all these reasons and many more, the community should be cautious about taking anything the AIA says about the Honolulu rail project at face value — except, perhaps, the results of its own internal survey of its membership that showed more votes in favor of elevated rail than at-grade!
I notice Doug that despite our spat when you first started your rail “blog” and your assurances that you would place a prominent disclaimer saying you are a paid consultant it’s still not on your blog nor in your profile.
But it was enuf for Ragnar to conflict himself out of HW stories on rail. So why can’t you be as up front, Doug?
Same to you, ohiaforest3400 — whoever you are.
Readers — don’t you just love these critics who are so blinded by their own agendas that they can’t see what’s right in front of them?
Parx, are you blind? Quoting from the top of the site:
“If you’re put off that I’m a communications consultant to the City on this project, you probably don’t want to read any further. This blog is a continuation of my support for rail over nearly 20 years.”
That’s been there since what you call “our spat” in August 2008.
There is just too much money involved here. I know the politicians justify their way of doing business because that is the way everyone else does it and it is legal. That doesn’t minimize the obscene conflicts of interest in their decision-making.
They can spend a billion on propaganda and brainwashing, but we will never believe for a minute that their election schemes are anything but legalized corruption.
You got them going today Ian, good job. All I can add is that mass transit is used mostly by blue collar and lower white collar workers. I have great memories of boarding a bus out of Waikiki back in the 70’s that was filled to capacity with hotel workers going home to Central Oahu… at 1:30 in the morning. The higher ups will continue to drive their Lexus into work no matter what mass transit is built. And the riders are not who we hear from. Please make it look nice and have it be economical to run and maintain.
Ian, I normally enjoy your observations and analysis even when I don’t agree, but you’ve really lost me with some of your recent stabs at rail, like this one:
“Finally, with the city’s admission that the rail system’s final environmental impact statement won’t be completed until “late summer”, a vague target that could slip further. That will allow Mayor Hannemann to peak his push for final approval just as his campaign peaks in the Democratic primary for governor. I imagine this is seen as a major plus in Hannemann’s political circles.”
A major plus? You’ve got to be kidding.
Okay, you don’t like Hannemann. That’s fine. He’s sure not perfect and he’s not everyone’s cup of tea. But the situation with rail is that federal bureaucrats raised technical concerns very late in the process, they must now be addressed, and the governor has clearly signaled that she will hold the project hostage or even kill it with whatever pretext is available. She has the draft EIS and her departments have raised no objections, the FTA already requires an independent financial analysis, and the state is not forking over any money. Meanwhile, Abercrombie is trying to pile on with wild comments to anyone who will listen. To suggest that the delay somehow benefits Mufi really strains the imagination.
Your eagerness to buy into the AIA’s arguments all the time is also really disappointing. Their recent contention that changing the plans from an elevated system to street level would only delay the project for six months was just preposterous on its face, and most of their other claims don’t hold up much better, though they do make some legitimate points about aesthetics.
The rail project is huge and it deserves lots of serious scrutiny, not far-fetched theories, unsupported conclusions, constant rumor-mongering and the laughably slanted and erroneous horseshit the Advertiser has peddled as enterprise reporting for the past two years.
I don’t see parents using rail either, when there are multiple drop offs at different schools or activities to go to that are far from any rail route. I don’t know of any form of mass transit that addresses the particular needs of most parents whether they are working or stay-at-home moms or dads.
You’re right: Rail isn’t for everybody, and its backers never make that claim. Driving a POV will be absolutely necessary for many; for tens of thousands who have no reason to go here and there during the day, rail will be a perfect commuting solution.
I wonder how much money the city has spent on rail “education”?
I know that I asked for and received a free DVD about rail. At the Great Aloha Run Expo, they were giving out nice reusable bags to people who read the panels in the exhibit and then did a “quiz” on the content.
Agree with you Doug, and also wanted to be clear that I support rail even though I don’t expect to use it. Maybe my kids will tho, or maybe they’ll be able to have good careers if rail spurs job growth and opportunity as hoped!