Hmmmm. Honolulu’s mayor has proposed a , $1.8 billion city operating budget and nearly as much in a separate $1.3 billion CIP line for the rail project.
I would call that an attention-getter!
Here are several items for the rail file, a series by a Canadian group critical of Vancouver’s SkyTrain, which is the model for Honolulu’s system.
They start with a basic question:
Why after three decades of unprecedented investment in public transit has SkyTrain been rejected by transit planners around the world, even after an unprecedented sales program including being showcased at Vancouver’s Expo 86?”
In other words, if this all elevated “automated light metro” type of rail is so great, why have most cities opted for light rail instead?
They have a strong perspective, but they raise many legitimate questions which make for interesting reading.
“Debunking the SkyTrain myth”
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
One issue that keeps coming up is the added complexity of the all-automated system and the effects of aging and maintenance.
When we mentioned to friends from Vancouver that Honolulu is modeling its system after the SkyTrain, they had a quick response:
It’s automated. So when it stops, it stops for a long time. And it stops for a long time quite often.
Everyone knows that here in Hawaii, state and local governments are much better on building than on maintaining.
Deferred maintenance on the SkyTrain, like the Washington D.C. metro system, is blamed for current problems.
D.C. depends on escalators, as Honolulu’s planned stations do. What happens to aging escalators? A visit to Honolulu Airport provides a quick answer.
In any case, the “Debunking” series provides lots of food for thought.
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Ian,
The flip side to your post is the SkyTrain (and the entire Vancouver transit system) performed admirably during the just concluded Winter Olympics:
Seattle Times: Newest Vancouver SkyTrain line a big hit during the Olympics
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/olympics/2011178648_olycanadaline25.html
“On the first Sunday of the Olympics, Feb. 14, total ridership on the three lines approached 700,000,” Could surface rail, with its smaller cars and slower travel times, handled that crush of passengers? Doubtful.
Re: maintenance costs. Certainly, keeping up a physical plant is a major expense. However, in any organization labor costs are by far the most expensive, and fastest rising cost. Light rail needs a human driver in every vehicle, which will drive up the costs more than any escalator maintenance.
I suspect it would also make the transit system more vulnerable to strikes and work slowdowns if a labor dispute ever arose.
I must remind everyone that TransLink doesn’t count ridership, nor does it have turnstiles at stations (which are very good at counting ridership), but use a strange alchemy of tickets sold including pre bought monthly and annual tickets (including about 35,000 student U-Passes @ $25/month for universal use), spot counts at stations, and passenger load counts, based on metro car capacities 40% to 50% greater than actual vehicle capacities.
In short, TransLink’s ridership counts are mostly guesstimates and with absolutely no fear of an independent audit, since the last one was done in 1993 and found that TransLink wasn’t all that honest with ridership numbers!
In fact, TransLink is treated as a bad joke in Vancouver.
By the way, the last time the Superbowl was held in San Diego, on the day of the Superbowl, the San Diego Trolley, which normally carries 110,000 passengers a day, carried over 340,000 thousand customers on the day of the event!
During the Vancouver Olympics, driving into the downtown was greatly restricted and using SkyTrain, for many, was the only option. As I write this, passenger loading have returned to their pre Olympic numbers.
Ian, you can find critics about anything. You just don’t have to swallow what they say hook, line and sinker. How about some balance — some of that old investigative journalism that examines the other side?
You haven’t commented about to my blog’s criticism of your HPR commentary. The negatives of at-grade rail are obvious — slow, unreliable, accident-prone, higher operating costs. Bottom line, for every SkyTrain critic, you’ll find at least one supporter, and locally, I’m pretty confident the typical resident supports Honolulu rail….vocal critics notwithstanding.
Well, Rlb_hawaii , last time I checked, we’re not hosting the Olympics anytime soon. Shoots, we can’t even begin to keep the Convention Center occupied with little events, much less big ones.
And, as for balance Doug Carlson, this blog is providing it. The publicly funded, pro-elevated rail message has and continues to overwhelm any contrary viewpoint. It’s like the campaign spending landscape following the US Supreme Court’s recent decision: those with the most money, including those who are getting it from contracting with the government, can speak the loudest and longest as they parrot the government line. So while you may not see balance WITHIN this blog, it provides a tiny bit of balance in the overwhelming sea of pro-elevated rail, corporate propaganda. I lived in Boston and San Francisco and loved street level rail because I did not have — and did not have to have — a car. I was only to glad to see the elevated roadways, which cut both cities off from their waterfronts, come down. I hope you enjoy living in the shadows, Mr. Carlson, because that’s where you will be when these elevated obstructions are built.
How about commenting on the disadvantages of at-grade rail rather than simply laud the value of “balance”? Sure, people can take that side and be proud of it….but it’s not a winning side. Simply stated, at-grade can’t accomplish what Honolulu needs.
What you see as propaganda (like the foregoing) is simply stating the fact that at-grade can’t provide fast, frequent, reliable and safe transportation through town. THAT’s the need.
As for shadows, have you tried to find the ocean from the mauka side of town lately…especially in Makiki? Such hysterics about a 30-foot-tall structure! High-rises have walled off the ocean. Is that propaganda, too? Whatever, it’s the truth.
“How about commenting on the disadvantages of at-grade rail rather than simply laud the value of “balance”?”
YOU were the one who was lamenting a lack of balance. Ok, so here’s some. How ’bout not emphasizing first-year accident stats for a single at-grade system? 7 years of living in SF/Boston, both with long-established systems, saw few, if any, of these horror stories.
“[A]t-grade can’t provide fast, frequent, reliable and safe transportation through town. THAT’s the need.”
Could be what some people need, but it won’t serve the vast majority of the island, including the part in which I live (full disclosure). And, rhetorically speaking, since I’m sure it’s already been debated and decided by those who know far more than I, why not make it elevated TO town (not THRU town) and have The Bus take it from there?
“As for shadows, have you tried to find the ocean from the mauka side of town lately…especially in Makiki?” Yes, I have actually. I live in Manoa and travel thru Makiki every day to work downtown. You seem to be saying that “we’ve already ruined it the view, what’s a little more blight?” That’s almost too stupid to permit a response. Just as is attacking people who disagree with you as being “hysterical.” If I am just being “hysterical,” then you are just being a “shill.”
“Whatever, it’s the truth.”
Hawaii doesn’t do infrastructure maintainence. Let’s see if we can get our roads,water system and sewage treatment system functional and in compliance first.
Plus why steel-on steel in a salty air environment? Noisy and rusting as soon as it’s erected. Does the phrase “…rust to a shiny patina” ring any bells? Look at Aloha Stadium. Metal + salt air= headaches. Not that they really care about that.
I am not sure the debunking articles are a very good source. It is all too good to be true.
The question is, “Why after being on the market for over 30 years, during a period of unprecedented investment in urban transit around the world, only 7 examples of SkyTrain have been built?”
” Why has SkyTrain’s name been changed at least four times (ICTS, ALRT, ALM, ART)?”
The answers about SkyTrain are there, if one only looks for them.
“Rust To A Shiny Patina”, sounds like a rock band to me.
Mr Carlson, critics are good, no need to get defensive. Mr Hannemann will probably get what he wants, so you will also.
Who’s defensive? I’m certainly not; elevated rail has no reason to be defensive. Have you even read the many reasons I’ve given at my Yes2Rail blog about why at-grade can’t possibly serve the needs of this city?? Give it a try, then come back and tell me where I”ve got it wrong.
If you want to build a system with high frequencies that can respond quickly to varying changes in passenger demand (that don’t require a driver to come in for a full shift), an automated system is the way to go.
If you want 15 minute frequencies (to cut down on labor costs) then driver-driven LRT is the way to go.
As for elevated rail being a “barrier” – it’s only a visual barrier – rarely a phyiscal impedence to crossing the street. In Phoenix, pedestians are prohibited from crossing the street across LRT tracks.
Thanks for the much-needed and thoughtful coverage, Ian. I keep thinking about 20 elevated train stations, three stories up, each a football field’s length, with stairs, elevators, escalators, restrooms and ticketing machines. And then I think about the average Honolulu beach park restroom… On his city-funded website, Doug Carlson rails on and on about safety, cynically sowing fear among the poor local folk, without the slightest acknowledgement of the scores of cities like Denver, San Diego, Portland, San Francisco, Phoenix, San Jose, etc., that have managed to absorb at-grade rail-transit lines without the wholesale slaughter of their pedestrians. Sure, pedestrians have to pay attention, but hell, for 40 years, Honolulu had a bustling street-car system and did just fine! And if an at-grade loop through the central HNL core will cause a reduction in street space for car traffic…well, isn’t that the point? For some very articulate, very serious landowner concerns about Hannemann’s elevated plan, esp. along Dillingham, Halekauwila, and through Moiliili, comments by Kamehameha Schools published in the Draft EIS are must reading.
Sorry, Curt. Nobody’s even talking slaughter here. That’s your word. But I am talking unreliable and slow and less frequent…and that all applies to your beloved street car (at-grade) system. Because that’s what you’d have with at-grade rail — a nice little people mover you can jog along with as it moves through town (think Hotel Street).
You have noticed that Phoenix racked up a crash a week in its first year of at-grade service, haven’t you? Crashes equate to unreliable service, and you need reliability and predictability with rail to attract people out of their cars. That much should be obvious.
And an emphatic No to your “rob Peter to pay Paul” suggestion that it’s perfectly OK to take away street lanes. Nobody wants that. BRT’s failure in Honolulu under Harris was primarily because citizens didn’t want to give up even one lane for a bus.
Finally, this train isn’t going anywhere near Moiliili. You and KS are getting a little ahead of yourselves.
Greeting from Vancouver
I couldn’t recommend any suggested “Debunking the SkyTrain myth” reading.
It is pure disinformation! The mentioned group, which seems more of a “one man show” ran by a guy taking “Zwei,” or “zweisystem” (pseudo among other) is well known for constantly distorting facts if not more.
here is some take at it:
http://voony.wordpress.com/2009/10/09/an-example-of-fals-syllogism/
and if you want measure how fallacious can be his statements, I invite you to read the comment section of this post:
http://www.humantransit.org/2010/02/vancouver-the-broadway-debate-and-the-dangers-of-interrupted-grids.html.
But to answer to your question:
“In other words, if this all elevated “automated light metro” type of rail is so great, why have most cities opted for light rail instead?”
Like there is less city having bus system only than LRT system, there is less city having metro system than city with LRT system and no metro…make sense?
…there is less High Speed train than slow one on the railtracks… should you build a slow one because overwhelming majority is using slow train too?
That is a first level answer
Second level is
Seattle built something a LRT: but what it is in reality? a train with tunnels and elevated guideways ! So closer to a metro than an LRT.
…but it has just but the right amount of at grade track to get all the inconvenience of the traditional LRT without the advantage of the automatic metro (speed, frequency, reliability) while still build at the price of metro…
third level is
All American cities was burying their historic neighborhood to make room for freeway not long time ago…was it a reason to do the same?
Vancouver didn’t, and history proven it was right…there is another thing Vancouver did differently at this time and is still doing, it is building skytrain lines…and history has proven Vancouver foresight to be right enough to bring this as one of the most livable place in the word in despite of not enjoying your enviable climate and bounty.
That said, I don’t know too much of the Hawaian situation, but you should study the merit of all solution and not rely on misinformation coming form here and there, because it serves your preconceived idea…
As a Vancouverite, I’m familliar with that ‘Canadian group critical of Vancouver’s SkyTrain’. Unfortunately, they tend to compare people with different opinions to Joeseph Goebbels.
“The title quote by Joseph Goebbels, famed Nazi propagandist, aptly describes the SkyTrain lobby’s and BC Transit/TransLink’s thirty year long propaganda campaign to sell SkyTrain and discredit modern light rail.”
http://railforthevalley.wordpress.com/2009/07/05/%E2%80%9Cif-you-tell-a-lie-big-enough-and-keep-repeating-it-people-will-eventually-come-to-believe-it-the-lie-can-be-maintained-only-for-such-time-as-the-state-can-shield-the-people-from-the-politic/
The question whether to build with a SkyTrain light-metro or light rail, depends on the number of passengers are expected to be carried.
If ridership exceeds 15,000 persons per hour per direction on the transit line, then a light-metro (like SkyTrain) maybe the answer. If not. modern LRT would be the most economic choice.
Let us not forget Gerald Fox’s 1980’s study, “A Comparison with Automatic guide Transit and LRT” comparing automatic metro systems with LRT found that given identical routes and passenger loadings, LRT was cheaper to operate than AGT.
In Vancouver BC, Canada, the taxpayer yet has to know what is the total cost of SkyTrain and to date, over $6 billion has been spent on SkyTrain alone and this does not include the newly built RAV/Canada Line metro which is not compatible with.
SkyTrain’s annual subsidy is over $230 million annually.
Here lies another problem with SkyTrain, buy with it and you are tied to one manufacturer as no one else produces SkyTrain cars.
Another little Gem about the driverless SkyTrain is that it costs about double that of Calgary’s LRT (both carrying about the same ridership), even though Calgary’s C-Train has drivers!
Despite being in operation for 25 years, there has been no apparent modal shift from car to SkyTrain, with 80% of SkyTrain’s customers first taking a bus to the metro. In Vancouver, transit customers (bus customers) are forced to take the metro to artificially increase ridership numbers.
From what I see, this Honolulu light metro plan is going to haunt taxpayers for a very long time to come, with little or any benefit.
If Calgary’s LRT were built in Vancouver… it would be Vancouver’s LRT… and built at Vancouver prices, paying Vancouver land prices, built in Vancouver’s constrained corridors. Obviously, it would be more expensive.
Likewise, comparing Honolulu directly doesn’t work either. Each city has its own needs. In addition, one needs to think into the future. Metro systems, once laid don’t get changed often. Therefore one needs to ask oneself if the system can meet the city’s needs for the next 30-40 years.
OOPS!
A correction.
Another little Gem about the driverless SkyTrain is that ITS OPERATING costs ARE about double that of Calgary’s LRT (both carrying about the same ridership), even though Calgary’s C-Train has drivers!
Some more points to consider about automatic railways.
Automatic operation, despite the hype and hoopla, does not reduce operating costs, but increases them because one has to hire station & train attendants and more specialized signaling technicians to keep the ATC in operation!
Please note: LRT, operating at grade on a reserved rights-of-ways, with priority signaling is almost as fast as an elevated metro.
The death rate on Vancouver’s SkyTrain is about 2 to 3 times more than Calgary’s LRT (90% at-grade). Even though both systems carry about the same amount of ridership.
Every transit system has to be integrated into a total transport system; no one system can be all things to all people. Here in the SF Bay Area, BART is the heavy-lifting transit system with few stops and long runs to serve commuters. It runs above grade, at grade and underground depending on conditions and financing. For in-town travel, buses and trolleys mesh with the BART stations.
It seems to me that Honolulu has to decide first whether the rail is to serve commuters or in-town transit in a system integrated with DaBus.
It is possible to do both with surface rail. I spend time in Pasadena which is on one of LA’s light rail. It is surface through some parts of Pasadena and elevated in other parts, and stops frequently in town and then not at all on the long run to downtown LA.
Without an integrated plan then the money will probably be squandered, and the system will disappoint everyone.
That was decided long ago. The system is designed to provide an alternative to driving and therefore traffic for commuters so they can avoid what has been called the worst congestion in the country. TheBus primarily would be a feeder system to serve the spine rail line.
The at-grade advocates want it to be something else — a relatively slow and inefficient people mover. Hey, that’s great in some applications, but on a tight island with limited street level options and horrendous traffic that’s growing, grade-separated transit is the only solution that makes sense for Oahu. Heck, I’ve jogged along with the Sacramento at-grade trains in downtown Sacrament. Maybe that’s just peachy for California’s capital, but that’s not what we need in Honolulu.
I see my good friends Voony and Mezzanine are posting, just to let friends in Hawaii know, they are professional SkyTrain shills, that either work for the BC government or TransLink.
The try to pervert our transit issues to always end in a pro SkyTrain stance. Much of what they say is to taken with a grain of salt here as locals know well their questionable ways.
Vancouver’s SkyTrain is big business and the huge monies spent on the metro are filtered down to many government friends working in the engineering, planning, construction fields, thus is one reason why we continually build with this thing. SkyTrain is a massive Pork Barrel, for friends of the government.
As for Zweisystem, we are trying to promote an economical ‘rail’ solution for the Fraser Valley, by reinstating an old interurban line. SkyTrain with costs starting at about $100 million/km. (approx USD$135 million/mile), is extremely expensive and unworkable for the over 90 km. (about 60 miles) distance.
Just do the math!
Rail for the Valley, promoting economic transit, has engaged consultants to independently find economic ‘rail’ solutions for regional public transit.
We are promoting a Diesel LRT Vancouver to Chilliwack LRT service, using existing railways lines, with costs ranging from $3.5 million/km. to $5.5 million/km. Compare this with SkyTrain with costs exceeding $100 million/km.!
All the information in the Debunking SkyTrain series come from established transit consultants, planners, and academia. Facts pertaining to LRT come from revenue operation on various light rail lines around the world. There is no disinformation as claimed by Voony (most likely a government PAB) as most info on LRT is available in the public domain.
The problem with SkyTrain in Vancouver, it has bankrupted the transit system and TransLink is on life support.
One can build with all the elevated metro one wants, but there is a price to be paid for operation and the fewer customers for a metro, the higher the subsidies.
What I have seen and read about your project is that the taxpayer had better be prepared for a tax shock to pay for your metro.
I will leave you with this gem by noted American transit specialist Gerald Fox about Vancouver’s SkyTrain Evergreen Line.
http://railforthevalley.wordpress.com/2008/12/26/can-translinks-business-cases-be-trusted/
Quote:
“As a Vancouver, I’m familiar with that ‘Canadian group critical of Vancouver’s SkyTrain’. Unfortunately, they tend to compare people with different opinions to Joeseph Goebbels.”
Did no such thing, Mezz and you’re telling ever bigger fibs and I am very sad you carry your questionable tactics here. All I was alluding to is that you tell a lie enough times, people tend to believe it is fact and when the state does it and you disagree, you become an enemy of the state.
Here lies the modus operandi of the SkyTrain Lobby: repeat half truths, untruths and pure lies often enough, people will believe you and steam roll over anyone who doesn’t beleive you!
If anyone has cared to read what I have said, if ridership on a transit line exceeds 15,000 pphpd, a case can be made for a metro! Even in Vancouver TransLink found it too expensive to build with SkyTrain and built with a generic metro instead on the RAV/Canada line. Both RAV and the Canada Line are incompatible with each other and can’t operate on each others tracks!
What the SkyTrain lobby rejects is an honest and truthful debate between LRT and SkyTrain, where this has happened, SkyTrain lost.