Here’s the basic problem with all the back-and-forth of the past few days over competing types of rail: The city failed to follow-through with its often-repeated promises that the most obvious and tested alternative, light rail transit, would be thoroughly considered and any final selection of a particular technology would come only that analysis of alternatives had been completed, and the public given an opportunity to weigh in with comments.
That alternatives analysis was not done, despite protestations from those on the city transit payroll. Or, to be more precise, the process the city passed off as an analysis of alternatives somehow skipped over light rail transit, the most widely used technology and, therefore, the most obvious alternative. It wasn’t considered as an alternative in the draft EIS, despite earlier repeated assurances that it would be included.
If the alternatives analysis had been done properly, we could at least all have the same information in front of us to focus the debate.
Instead, we are where we are.
Discover more from i L i n d
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Ian,
I don’t pretend to understand the ins & outs of the Environmental Impact Statement planning and implementation, but I don’t see how your statements are supported by publicly available documents.
For example, in the City’s Alternatives Analysis, Chapter 2 has a section called “Alternatives Considered.” It says:
“The alternatives considered during screening included a No Build Alternative, a Transportation System Management Alternative, and a number of ‘build’ alternatives.Transit technologies that were examined included conventional bus, guided bus, LIGHT RAIL TRANSIT [emphasis mine], personal rapid transit, people mover, monorail, magnetic levitation, rapid rail,”
And I was at the architect’s rail forum at the capitol in January (yes, I have no life). Lingle, who is clearly no fan of rail or Mufi, said that she was told by the feds that they believe the city fulfilled its commitment to study alternatives. I don’t believe she would have admitted that were it not true. If you notice her public statements on rail since then have focused exclusively on the financial plan, not objections to the study of alternatives.
I simply don’t believe the city’s rail people snookered the feds, the city council and the media on this. With the level of scrutiny, it doesn’t make sense.
RLB, do you have any evidence that the city gave LRT technology any kind of formal public airing at any time in the last decade? I don’t think you do. Did even the Council ever consider it? No, it didn’t. As the Advertiser’s Sean Hao reported months ago, the last time the city studied LRT technology was in a 1998 report, which concluded that a mixed-grade LRT system was “feasible” for Honolulu, according to Hao, who obtained the report only after doing a Freedom-of-Information-Act request. As I understand it, it was during what the city calls its “screening” process leading up to the Alternatives Analysis that the city took LRT technology off the table, presumably after looking at — and rejecting — the 1998 report’s finding. There was no analysis of LRT in the Alternatives Analysis; thus no opportunity for public consideration of it in the EIS process. The simple fact is that city bureaucrats wanted the same elevated, heavy-rail train they had been planning since 1966. Process, preference, principle…whatever, Ragnar. All I know is that LRT is cheaper, less intrusive, and a lot more flexible than the city’s chosen 3rd-rail-traction, high-floor, automated, heavy-rail technology, and I say the difference is worth arguing about, and, God help us, worth educating the public about.
Forgive me for butting in.
When it comes to urban transit planning, there are two rail criteria, the light rail family and the metro family of rail. Each mode has its own operating criteria and is built to suit specific passenger loads on transit routes.
LRT can handle passenger loads in excess of 20,000 pphpd and does, daily, on many transit systems.
Metro economically handles traffic loads in excess of 15,000 pphpd. and by building metro on routes with less hourly ridership means a larger annual subsidy must be paid.
The choice is one of economics.
Now SkyTrain is a light metro, which was conceived to carry more passengers than LRT but be cheaper than a regular metro. Light metro failed on both counts and has been made obsolete by light rail because modern LRT (operating on reserved rights-of-ways and with priority signaling) has proven almost as fast as and carry as many passengers as a light metro, but built for a lower cost.
There are die-hard adherent to light metro, but when there is a full and honest public debate about transit mode, metro loses. France is a good example of this with the VAL and LRT debated in the 90’s until now.
There is much misinformation about LRT and streetcars and if the manufacturers have not been included in the debate, the debate is all but useless.
By choosing the proprietary SkyTrain light metro system, taxpayers will be tied to Bombardier Inc. for the lifetime of the transit system as no one else builds SkyTrain.
Elevated transit systems are both ugly and poor at attracting ridership.
Grade separated transit systems tend to have widely spaced stations which gives faster commercial speeds, but less customer convenience.
Automatic metros require much maintenance, especially to the delicate automatic train control systems. This means they tend to be much more expensive than driver operated transit systems, as you have to hire much more expensive signaling technicians. Also what saving are made not having drivers are lost in the trains and station attendants that need to hired.
Now if the transit line in question is carrying 20,000 pphpd, then an elevated light-metro is the right choice, because the mass of ridership will pay for the extra costs of the light-metro operation. But if your ridership loads are much less, the automatic light metro will have to be heavily subsidized, which translates into higher fares and taxes.
Seattle’s monorail (elevated light-metro) project came to grief because the monorail lobby (even more boastful than Vancouver’s SkyTrain lobby) fibbed about the total cost of the project and when taxpayers realized they had been snookered, the voted to reject the project.
The ideal debate for public transit is an honest and open debate, something that has never happened in Vancouver. I hope there has been such a debate in Hawaii, but with SkyTrain, there never has been.
Please remember this LRT and SkyTrain are railways and adhere to the same principals in operation. In theory, both can obtain the same speeds and ridership capacities. The question is, how much money will it take to satisfy the transit demands on a specific route: LRT, with streetcar costs as low as $15 million/km; LRT with costs as low as $20 million/km. ot light-metro (SkyTrain) with costs starting at about $100 million/km.
It is abundantly clear that people think elevated rail will be an eyesore. It?s a legitimate concern, and one I share — at-grade would be much more aesthetically pleasing, and I?m concerned that elevated will look worse than many of us even fear. But as often happens, we are spending a lot of time talking about process when the real issue is the outcome: many people wanted a different technology — I am agnostic on it, personally — and they hope to be able to change the outcome. “Process”, as is so often the case, is a worthy and noble value that allows the losing side to confuse a preference for a principle and thus turn the selection of a given technology into a moral crusade.
Ragnar, building “aethetics” as the driving criteria is asking for trouble. One, not everyone agrees what is visually pleasing, and many of the architects now complaining think their own hideous highrise projects are just fine. But, compromising functionality is where we could go horribly wrong. Elevated rail doesn’t mix with traffic so is guaranteed to be both faster and safer…these are more important and measurable than something as subjective as “aesthetics.” Personally, I think the elevated is better looking and certainly more pleasant a riding experience.
Wikipedia, which is at least a place to start in trying to get a handle on this silly light rail metro rail food fight, makes it clear that there is a wide range of systems that are termed light rail, and that what Honolulu is proposing is at one end of the scale.
See the discussion at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_rail#Definition_of_light_rail
I don’t find anything silly about the food fight. A couple years ago when their PR people came out to Kapolei on the public dime for public input, everything was already drawn up.
And there is nothing silly about process either. Remember, the mayor was doing everything possible to make sure the public couldn’t have a vote on this. And when the vote was had we got something like — “do you want the department of transportation to be in charge of steel on steel”? What on earth does that mean?
I guess it meanst hey can just concoct whatever cockamamie language for the ballot to fit their need and we just go along?
Our community is seriously lacking intellectual function. Let’s hope this election year doesn’t perpetuate this sorry state of affairs.
If a transit system is fully automated, it is no longer in the light rail family, as the definition of LRT includes operating in mixed traffic (car and pedestrian). To do so, requires a driver. The UTDC tried to market SkyTrain as Automated LRT and it failed miserably and the name was changed again.
Elevated transit tends to be faster than LRT because there are fewer stations per route km.; fewer stations = faster commercial speed.
Wikipedia is informative, but sometimes not accurate, depending on who posted the information.
Question: What is the estimated hourly ridership on the proposed transit system?
Question: Does the transportation authority wish to actively extend the line?
Question: What fare is to be charged for the new transit system?
Question: Is the proposed transit system to try to reduce auto traffic or is it for tourists?
Before building any new transit system, these are questions that need to be asked and answered.
Four years ago a city [of 6 million] in China decided it needed a subway and began studying the situation. Last year the city broke ground. In four years it expects to be finished. Is it really a democracy when implementation of policy is delayed by a quarter of a century [as in Honolulu] by lawyers, lobbyists, intellectually and morally corrupt officeholders and elections?
Ian, you summarized it very neatly. The “review of available options” was in essence a simulacrum of an actual review, a facsimile of a real review designed to manage perceptions. Yes, it would have been better of Honolulu had built any system in the 70s or 80s than to have waited 25 years. But now there is only one shot and the public should have a chance to hear all sides. I agree with your earlier post that it boils down to nabbing all those free Federal dollars before they vanish.
I am not saying this will happen in Hawaii, but when builds an expensive metro system (the Belgians call LRT Pre-Metro) and there isn’t the funds to finish the job or enough ridership to warrant operation, the metro is mothballed.
This is what happened in Charleroi, Belgium, a grand Pre-Metro plan that ran out of funds and passengers.
http://railforthevalley.wordpress.com/2009/01/26/the-charleroi-pre-metro-the-metro-that-was-built-and-they-didnt-come-a-short-history-on-failed-transit-planning/
When one is spending a couple of billion dollars on a transit system, one wants to get the best ‘bang’ for their buck. The political embarrassment is when there is little or no bang for the money invested, like Seattle.
LRT is not a panacea, but a proven method to provide an affordable, high capacity transit system to an urban centre. The question of being elevated or not, is one of emotion, not good transit planning.
The worst thing is planning transit for all the wrong reasons, like Ottawa Canada, which opted for BRT instead of light rail. It was found that BRT cost more to build and that when built, ridership dropped about 15% on the busway system over a period of 10 years.
Ottawa is now planning for LRT once again.