Freakonomics had a good podcast recently on the issue of funding of transportation funding and the gas tax (“The Downside of More Miles Per Gallon“).
It’s just a short, six-minute segment but definitely worth a listen. Bottom line: As average mileage goes up, the gas tax–which still provides the backbone of all transportation funding–brings in less and less money even while total miles driven might go up. It’s not an effective funding solution.
It also got me thinking again about Larry Geller’s (disappearednews.com) recent probing commentary regarding Honolulu’s dismal track record in road repair and maintenance (“Throwing a shovelful of asphalt in a hole is lousy street maintenance“).
Here’s the guts of Larry’s post:
Maintenance is not Honolulu’s long suit, whether it’s roads or pipes, or the ugly posts and crumbling bridge in Chinatown. So unless money is regularly provided in yearly budgets to maintain the streets, they will fall into disrepair again. How much is needed? Without a step back to do the research and planning, we’ll simply get another layer of poorly done roads that won’t work any better for us.
Before budgeting for maintenance we need to be using the most appropriate, most durable technology to pave the streets in the first place.
Look at the results from the technology we’re now using. The asphalt doesn’t stick, and paint, when it is applied, disappears and is not promptly renewed. Reflectors installed on the highways don’t last and are not replaced. Road repairs (such as on the H-1 near Diamond Head Road in both directions) left a hazardous surface behind and it just stays that way (see here and here). Some areas of the streets and highways are so poorly marked that drivers can be confused about lane markings in the rain or at night.
I’ve lived in places with more traffic and similar rainfall, and the streets were in perfect condition. It can be done. If the city doesn’t know how to do it, step one might be to find out.
Larry goes on to make good use of Google Earth to check out roads in other major cities. Great idea, and it definitely makes the point.
I would ask a few more questions:
• How does Honolulu’s road maintenance compare to the neighbor islands? Better? Worse? The same?
• What is Honolulu’s road maintenance budget, per capita or per mile of roadway, compared to other cities?
• How do the specifications in our road repair contracts compare to those in other jurisdictions? Are those specs adequate?
• Who is getting these road maintenance/repaving contracts and is their work evaluated? Are specifications being met?
I’m wondering how to dig further into this.
How about identifying a few stretches of road with particular repair/maintenance issues, chronic potholes, repaving that doesn’t last, etc.
Then we could start digging into the background of those specific roads looking for answers.
So get in on the ground floor. Share your “bad road” suggestions, then let’s see where they lead.
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I think that it is a bad attitude concerning maintenance, whether roads or buildings. I have observed landlords doing little toward their property upkeep, but because of housing shortage, they are able to charge more than a rental is worth by mainland standards.
Beretania Street between University and Kalakaua is an abomination. That’s my personal favorite road to perdition.
I’m sure we can all come up with examples of roads in terrible condition. The question is, how do we solve that problem? You mention that with higher mileage comes less funding. That is the key point, in my opinion.
I’m curious what others think about a vehicle-per-mile-traveled fee.
Why do you automatically make the assumption that money will magically solve this problem? There are so many examples of clearly inefficient maintenance methods or crazy overtime hours. Throwing more money at the problem will only cause the problem to grow larger.
A vehicle per mile fee seems like a total logistical nightmare just on the sole point of the city having to somehow monitor this. It also dispproportionately affects people who are already forced to live on the West side because they cannot afford to live in town.
Actually, I don’t think throwing more money at the problem is the solution. I’m thinking farther down the road, when more cars are getting higher mileage and we have less money going into our highway funds for maintenance and roadway work.
As far as people coming from farther distances goes, they probably already pay higher taxes via the gas tax.
It’s clear we haven’t been throwing enough money at this problem. For twenty four years Mayor’s have been afraid to keep the city fuel tax revenue high enough to keep our roads in prime condition. The math backs up the $21 per year increase in fuel tax to save on over $700 in car repairs.
While quite a number of years the funding for road work was woefully inadequate, the last couple of years significant amounts have been appropriated. One thing I’m concerned with regarding this is that the staffing is not sufficient to properly handle the planning. If I recall correctly, city council increased the roadway repair budget last year by about $30M over what the Mayor had proposed, but then reduced salaries by $40k or so. When staffing is low, we end up with additional costs due to change orders to fix errors. In addition, one of the main contractors had a backlog and was unable to keep up with the additional work.
As I understand it, another part of the problem has to do with the quality of the materials being used. There are different grades of asphalt, and the city (and state) have apparently been using a lower grade. There are alternatives out there, and I understand a couple of the councilmembers are looking at them.
Does the “weight tax” portion of car registration fees go toward road and highway maintenance at all? Seems like it should, and it’s the largest part of the registration bill. Using one of our vehicle registrations that was recently paid as an example, out of a $380 total annual fee, $308 of it is weight tax (part state and part city/county). What are they doing with that money?
The state registration fee is currently $45. Of that, $40 goes into the state highway fund. The remaining $5 goes into the emergency medical services special fund.
SB495, SD2, would change that by increasing the fee and putting the increase into a “compliance resolution fund.”
Oops, you were asking about the weight tax, and I responded with information about the registration fee.
On the county side, the weight tax is deposited into the highway fund. Some of that fund is used for road maintenance. If you look at HRS 249-18 (http://www6.hawaii.gov/tax/hrs/hrs_249.pdf), you’ll see what else the funds are used for.
Ian, come see me next time you are in Hilo and I can give you a day-long tour of bad roadways — poorly maintained and increasingly dangerous.
My own Kaumana-Waianuenue stretch is awful with the Puna side lanes so devastated it is unsafe to use them. Oahu is not alone in the neglect department
As is too frequently the case, Larry and you, Ian, pose questions but suggest no answers.
I have to admit I was thrown off by Larry’s “H-1 near Diamond Head Road” reference. H-1 doesn’t run anywhere near Diamond Head Rd. and it wasn’t until I clicked thru multiple links that it appeared he was actually talking about the area before and after Kokohead Ave. The repairs to which he refers do, indeed, confuse drivers (especially in the “right” light), but they were not made for the reason he describes; they were actually made to extend the life of the otherwuise very durable concrete surface by tying together the massive sections of concrete poured earlier. So this was actually an example of good maintenance (or an overdue correction to a bad design) that needs to be improved with much better lane markings.
As for the potholes, faded/evaporated lane markings, I can’t disagree. But the question is, as Natalie suggests, wehat to do about it? All those pictures of Hong Kong, Memphis, wherever, are very nice but the question has to be what are they doing that we are not? How are the two (or more) locales different such that the comparison is in fact valid, and so on. Maybe this is comparing apples and oranges (starting with the Grace asphalt monopoly). Otherwise this is just griping, like asking “Have you stopped beating your wife?”
In case anyone wonders, no one suffers the effects of bad roadways — and their effect on driver behavior more than I (and Natalie). My principal mode of transport moves on two wheels and I feel road defects and swerving/clueless drivers like almost no one else.
A good place for your research would be to review the reports on line from the City Clerk for the City Council’s Public Works and Sustainablity Committee.
The City, as a result of Council appropriations last year, has just completed a study of its roadways and what needs to be done to improve maintenance.
The study was the basis for the Mayor’s request for a nickel raise to the gas tax to pay for a very aggressive repaving program.
You can find regular reports about the paving study and the assessment of what the source of the problems have been in the minutes of the committee.
Dear Ian,
This subject cannot be easily addressed via short comments here. I recommend you do a web search for “Pavement Management Systems.”
I know I said that I would not get deep into this discussion, because of its complexity and because of what I consider an inadequate forum for it, but I cannot resist sharing with you what pavement specialists and pavement preservation experts take for granted:
In most situations, addressing “only the worst roads first” is a losing proposition. Usually the optimal strategy is to devise an optimal combination of reconstruction (fixing bad roads) and rehabilitation/preservation (stretching the life of good roads via a variety of treatments).
Striking the proper balance within rational budget constraints is what good “pavement management systems,” are all about.
The Pali Highway is a disaster.
We need a Ben Jay clone to start looking into things and asking the hard questions.
Every one of Ben Jay’s questions requires money to solve. Money he doesn’t have.
The Pali town bound right lane should be temporarily closed. as it probably doesn’t meet a long list of federal highway safety standards. truly incredible we even let it get this bad.
Guam has more rain, less money, and better roads. I think Hawaii just gets fleeced by the paving contractors. but then again, if they built roads that lasted, they wouldn’t get as much work.
My bad road is University Ave between Dole St. and Maile Way. It is in terrible shape. The reason this concerns me greatly is that, as far as I can determine, it is not listed on the Mayor’s recently released 5 year plan for road repair. My opinion is that if it is left unrepaired for five years, you are going to need a four-wheel drive vehicle to traverse that stretch.
I don’t think that your suggested approach of looking at the problem road by road to see why the specific road is in such bad shape is the way to go. As some of the other posters have said, we need to look at the problem on a global basis. What are we doing wrong relative to other cities/states? Is it not enough money, wrong technology, poor workmanship, what? If we keep doing things the same old way we will continue to get the same old results.
I talked to someone at Grace Pacific about ten years ago with the same questions. He said roads should be repaved every ten years. In Hawaii it is done every twenty years. According to him it has nothing to do with poor workmanship or wrong technology. It’s frequency of repaving.
Try Wai’alae Avenue heading Diamond Head from the intersection with Kapahulu some time. It’s astoundingly bad, no matter which lane you are in.
And to keep things…umm…entertaining, TheBus pad that was just repaired/replaced a few weeks ago along that stretch? Well, where the bus pulls in to pick folks up, it’s nice and smooth now. Trouble is, it’s, I don’t know, 6 or 8 inches *LOWER* than the rest of the road, with no warning.
Every time I go through there, I wonder about the City’s liability when some unsuspecting bicyclist or motorcyclist goes over that, maybe when it’s dark and rainy, or even in ideal circumstances, and does a nasty nasty face-plant into the road.
It’s far past the definition of “bad.” I’d call it a potentially “deadly” situation, and maybe also a “massive lawsuit waiting.”
The city did have signs up that said “dip.” Have they been taken down?
You are correct about bicyclists and motorcyclists — that is a very bad drop off and then bump on the other side. I’ve been able to easily get into the next lane every time I’ve gone through there recently, but others may not be so lucky.
I’ve put in a request with DTS to check on the signage.
Ian –
My wife and I were on Maui for a long weekend in late February and there were two things we noticed after living on Oahu for just over three years:
1) The roads in general are in SO much better shape that Oahu. In particular the road from the airport to Kihei seemed quite new and is a nice 4 lane highway. What a huge difference.
2) I don’t think we saw a single white plastic bag blowing around or on any beach or in the water. I think that must be due to the recent ban on those pesky bags on Maui. It was a dramatic difference from Oahu.
– Kevin
This comment just arrived by email:
I live in the Makiki area and for the past several weeks there’s been extensive road work in my neighborhood. And for once, it’s being done right! The streets are completely stripped and a new surface, and, I think, underlayer, are being put down and steamrolled. The results are beautiful, unlike the “fill in the hole” approach. It looks like something is being done right here, though, of course, every project needs maintenance to continue to be in good condition.
How about making portions of the payment to the paving/resurfacing contractors based on longevity/durability of the surfaces they work on rather than on purely a “per mile basis” or “number of potholes filled basis.”
Who are these contractors anyway? Are they performing their tasks up to standard? Do they donate to political candidates? Are there any sweet-heart deals and/or monopolies in this business?
Surely someone could produce an analysis demonstrating that a more costly up-front investment in better quality materials/methodologies saves money compared to the constant crisis/repair cycles….
I believe you are referring to “pavement warranties.”