Tag Archives: Rail transit

Friday…Is Mayor Hannemenn’s train in danger of going the way of the Superferry?

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City Councilmember Duke Bainum warned last week that the city’s rush to begin construction of the proposed rail transit system coupled with its insistence on a train running on an elevated concrete guideway for its entire distance “will create a Superferry-Like legal limbo for the rail project”.

Bainum pointed to choices made by the city even before the draft environmental impact statement was released for public comment.

The technology has already been selected. Despite denials, the public has been misled into thinking the technology hasn’t been chosen yet. The City has chosen an elevated, above-grade technology for the entire route. If you don’t believe me, read the requests for proposals they’ve issued for the guideway and the core system already – terminology such as “high floor”, “high vehicle platform” and “power contact rail” are signals that the City is NOT looking for a flexible technology. By choosing an elevated fixed guideway, the City is severely limiting it’s choices of how and where it can expand the route – if it can even be afforded.

Documents support the view that Mayor Mufi Hannemann’s administration selected a particular rail technology and refused to discuss alternatives as much as a year before its own environmental impact study, including an assessment of environmental costs and potential alternatives, was prepared and released for public comment.

The early decision on technology may have short-circuited the process required by federal environmental protection laws.

In early 2007, when the Honolulu Chapter of the American Institute of Architects publicly expressed its concerns about the visual impact of an elevated rail system through central Honolulu, it was told that the observations were premature and to come back later.

According to a February 23, 2007 story in Pacific Business News, the city’s top planner responded to AIA’s concerns by saying “it’s too early in the process for architects to get involved.”

But when the AIA wrote to Mayor Hannemann in December 2007, again expressing its concerns about the visual impact of the concrete guideway, Mayor Hannemann responded with a “kiss off” letter, rejecting their concerns as “11th hour opposition” that was too late to be considered seriously.

Hannemann’s letter, addressed to then-AIA President Peter Vincent, was copied to the group’s officers and board of directors. It has recently been circulating as evidence of the city’s apparent bad-faith.

During an AIA-sponsored panel last week, transportation consultant Phil Craig directed attention to the city’s own Federal Register notice spelling out the process to be followed, and noted that it promised to assess the light rail alternative. That assessment was never done.

In addition, the city officially advised that comments on a preferred alternative should be deferred until after the EIS was completed, while behind the scenes that decision had been made by the administration.

The city’s official “Intent to prepare an environmental impact statement“, appeared in the Federal Register on March 15, 2007. It discussed the initial “scoping” process, in which interested individuals and organizations were asked to comment on issues and alternatives to be included in the EIS.

Specifically, the city’s Federal Register notice stated:

Comments on the alternatives should propose alternatives that would satisfy the purpose and need at less cost or with greater effectiveness or less environmental or community impact and were not previously studied and eliminated for good cause. At this time, comments should focus on the scope of the NEPA review and should not state a preference for a particular alternative. The best opportunity for that type of input will be after the release of the draft EIS. (emphasis added)

But by the time the draft EIS was made public in November 2008, the administration was not listening to comments.

As Wayne Yoshioka, the city’s Director of Transportation Services, said told AIA last week: “With all due respect, the decision has been made.”

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency also criticized the failure of the draft EIS to consider the alternative of the kind of light rail system backed by AIA.

In a February 12, 2009 letter to the Federal Transit Administration, the EPA wrote:

…we have remaining questions about why light rail or bus rapid transit in an exclusive right-of-way were not considered as reasonable alternatives in the DEIS. Additional information should be included in the FEIS (final environmental impact statement) explaining why these technologies were not considered to be reasonable alternatives and were therefore not reviewed in the DEIS.

Craig also predicted the city’s project could have trouble meeting Federal Transit Administration criteria “because it will cost too much in comparison with the predicted ridership levels and high environmental damage,” a concern echoed by Bainum in his comments.

Wednesday…Architects say heavy rail system a mistake, citing architectural and cost issues

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An independent transit consultant predicted that Honolulu’s rail transit system could be “in trouble” because the city failed to deliver an environmental impact study that fulfilled what was promised in the official notice published in the Federal Register.

Consultant Phil Craig told a gathering of architects that the Federal Register notice for the transit Environmental Impact Study committed the city to providing an analysis of alternatives, including “light” rail at grade as well as the “heavy” rail system favored by the city administration. But Craig said the available alternatives were never explored adequately or seriously considered, a flaw which he said could open the EIS to challenge.

But Wayne Yoshioka, the city’s Director of Transportation Services, said it was too late for a significant change in design.

“With all due respect, the decision has been made,” Yoshioka said.

Their dueling commments came as part of a panel discussion of the city’s transit plan sponsored by the Honolulu Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, the major professional organization in the field of architecture.

AIA favors rail, but says the type of system favored by the city administration is bad architecturally, will create visual blight, is not conducive to transit oriented development because it is separated from street-level activities, and costs twice as much and will take twice as long to build as comparable at-grade technology.

A short video prepared by the AIA points out that none of the urban rail transit systems started in the past 25 years uses the technology favored by the Hannemann administration. Instead, all use a so-called “light rail” technology like that used in Portland, Oregon, which is flexible enough to allow trains go run at street level, on elevated tracks, in subways, or in separate rights of way along roads and highways.

The city’s preferred technology has to be “grade separated” from street level for safety reasons because it requires an electrified “third rail” to provide electrical power.

“At grade” systems, which can run at street level or on elevated guideways, are powered via a network of wires running above the roadway or, with the latest technology, wirelessly or with rails that are only “live” when a train is passing over them.

The massive shift to the exclusive selection of light rail technology in mainland systems has not received much public notice but is now being highlighted by the AIA.

But Yoshioka said the city’s choice was driven by past experience with political pressures when the city tried to implement a bus rapid transit system when Jeremy Harris was mayor.

At that time, anti-transit and pro-automobile groups attacked the bus system because it would convert lanes of traffic along the key Kapiolani corridor from cars to transit.
Yoshioka said city planners learned a lesson.

“They (critics) were not willing to sacrifice roadways,” Yoshioka said. In order to avoid wasting time and political capital in a public fight over roadways vs. transit, Yoshioka said the city decided to press ahead with a system that would elevate trains above existing roadways.

Yoshioka dismissed other issues, including visual impacts and cost, as necessary “tradeoffs”.

Because city officials believed the public would not support narrowing of key roads in order to accommodate transit, they decided that an elevated system “was inherent in the preferred alignments.”

Many of today’s most vociferous opponents of the planned elevated heavy rail system were in the front lines of the attacks on the street-level system previously envisioned by bus rapid transit project. It looks like a classic case of the old adage, “Watch out what you wish for”.

AIA argues that the “light rail” option is still viable because it meets the city’s stated “steel wheel on steel rail” criteria.

John Whalen, a former chief planner for the city during Mayor Frank Fasi’s administration who spoke as a representative of the local chapter of the American Planning Association, invited the audience to look at a series of photos from Portland and Phoenix, which just completed a 20 mile light rail system costing just $1.5 billion.

“Let’s gaze, perhaps somewhat wistfully, at these images of at-grade systems,” Whalen said, noting that the human-scale design options are not what are being called for in the city’s design.

Yoshioka said the city was open to considering alternatives for future “spurs” to Waikiki and the University, but did not intend to reopen debate on the main system.

The AIA has posted a number of documents and reports regarding Honolulu’s transit project on its web site.