Second Thoughts

Cliff Slater’s SECOND OPINION — Thursday, June 15, 2006

U.S. Transportation Secretary Mineta announced last week a new national transportation policy, the National Strategy to Reduce Congestion that will have a profound affect on how we approach transportation planning in the future.
He declared, “Congestion is not a fact of life. It is not a scientific mystery, nor is it an uncontrollable force. Congestion results from poor policy choices and a failure to separate solutions that are effective from those that are not.”
While the Secretary is downplaying the change as affecting rail transit, bear in mind that rail transit is highly political and so one should not read too much into denial.
However, one can infer a great deal by parsing the various announcements. First,
• First, there is no mention of rail transit anywhere whereas bus/rapid transit is.
• Second, the new policy document has a table showing those cities with the highest costs in both traffic congestion and wasted fuel, and the ten worst all have rail transit. That may be another indicator.
• Third, this new federal policy smells like a radical departure from earlier ones in that it is highway oriented and for solutions looks to new highways, congestion pricing, HOT lanes, buses and private sector financing in the form of public private partnerships (PPPs).
One can only conclude that we are seeing a radical change in the making. And since no one has shown that rail transit reduces traffic congestion anywhere, it is a welcome one.
Two forces have worked to bring private highway financing to the fore. First, our current highway funding comes largely from federal, state, and city gasoline taxes. But the miles we can now drive per gallon of gas has increased 40 percent over the last 30 years and so taxes have not kept up with highway wear and tear.
Second, as we have added highways, we have also added maintenance costs. While highway construction has slowed considerably, the freeway system begun in the 1950s is ageing and incurring ever-greater maintenance costs.
Between these two factors, it now takes most of the highway funds available just to keep existing highways both maintained and enhanced to keep them up to current standards.
Funding for highways, allowing for inflation, is currently declining. Maintenance costs are rising steadily while capital outlays have flattened. In short, the traditional highway funding mechanism is in crisis.
Accordingly, any significant increase in highway facilities requires either increasing taxes or a relying on private funding.
Tollways are a good solution to this problem: Just as we do not need all the highway space we have for 4:00 AM travel, so we also do not need enough tollway space to accommodate everyone. Rather, the space we need is that sufficient to accommodate those who have a need for fast, reliable travel at particular times. For example, for those running late to job interviews, being late to pick up a child from day care, or late for a critical meeting, an optional uncongested way to travel is cheap at almost any price.
Tollways can satisfy this need, especially those where the price is changed continuously to balance demand, such as San Diego’s I-15 HOT lanes. Drivers paying to use the HOT lanes both pay for the construction and maintenance of the new HOT lanes and, by so doing, reduce congestion on existing adjacent freeways. Everybody wins.
Secretary Mineta says that the new plan, “provides a blueprint for federal, state and local officials to follow as we work together to tackle this growing problem. Over the coming months, we will focus the Department’s resources, funding, staff and technology to cut traffic jams … We must not be afraid to embrace new solutions if we are going to make any meaningful progress in reducing congestion.”
The new plan is worth reading (www.honolulutraffic.com/min.pdf). It spells out the enormous costs that businesses incur because of traffic congestion, costs that businesses have to pass on to consumers. It deals with the effects on families. And it tells of the American public becoming increasingly frustrated as congestion continues to get worse.
He says, “We justifiably do not accept equivalently low service levels from our other network and public utility services, and there is no reason to accept it in our transportation system.”
How will this new policy affect Honolulu?
Let us take into account that rail transit is not mentioned in the plan, but pricing appears five different times and has a headline about, “The demonstrated success of road pricing.”
The only reference to public transportation is, “Creating or expanding express bus services, which will benefit from free flow traffic conditions.” Since these conditions in congested cities only occur where road pricing is in place, it can only have one meaning — HOT lanes.
And where does this leave rail transit? If this new policy is consistent in its declaration of war on traffic congestion, then this is a turnabout by the U.S. Department of Transportation. It will leave a Honolulu rail line out in the cold unless Parsons Brinckerhoff can show that it will reduce traffic congestion more than HOT lanes. That is impossible.
Cliff Slater is a regular columnist whose footnoted columns are at www.lava.net/cslater

Footnotes:
i) http://isddc.dot.gov/OLPFiles/OST/012988.pdf
ii) Passenger vehicle fuel consumption up only 23 percent in 15 years. See http://www.census.gov/prod/2005pubs/06statab/trans.pdf Table 1085. VMT up 50 percent in the last 15 years. Table 1084.
iii) http://www.census.gov/prod/2005pubs/06statab/trans.pdf Table 1073.

Jojn Fund has an op/ed in today’s WSJ Online Journal, “Pluribus Sine Unum: Will the Senate impose race-based government on Hawaii?”
At the end his summation is,
“Despite all this, the Akaka bill is at least an even bet to win a Senate majority this week. Democrats, who long ago bought into racial spoils politics, are largely on board. The Bush administration has chosen to remain neutral. Linda Lingle, who in 2002 became Hawaii’s first Republican governor in 40 years, is convinced the bill is will help her party win over Hawaiian voters. She has been remarkably successful in convincing some GOP senators, such as Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Norm Coleman of Minnesota, that the bill is benign. The Office of Hawaiian Affairs, a quasi-state agency, has spent lavishly on a snow job for senators, including its hiring of the top lobbying firm of Patton Boggs.
But the Akaka bill is not just another special-interest boondoggle. It too important not to have senators give it the most exacting scrutiny. Creating a race-based government in Hawaii would create a dangerous precedent that could lead to ethnic balkanization on the mainland too. ”
Read the whole op/ed at: http://lava.net/cslater/JOHNFUNDakaka.pdf

The following was sent by “alert reader”:

Here are some undisputed facts which everyone seems to either miss or ignore:

(1) The haole gained political rights only because the Kings — the Kamehamehas — gave it to them. And those rights were given willingly — although one may argue that the corrupt, scandal tainted Kalakaua was pressured into agreeing to the so-called “Bayonet Constitution.”

When Kamehameha III proclaimed the “Great Mahele” allowing haoles to own land — it opened the door to political power for the haoles. To be sure, some Hawaiians lost their land because of haole trickery — but many lost their land because they valued other things more and used the land to acquire them. .

(2) Hawaiians dominated the Legislature from its inception to pre-World War II. As scholars such as Lawrence Fuchs (Hawaii Pono 1961) point out: the majority of the voters, candidates for office and legislators were Hawaiian. Most Hawaiian legislators were Republicans and allied themselves with the haoles to prevent the “Oriental Menace” from gaining political power.

When Hawaii was annexed in 1898, the Hawaiian-haole alliance could no longer prevent the Orientals from voting because universal suffrage was an integral part of American democracy (at least for men). Thus, it should have been no surprise to anyone that the Hawaiians along with their haole political allies lost political power when the Republicans were swept out of office by the 1954 Democratic Revolution.

(3) Hawaiians dominated the county governments. The county governments were formed through the efforts of Prince Kuhio who saw the counties as a route to Hawaiian political power. Until Frank Fasi came along, most of the mayors — Johnny Wilson and Neil Blaisdell, Jimmy Kealoha — were part Hawaiians. Through the patronage system, Hawaiians dominated county jobs which is one reason that even today, Hawaiians are the largest ethnic group in the police and fire departments.

(4) Shortly after she became Queen, Lilioukalani announced in a public speech that she intended to restore the powers of the Monarchy under the old constitution — an act which would divest the haole of the rights given by the Kamehamehas and which prompted the overthrow. Acknowledging this historical fact gives a different context to the 1893 Overthrow.

So where is the oppression? Clearly, the Hawaiians did not suffer the oppression suffered by the American Indians and African-Americans
———
We thank “alert reader” for the comments.

Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Sunday, June 4, 2006
HONOLULU ADVERTISER COMMENTARY, JUNE 4, 2006.

By Cliff Slater

Among members of Congress there seems to be a misunderstanding that Native
Hawaiians are a tribe, living together, speaking Hawaiian, poor, downtrodden and underprivileged. In short, that they are like Indian tribes as described by the 2003 U.S. Senate Budget Committee:
“Regardless of where [native Americans] reside, however, they continue to rank at near the bottom of nearly every social, health, and economic indicators, as compared to all other groups of American citizens. They continue to suffer the highest rates of unemployment and poverty, live in substandard housing, have poor health, receive an inadequate education, and contend with disintegrating social systems.”
This is far from the case with Native Hawaiians, who have integrated themselves into the general population as evidenced by their lifestyle and living standards …

For a full footnoted version of this commentary see www.lava.net/cslater