Honolulu Advertiser Second Opinion by Cliff Slater

September 13, 2000

Footnotes:

(1) Primary Corridor Transportation Project: Major Investment Study/Draft Environmental Impact Statement. City and County of Honolulu, Department of Transportation Services. August 2000. [Primary Corridor study].

(2) Table 1.2-2, p. 1-11, Projected Employment Summary, page 1-11. Primary Corridor Study. One must assume that the City forecasts take into account the current population trend of Honolulu residents, which has been declining for the past six years. See 1999 Hawaii State Data Book. Table 1.06, Resident Population by Counties, 1990-1999.

(3) Primary Corridor Study, Table 6.1-4, page 6-13.. For the total of Hawaii funds add State Highway funds to Local Funds.

(4) Primary Corridor Study, p. 4-4. However, ridership has declined approximately 10% from 1991 to 1999 which means that an even greater increase than 61% is being projected from 1999 levels.

(5) See table below.

(6) See table below.

(7) The Primary Corridor Plan, p. 4-2, says that all alternatives including the BRT “would result in somewhat reduced Level of Service [increased traffic congestion] for automobile traffic within the Urban Core.”
It also says on the same page that, “Under all alternatives major regional roadways would still have traffic bottlenecks in 2025, as they do today.”
The tables also show that for all but one screenline, automobile traffic stays as bad as today or gets worse. See Table 1.2-9 for 1995 levels and Table 4.2-3 for anticipated congestion levels in 2025 for the various alternatives at various screenlines.

(8) 1999 Hawaii State Data Book, Table 12.03.

(9) Primary Corridor Plan, p. S-1.

(10) Companies whose primary business is to hire out at hourly rates to advise states and municipalities on public transportation issues can hardly be expected to criticize their clients’ preferences. In short, they are not disinterested.

Instead of really dealing with congestion, the city wants to solve the problem with the Bus Rapid Transit plan

City lacks foresight
for traffic mess

Comes now the City with yet another transportation study, the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) plan, (1) this one weighing in at around four pounds. It meets the requirements of government-planning documents in that it has considerable heft and is heavily engorged with jargon and repetition, and with “visioning,” “livability goals” and “sustainable communities,” and other such flab.

No normal person is going to take the time to read it, let alone analyze it. But that is its function, to deter examination by the average citizen. Stripped down to the essentials, this study should have weighed in at around an ounce—before editing.

To the meat of it: The plan forecasts that Oahu’s population will increase by 25% over the next 25 years (2). It also says that we taxpayers should allow the City capital spending of $330 million of our Hawaii taxes (plus another $550 million of our federal taxes) over the next ten years (3). This will allow the City to beef up TheBus to TheBRT, and extend the zipper lane. In addition, the City would like us to spend another $1.5 BILLION for bus operating losses during this time. If we agree, it will allow the City to increase bus ridership by 61% over the next 25 years. (4)

Where are their heads? In forecasting ridership increases, the City makes no attempt to explain away why our current bus ridership is declining significantly. According to the City’s own figures, total bus ridership is now the lowest since 1979 despite an increase in the number of buses from 350 to 525 during this time and an increase in population.(5)

Nor does the City attempt to explain away why such declines in the use of public transportation are happening in cities all over the U.S. All of the ten U.S. cities that are the most intensive users of public transportation—Honolulu is one of them—have experienced significant per capita ridership declines in the 1980-1998 period. Eight of the ten have rail lines—and still they decline. (6)

The fundamental questions that are not asked in this study are: What is happening in other cities? Have any cities reduced traffic congestion? And, if so, how? In other words, what have been the experiences of comparable cities that would justify the City’s new plan? The City does not ask these basic questions because they know the answers will make a mockery of their forecasts.

And, oh, yes. After we spend all this money, the City forecasts that traffic congestion will get worse (7). Will someone please tell the Mayor that we need a traffic plan for the 90% of the folks that drive and not just a bus plan for the less than 10% who use TheBus. (8)

And do not tell us “there is inadequate space for new or wider streets.”(9) You can tell us that you do not want to take the political risks of disturbing the voters. You can even tell us that voters do not want it—but not that we lack the space.

Before H-1 was built, growing traffic congestion resulted in us bulldozing a wide swath right through the City from one side to the other for the H-1 freeway. There was obviously “inadequate space” then—but they made space. Imagine if we had not built H‑1 across town? There’s a traffic thought for us all to ponder.

And if “there is inadequate space” for highways, what was the City doing approving all the new Leeward housing projects without first providing for a commensurate increase in highway capacity?

Will someone from the City please explain to us, in these pages, why they cannot invite disinterested experts (10) from the nation’s leading academic transportation institutions to help get us out of this traffic congestion mess.

Cliff Slater is a regular columnist whose footnoted columns are at www.lava.net/cslater

Tables:

(5)          

The Riding Habit: Annual public transit passengers
on Oahu divided by its resident population

Source for passenger and bus data: Hawaii Historical Statistics. 1900-1976; 1999 Hawaii State Data Book, Table 18.26, 1989-1999; Hawaii State Data Book for 1991, 1980-1989; Short Range Transit Plan Update, Technical Report July 1984, 1977-1979.

Source for Oahu resident Population: Hawaii Historical Statistics, 1900-1976; 1999 Hawaii State Data Book, Table 1.06, 1980-1999; 1991 Hawaii State Data Book, Table 6, 1970-1980.

(6)

US Metropolitan Areas over 1,000,000

(& Honolulu): Per Capita Boardings:

1980 to 1998 By Population

Data source: (c) 2000 www.publicpurpose.com --- Wendell Cox Consultancy.