There is a great deal of opposition to Mayor Hannemann’s rail transit proposal. Many groups and individuals have been coming forward with supporting evidence that we cannot afford the rail and that the ridership will not be significant. While it isn’t easy to concede that your favored option may not be the best one, for the sake of Oahu’s taxpayers it is imperative that The Mayor and Council re-examine all transportation solutions.
There are other options that are more viable, such as, the reversible elevated toll-way recently completed in Tampa, Florida. Their ten mile three lane system was built with public and private funds for less than $450 million, and yet the City and County of Honolulu says it would cost $2.5 billion to replicate it here in Hawaii. The Mayor says tolls would be $8 dollars here, not affordable for our drivers. Where did the city get those figures? In Tampa the drivers are paying $1 dollar now and will pay $1.50 next year.
The City Council on recently expressed its desire to build the full 28-mile transit system estimated to cost $6 billion. This would be the most costly public works project in the history of our state. When you add in the costs to purchase private properties to accommodate the rail’s right of ways and create sufficient parking lots at rail stations the price could easily grow to $8 billion. With Oahu’s present population of 980,000 people, every man; women and child will have to pay $8,000 in taxes to build the rail system. The rail project goes against everything that the City administration promised in regards to fiscal responsibility; do we need it, can we afford it and can we maintain it? No.
The Honolulu City Council doesn’t have to guess at trends in commuting or performance of rail transit systems, there is an abundance of data available to anyone who cares to read it. The U.S. Census data for journey –to-work nationally from 1960 to 2000 shows that persons traveling by car grew from 64 percent to 87.9 while the public transit sector declined from 12.1 percent to 4.7 percent. Figures for the 15 metropolitan areas that invested millions of dollars in new rail transit projects from 1980 to 2000 all showed declining numbers of riders except for San Diego which increased from 3.3 percent in 1980 to 3.4 in 2000.
Oahu’s transportation problem is traffic congestion, not an absence of a rail system. We need something that will address this problem as quickly as possible. Tampa’s latest reversible toll way was built in a little more than three years, The Mayor’s proposed rail built out to 28 miles will take twenty years and do little to alleviate traffic congestion, and in fact during construction it will only make things worse.
The taxpayers on Oahu should have the opportunity to vote up or down on this project. Contrary to what we hear coming from City Hall, there is not a plurality of support coming from all elected officials and the general public. When the Bill that allowed the City to tack on an additional ½ percent to our gross excise tax was voted on in the
Legislature, one third of the House members voted no, one fourth of the Senate was against it. The Honolulu City Council is split with 25 percent of the members
opposed to the rail transit project, and a recent City and County survey revealed that 53 percent of the public said they would not use the rail.
If the City Council continues to move this project forward, the future of commutes on Oahu will only get worse. Motorists will suffer. Taxpayers will suffer. Motorists will suffer and taxpayers will suffer. Honolulu will have an $8 billion White elephant to operate and maintain.
Rep. Colleen Meyer is a Republican in the Hawaii state House of Representatives
