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Rail (with a heavy tax) vs.
tax-free HOTLanes

On Wednesday, the Honolulu City Council will hold a final hearing on Bill 40, the transit tax bill. Approval of this bill will, in effect, be a choice for rail -- a decision that will bring vertical densities, major limitations on total mobility, and include a heavy new rail tax. A decision to stop the bill and rewrite it to allow bond funding for HOTLanes (High-Occupancy Toll lanes) will allow for creation of a two-lane reversible highway over the current highway system through the Leeward corridor, and will provide dramatic relief of traffic congestion in the corridor without the need for a tax increase, since the bonds would be retired by toll revenues.

The rail idea has a false allure because of its promise to somehow eventually relieve traffic. It doesn't do that job nearly as well as HOTLanes. These lanes are like a heart bypass operation, with a high success rate at relieving traffic congestion.

What concerns so many of us about Bill 40 is its language's predisposition for rail. Wouldn't it be better to stop Bill 40 and develop affordable HOTLanes? Bond funding could provide the dedicated financing source necessary for securing the federal transit funds that everyone is so worried about.

We should stop Bill 40, which is essentially a rail bill, and pursue this HOTLane option. Then take the time to plan for the future and the next federal funding cycle -- with the goal of the creation of a complete transit/traffic plan for Oahu. The economy would thus sustain its growth, without a burdensome rail tax increase amounting to $450 per household for 15 years, and we'd be ready to make the big decision on transit together as one society. We would not be a fragmented community like we are now.

We think there is common ground. But it will take months to get the discussion on the same table. Bill 40 cuts things off on Wednesday with the Council's third and final vote. It prejudices toward rail, because the large amount of the tax raised is something only needed for the expensive rail option. With the ill-advised passage of this large tax increase there would be no turning back -- the die would be cast for rail.

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STAR-BULLETIN / 1997 Endless lines of bumpers are a daily sight for Oahu commuters. Traffic piles up on Likelike Highway approaching School Street.

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The biggest concern everyone has is that the proposed $450 per household tax increase for 15 years will result in money collected for a choice (rail) that perhaps won't pass the required "alternatives analysis" muster. In other words, if a less expensive and more effective traffic-solving option were to be chosen, then the huge unstoppable and unused "rail tax" would create billions of dollars that would certainly not be refunded to the people. That is simply wrong, especially at a time when Hawaii's tax revenues are at an all-time high -- creating large surpluses for both the city and the state.

HOTLanes, like those successfully installed in San Diego and Dallas, could provide us with a traffic relief system that works. Our clogged Leeward traffic corridor, which now sees travel by 16,000 vehicles per peak hour in the peak direction, with HOTLanes could drop to 12,000 vehicles at peak hour rate -- a drop of 4,000 vehicles per peak hour. This is equivalent to the current no-school summer rate of traffic flow -- a 25 percent reduction in peak hour traffic.

Rail, on the other hand, has not been shown to reduce traffic congestion in any metropolitan area.

The Council's final vote on Bill 40 will change our lives forever. This "hasty race to rail vote" is too important a decision to make like this. The Legislature has provided the Council plenty of time; the nine members have until Dec. 31 to schedule this final vote.

So, we respectfully ask that more public discussion now be allowed. We'd all like to learn about how HOTLanes have reduced traffic congestion in other cities and how they would work here in Honolulu. We deserve, also, to be told how rail has failed to relieve traffic congestion in other cities.

We join other trade associations, business associations and the majority of the general public (65 percent of whom said in a recent poll that they oppose a $450 per household tax increase), and we ask the Council to work during the next 90 days to write a bill to allow for capture of federal funding for convenient, flexible HOTLanes, which could provide successful relief of traffic congestion -- rather than just rushing to pass a narrowly focused rail tax measure.

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