DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM Mayor Mufi Hannemann and Melvin Kaku, director of the city Department of Transportation Services, watched a video from Hitachi America yesterday during a city-sponsored transit symposium at the Hawai'i Convention Center, showing what a monorail system might look like in Honolulu.

Transit vote vital, mayor says

Hannemann urges the City Council to avoid any delays in seeking alternatives

Mayor Mufi Hannemann is sending a strong message to the City Council: Don't delay voting on a mass transit alternative.

"It's critical in my mind to make the decision this year," Hannemann said. "But I really believe that if they get sidetracked ... then a delay could occur."

It is a message the mayor repeated several times yesterday during a city-sponsored transit symposium that brought rail transit experts from around the world to showcase different rail technology and expertise.

City Council Chairman Donovan Dela Cruz said he has no problem in picking a mass transit alternative. But if the Council's mass transit decision is rail, then it would be irresponsible to select a route without first putting into place appropriate land use and zoning parameters.

"I trust the body is going to do what's responsible," Dela Cruz said.

Dela Cruz, who returned recently from a trip to three cities on the mainland to inspect developments oriented around rail transit lines, said that it is possible the Council could pick one of four mass transit options -- and then delay voting on a route until after it receives from the administration land use legislation on transit-oriented developments.

"We've been asking them to initiate (the land use legislation) for quite some time. If there's a delay, it's because the administration didn't take our resolutions seriously," Dela Cruz said.

The administration is winding down its analysis of four transit alternatives: build nothing except for already planned road projects; an upgraded bus system; an elevated toll highway; and rail.

The administration is expected by Nov. 1 to send its study to the City Council along with a recommendation of which alternative to choose.

Councilmembers indicated last year that they wanted to vote on the mass transit alternative before a 0.5 percent general excise tax surcharge goes into effect Jan. 1 to pay for constructing the mass transit system.

The mayor, a rail proponent, said the administration's recommendation to the Council will include the selection of a mass transit alternative and a route, if the choice is rail.

Other councilmembers joined the mayor is calling for the vote to occur before the end of the year.

"Let's stick to the original time line so that people can understand what it is they're paying for when this tax kicks in in January," Councilman Gary Okino said.