Trains make too many stops to be efficient
In his column Sunday about the benefits of rail over express buses on managed lanes Melvin Kaku, director of the city Department of Transportation Services, claims rail can carry more passengers than express buses on managed lanes. Let's set the record straight.
There are no express trains. Each train stops at every stop. The average speed is 23-25 mph. If a train arrives every three minutes, there are only 20 trains per hour (going in one direction). If each of the 20 trains has room for 300 people, that equals 6,000 riders per hour.
Express buses on managed lanes travel at 60 mph (there are no stops on managed lanes). A line of regular buses carrying 50 people each at 60 mph can carry 60,000 passengers per hour in one lane. The proposed managed lanes will be two lanes wide.
Over a 20-mile route, the express bus on the managed lane will take 20 minutes. Rail will take 48 minutes. That is a difference of 28 minutes.
John Brizdle
Honolulu
Ferry not a blessing for outer islands
Reading the letters to the editor, Superferry support is 95 percent from Oahu and opposition is 95 percent outer island.
Easy to understand, Oahu residents only benefit from the Superferry, but for outer islands it's a mixed blessing at best.
Whether kamaaina or newcomer, we all have a choice about where to live in Hawaii. People live in the outer islands by choice. It's harder living without enough job or education opportunities, doctors, roads, theaters and malls. We accept that, for the relative peace and quiet.
Oahuans want the best of both worlds. But their expanded recreational options will come at the expense of our lifestyle, in traffic on inadequate roads and crowded campgrounds, with risks to our farming and livestock. (And gridlock wherever that ferry is near.)
Oahuans don't care 'bout that, 'cause they live so jam-up every day. There's an undercurrent of schadenfreude in letters supporting the ferry; misery wants company.
Oahuans blame us 'cause we don't like live in a Honolulu suburb. But that's why we stay outer island to start.
Superferry tries to leverage the opinions of people with nothing to lose, to ignore the law.
Bruce Baron
Waimea, Hawaii
Damage is done; uproar is misplaced
In this modern age that we live in, surrounded by elements of what is commonly known as progress in these islands, it's hard to understand the legal issues and public uproar about running a ferry that's super.
Conducting an environmental impact study to permit the ferry to sail could take months if not years, and even when completed a period of 60 days is permitted for further public complaints and continued litigation.
How on earth could we possibly have developed so much around us today, in step with the rest, if environmental assessments had been required?
Beach walks of concrete, public parks shrinking with the need for more development to satisfy our constant lust for growth. Dogs, cats, vermin run silent and rampant, as all or most of our native birds have gone extinct, along with native plants and fauna that made us beautiful ... not to forget our standard sewage leaks into the ocean.
Immense ships ply our waters daily, entering our ports to bring us much-needed supplies, without which we couldn't survive.
John L. Werrill
Honolulu
Anti-bicycle rudeness creates more danger
In the past six months since buying a car, I've seen four car-bicycle accidents, most recently a driver who didn't look both ways and sped up to get into the lane -- without even noticing I was slowing down to let him in -- striking a bicycle coming the other way. Riding in an acquaintance's car a few months ago, the driver narrowly missed hitting a bicyclist (driver's fault again), and the driver had the gall to say, "They should ban bicycles during rush hour." When I read your story about Robert Clay (
Newswatch, Sept. 7), it really sickened me. Here's a guy who was using a bicycle because "he wanted to use a cleaner mode of transportation than a car" and look what happens.
Let's get something straight. First, cars are the dangers here, not cyclists. Second, as bad as traffic is now, it'd be that much worse if all bicyclists decided to drive, not to mention even more pollution and environmental degradation. We drivers need to take extra care to look out for bicyclists, not the other way around.
John McClain
Honolulu
Seniors need benches on Fort Street Mall
To quote a movie, "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it any more!"
For the second time in eight years, the benches have been ripped out of Fort Street Mall. The first time, I was given an excuse by then-Mayor Jeremy Harris (wish I'd kept his e-mail). There were too many complaints concerning homeless people sleeping on the benches that supposedly had no centerpieces to prevent people from sleeping on them. But the old benches did have centerpieces -- my wife and I used to sit on the benches and have lunch.
The benches were replaced later with new ones of the same type. Now they have been ripped out again! What reason will we be given this time? I used them five days a week.
The first time did not get rid of the homeless. It only prevented students, downtown workers and residents from having a place to sit down to rest on a hot summer day.
As a taxpayer and senior citizen, I am insulted and angry. I transverse Fort Street Mall each week and need a place to stop and rest as I go from Century Square to the bank and back.
We taxpayers paid for those benches. Put them back!
Paul Minzer
Honolulu