Talk Story
At last, a candidate who
has an exciting new ideaEVER WONDER how to stand out among 388 candidates for elective office, including eight running against you for the same office -- two of them from your own party?
Come up with a different idea.
It's hard to stand out among all those Republican candidates saying cut taxes, spending and regulations, and Democrats proposing tax incentives, diversified agriculture and improving public education.
The primary election guide in Sunday's Star-Bulletin displayed an intriguing cross-section of the population. Candidates ranged in age from 21 (Tulsi Gabbard Tamayo, Democrat for the Waipahu-Ewa House seat) to 78 (Kenneth Vaughn, Libertarian for lieutenant governor).
Their occupations ranged from taro farmer (Kau'i "Bu La'ia" Hill, Natural Law candidate for governor) and automobile detailer (Mark Terry, Republican for U.S. Congress, 1st District) to professional jockey (Jason Katsuji Iwai, Democrat for the Manoa House seat) and truck driver (Alex Mogilewicz, Republican for the Senate from Mililani).
To stimulate the economy, candidates endorsed audits, lotteries, cutting red tape, launching "clinical cannabis studies" at the university, fixing traffic congestion, eliminating excise taxes on food and drugs, exempting Hawaii from the Jones Act, voting all Democrats out of office, working together in public-private partnerships ... blah, blah. Same old, same old.
BUT ONE candidate -- Gordon Trimble (Republican for the Waikiki-Downtown Senate seat) -- wants to build a marine highway connecting all the islands.
"Instead of talking about building prisons," he says, "we should be talking about building a marine highway to unify and grow our island community."
When I first heard this proposal, all I could think of was the Overseas Highway connecting the Florida Keys -- 113 miles of highway and 42 bridges across shallow water connecting Miami with Key West. The longest bridge spans just seven miles, small change compared to the 72-mile, deep-water Kauai Channel.
I was relieved to learn that Trimble's "bridge" is actually an interisland ferry system. Economist Trimble, a former trade representative and administrator of Hawaii's Foreign Trade Zone, sees enormous potential in opening up the neighbor islands, using ocean-going ferries to connect and integrate the state's highway system.
THE PROBLEM, as he sees it, is that our interisland transportation system was built to haul barge-loads of pineapple and sugar. Today, the neighbor islands rely more on small businesses such as aquaculture, coffee, tropical flowers, fruit, cookies and fish.
These businesses have only two transportation choices, Trimble says: "either a barge that comes once or twice a week that handles container-loads or an airplane that charges by the pound." That doesn't cut it for local businesses trying to compete against big-box mainland retailers in the Hawaii market.
"How would your life be different if the only transportation choices you had were a bicycle or a city bus?" Trimble asks.
A ferry system would allow vacationers to roam the state by car, while we locals could get to "a neighbor island in time for lunch in the same car (in which we) left home."
Those of us who remember crossing the Molokai Channel on the 118-foot, 149-passenger Maui Princess know that interisland surface travel is not for those with weak stomachs. However, larger vessels, such as the 460-foot, 2,500-passenger, 218-car Jumbo Mark II class ferries used in Washington state, would be more stable.
More important, a Jumbo Mark II can carry as many as 60 commercial trucks, opening the Hawaii market of 1.3 million consumers to neighbor island goods and sparking new industries.
"Just like in Maine or Nova Scotia or Newfoundland or Alaska, the major beneficiaries are small businesses and residents," Trimble says. "The costs of these systems, however, are borne to a large extent by tourists."
Bingo!
John Flanagan is the Star-Bulletin's contributing editor.
He can be reached at: jflanagan@starbulletin.com.
