[ OUR OPINION ]
THE city has considered serious efforts to relieve traffic congestion for more than 20 years but has backed away, concerned about cost and disruption in building a rapid transit system. Another reversal by a mostly new City Council would produce a traffic jam that could last far into the future. The Council should go forward with the current modest bus proposal to avoid jeopardizing federal assistance. Don’t put the brake
on city’s Bus Rapid Transit
THE ISSUE The Honolulu City Council has begun to consider whether to go ahead with the Bus Rapid Transit plan.
Many candidates for Council seats in last year's election frowned at Mayor Harris' Bus Rapid Transit project, envisioning voters' outrage at buses hogging traffic lanes while cars are backed up at intersections. But this project is not an experiment. It has been implemented with success in numerous urban areas on the mainland and in foreign cities. New Council members need to get up to speed in their understanding of the system so they can confidently give it a green light.
The city abandoned a rail rapid-transit plan in 1982. The Council, in a 5-4 vote, rejected former Mayor Frank Fasi's scaled-down light-rail plan a decade later. In each case, the federal government was willing to share the cost, and it is offering to pay more than half of the $1 billion cost of the current plan.
The project's first phase, running 5.6 miles from Iwilei to Waikiki, would consist of using high-capacity buses running two to three minutes apart during peak hours in exclusive lanes, lanes shared with right-turning vehicles and other lanes shared with general traffic. The system, as applied elsewhere, includes signals that allow buses to jump ahead of other traffic at intersections. It works.
The previous Council already has approved an expenditure of $31 million for the first phase, scheduled for completion in two years, and an additional $11 million in federal funds is available. The plan calls for the system to extend from Kapolei to Kakaako and the University of Hawaii at Manoa by 2010, with new ramps, street widenings, pullouts and park-and-ride facilities. The system is designed to operate in tandem with the city's current City Express buses and hub-and-spoke bus web.
Cheryl Soon, the city's transportation director, says federal officials are wary because of the city's past reversals. "They're not interested in this stop and go," she told Council members this week. "They want to see what we're going to do, and they'll be partners with us if we're doing something that's providing a real new alternative."
State cooperation also is needed, and Governor Lingle should work with the Harris administration to satisfy her reservations about the plan. Commuters have waited too long for important relief from Oahu's traffic congestion for this sensible system to suffer the same fate as its more ambitious predecessors.
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