Report suggests isle
traffic on easy street

A local expert rejects the
conclusions of a national analysis
on urban traffic flows

A Texas institute contends that Honolulu motorists are enjoying improved traffic flow, but a University of Hawaii professor says the researchers may have taken a wrong turn.

In 2002, the average Honolulu motorist spent 18 hours stuck in traffic, according to an annual report by the Texas Transportation Institute at Texas A&M University. That may sound like a lot of wasted time, but not compared to a national average of 46 hours a year, according to annual Urban Mobility Report, which was released yesterday.

Honolulu was 55th out of 85 cities surveyed for hours wasted in traffic each year. The Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana area was No. 1, where drivers endured 93 hours a year in traffic. The San Francisco-Oakland area was second highest at 73 hours, while Anchorage, Alaska, and Brownsville, Texas, tied for the lowest traffic delay time of five hours.

Honolulu motorists' time in traffic has also improved dramatically over the past decade, according to the report. In 1992, isle drivers spent 30 hours in peak-hour traffic, the report said.

But UH civil engineering professor Panos Prevedouros said the report's conclusions can be misleading. It primarily concentrates on two factors: lane count and traffic volume.

"It's very sensitive for those two parameters. If for some reason, it shows a reduction in the amount of traffic and an increase in lanes that we have, it immediately concludes that we have less traffic," said Prevedouros.

And 2002 was a low traffic year for Oahu due to the economic aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, he said. "It was a recovery year. Tourist arrivals were low. Real estate was suppressed. ... The amount of traffic was lower."

Tesha Malama, chairwoman of the Ewa Neighborhood Board and a member of the Oahu Metropolitan Planning Organization, also disputed the report.

"I haven't seen any decline in traffic numbers," said Malama, who has been involved in the Fort Weaver Road widening project and North-South Road project. "It's only getting worse."

The report recommended four solutions to address traffic problems in cities: more road and public transportation projects, efficient utilization of current facilities, managing the demand to avoid peak period travel, and providing land-use options that reduce the effect of growth.

Scott Ishikawa, spokesman for the Hawaii Department of Transportation, noted several state road projects such as the zipper lane and Nimitz contraflow lane that were designed to alleviate traffic congestion.

More road projects are underway such as the H-1 freeway widening near Pearl City as residential developments continue to increase in Central and Leeward Oahu.

Officials are also looking in to ramp metering designed to help motorists with the freeway merging problem.

A traffic signal would allow vehicles to enter the freeway at intervals of five seconds each to create more traffic flow, said Ishikawa.

"There will be a signal at or near the freeway onramp to create an even flow of traffic by timing how many cars will be able to get on the freeway," he said.