A majority of voters said “;yes”; to rail in last Tuesday's election, so the stage is now set for the project to continue. I sincerely hope it succeeds.

The current city administration is casting itself as the savior of Leeward commuters by promoting its rail system, but it is interesting to look back to analyze how the need for this rail system came about, and to look to the future after rail is implemented.

Present and past city administrations and City Councils have allowed virtually uncontrolled residential development in Ewa and Kapolei. They allowed this development, and are still allowing more, knowing full well that these thousands of new residents would be using existing roads and freeways to commute to their jobs in Honolulu, and that traffic congestion would be inevitable.

  The professed concept that was supposed to justify this development has been that jobs would be created in Kapolei - the Second City - so that many of these new residents would not have to commute, but that has not yet happened. And the new University of Hawaii-West Oahu campus in Kapolei would allow many students to go there instead of commuting to UH-Manoa, but that, too, has not yet happened.

There was and still is a demand for housing, and the rate at which homes are being built and sold in Ewa and Kapolei attests to that demand. But with thousands more homes under construction and thousands more approved but not yet built, traffic congestion will inevitably increase, by 64 percent in the year 2030 as predicted by the rail environmental impact statement. Remember also that commuters from the Waianae Coast and Mililani also use those freeways.

Allowing this massive residential development created a good news and bad news situation for the city government - the bad news was the traffic congestion that would be created, the good news was that millions of dollars in new property tax revenue would be generated for the city. And the state, not the city, would be responsible for increasing the capacity of major roads and freeways.

The state dutifully added lanes to the H-1 and H-2 freeways and to Fort Weaver Road, but lacks the resources to keep up with the rate that traffic is increasing. So it fell to the city to try to solve the traffic congestion problem - a problem city leaders created themselves.

  At some time in the future, jobs will be created in Kapolei, when the present generation of Honolulu workers is replaced by workers who refuse to commute because of the increased congestion, and businesses (and some government offices) will then be forced to relocate to Kapolei to find enough capable employees.

And, also in the future, UH-West Oahu will be a fully accredited four-year-degree-granting alternative to UH-Manoa in some popular disciplines (UH-Manoa will still be the flagship of the system). And more private schools will pop up in Kapolei to take advantage of the population growth there.

In the meantime, traffic congestion between Kapolei/Ewa and Honolulu will persist. The rail system will eventually provide some relief to those who still must commute to Honolulu. But the real relief will not come until the Second City concept is fully implemented and thereby eliminates the need for so many to commute to Honolulu.