Online readers are able to respond immediately to Star-Bulletin stories through our Web forum, which can be accessed at the end of stories, editorials and columns at starbulletin.com. Below is a selection of forum comments that appeared last week. Most forum contributors use pseudonyms; their “;names”; have been omitted here.

  ”;Rail to alter landscape,”; Star-Bulletin, Nov. 3: As I looked at all those pretty maps in the draft EIS it was clear that a well-done system of safe, secure and well-made bicycle paths would solve much congestion at a small percentage of the rail cost. Flat land within a 10-mile radius of key points of interest, so easy! But the city has only allocated $1 million to bikes in its budget. Fools.

  If you live on the West side, you know what the pros and cons are when you make that decision. But when you are finally fed up, you want everyone else to pay for your mistake in buying/renting in an area that is congested? The quality of life is really low, driving in traffic for two hours, kids eat dinner late, no family time, kids can't play sports because mommy and daddy are stuck in traffic, teenagers running in the streets because nobody home. You lay the path of your future when you make a decision, and that path is a two-hour commute to and from work. Sorry, you made the decision, why should I have to pay for a rail when I laid the pros and cons when I bought my house and chose quality of life as my priority?

  One of the greatest ironies is that the City and County and the state lavishly subsidize parking for tens of thousands of workers. By doing this, a huge number of single-occupant vehicles are drawn into the urban core, heavily impacting traffic and choking the downtown area. The university and its colleges provide faculty/staff/students with parking at a reduced rate as well, further jamming the freeway with vehicles. Add to this all the free parking for DOE teachers and staff at schools, and you get another 16,000 vehicles. Firefighters, police and whoever else is provided this benefit by the government add more to the mix. The parking subsidies these beneficiaries enjoy are likely to keep them on the road, leaving the rest of use to pay for their undeserved and woefully underpriced parking privileges.

  ”;State GOP left reeling from losses in election,”; Star-Bulletin, Nov. 6: Gov. Linda Lingle and (Hawaii Republican Party chairman) Willes Lee need to stop with the excuses. Of course, the individual candidates need to be responsible for their own campaigns, but when a newcomer doesn't have name recognition, he/she needs all the help they can get.

So Gov. Lingle held signs and had her face on GOP brochures, wow! I'm impressed. Did she bother stumping for the candidates? Go on the local campaign trail and tell the people of Hawaii why electing a Republican would be a better choice? She did this for the McCain campaign, why couldn't she had done this for Tom Berg of District 42, for the state House? I've heard nothing but weak excuses from the likes of Lingle and Lee.

  Mainstream citizens want their leaders to be thoughtful, honest, trustworthy, open-minded and mature. The local GOP did not demonstrate those qualities during this past election season. Their utterances, their bumper stickers, their comments on blogs and in newspaper forums were shockingly dishonest, hateful and immature. There is no way that mainstream citizens are going to entrust their municipal and state governments to a political party that behaved so badly. This is why the local GOP - and the GOP nationally - got soundly defeated on Tuesday. If they want to make a comeback, they are going to need to change their outlook and change the tone of their discourse. They are going to need to do something about the extremists in their party who have hijacked the party and given the party a very bad image.

  Lingle should have supported local Republicans running for office instead of gallivanting around the country supporting a GOP presidential ticket for which, for the past two months, it was quite clear there was no path whatsoever to victory.

  I don't think Lingle is the problem here. Folks need to recognize what Lingle has done previously for the party, and the support she does provide for local candidates. Besides, is it her responsibility to single-handedly lead both the GOP and the state? She's right to put some of the accountability on the candidates and the GOP leadership.

  The Hawaii Republican Party should declare themselves disbanded for lack of interest. Let's face it, the people who now make up the party no longer represent the conservative values or ideology that is supposed to differentiate them from Democrats. The truth is that there are now more conservatives within the Hawaii Democratic Party than in the Hawaii Republican Party. While the Hawaii Democratic Party has expanded its platform to include all political philosophies, liberal and conservative, the Hawaii Republican Party has become nothing but a social club for those who want a job with the Lingle administration or the few oddballs who could not make it as Democrats. Having ceased to represent the ideology that it is supposed to stand for it should now be disbanded.

  Boy, I think my favorite part of Willes Lee's damage control was how the party is going to have to work on its “;messaging”; and “;branding.”; That's just the criticism the GOP has been getting for the past six years - all flash, no substance. I'd respect Lee and the GOP leadership a lot more if they worked on their policy and outreach instead.