This plan, an elevated highway that would operate as HOT lanes and Rapid Bus lanes is a disaster. All it does it keep people driving in one of the densest cities in the United States and creates a huge scar on the landscape.
This is not transit, this is a sprawl inducing anti urban elevated arroyo for auto and oil coin collection. People need to seriously stop thinking that more concrete will solve their problems. The benefit of rail transit is not just the transit itself, it's the communities that are created and the reductions in the need for auto trips. No one is saying that people need to get rid of thier cars. But for a lot of people, relief from the ball and keychain is what they need long term.
Why is such a beautiful place such as Hawaii even thinking about creating such a scar? They should be instead, investing in thier future, because once this road fills up the Pols will tell them they need to build another one. The island is only going to get denser and growing out is not an option.
4 comments:
We're doomed as a nation if this is what people think qualifies as acceptable transit.
Fortunately, that's not the case. It's just the uninformed selfish, greedy lunatic fringe like always.
Every city that gets electrified rail has always said, "Can we have some more?" That's certainly the case here in Washington. I know New York is building a new subway line. BART keeps expanding.
Nevertheless, I do feel like I'm getting dumber just hearing the same neanderthal arguments against trains and in favor of giving even more government money to the highway lobby.
look at the el monte busway in los angeles, they opened it up to carpools for political gain and the lanes got clogged with traffic slowing the buses down.
this was one of the main reasons portland chose LRT over a busway for the original MAX line in the 70s and 80s... in fact the first plans in the Banfield freeway (I-84) corridor called for a busway but trimet was concerned that motorists in traffic on the adjacent freeway would see traffic-free bus lanes and demand that they be opened up to auto traffic. so you'd have money invested into transit end up paying for 2 additional freeway lanes.
You are right, that is depressing. But hopefully they will come to their senses and build a rail system.
If anti-electrification forces can blame some overhead wires for "visual pollution" that I consider to be an exaggeration, then this crappy freeway plan will be worse. I'm not gonna stomach this any longer. Honolulu's densities, high by American standards, would compare quite well to those in Japan.
Another example of an elevated freeway that is more like a barrier is the Gardiner in Toronto. Good thing they didn't extend it east as the "Scarborough Expressway". They even tore down part of the Gardiner recently, like with other freeways in San Francisco, Portland, and Milwaukee!
Kobayashi and Panos's plan will only be a Trojan horse for the Cox/O'Toole lobby, who will obviously never admit they were wrong, and never apologize for the sprawl and highways they advocate. It will keep us in the dark about things. Most rational people are smart enough to distinguish between a bus and a train. The lobby only seeks to sway a gullible citizenry.
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