Oahu will benefit from rail, but make sure it's elevated - Hawa...

"New mixed-use developments will spring up around rail stations, allowing sound urban growth to occur where it will be most beneficial. Phoenix, Tempe and Mesa have seen more than $7 billion in new investment along our 20-mile route."

Terrific...Oahu is already too crowded and you want to spend 6 billion TAX dollars to make it even MORE crowded.

In case you were not aware, Ohau is a SMALL island, Arizona is a pretty big state with LOTS of open land. Comparing the two is not even apples and oranges.

Yet another fine example of the never ending sales campaign to convince the masses of the worth of the rail plan.
Who paid for his ticket to the symposium? And did he write this opinion piece for the fun of it?
What is most offensive is that he makes the same claims that have been shown to be false time and time again. this indicates that he fails to know his audience who are much more familiar with the issues and are way beyond the "sales pitch" state of mind.
Nice try Mufi. We all know who is behind this.

Apparently this guy isn't familiar with Oahu at all. If he were, then he would know that the area between Waipahu and Kapolei is even less densely populated than his city. His arguing that rail be elevated in this area demonstates that he doesn't know what he's talking about or is participating is Mufi's sales pitch. If at grade rail is okay for his "less densely" populated city, then it certainly should be okay for the vacant sugar lands between Kapolei and Waipahu, and probably some other areas as well.
If we're going to build this monster, then let's get as many miles for our dollars as we can.

Richard Simonetta is the CEO of Phoenix Light Rail.

Mufi is going ahead with fix rail plan for Honolulu so why is Richard Simonetta espousing the greatness of light rail?

kind of a stupid article by Simonetta when no one in the Honolulu mayor's office is gearing up for light rail.

Be a sheep
Vote democrap

The solution to Honolulu's transit issue is NOT light rail. Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) is also elevated, but at much LESS cost in terms of not only money (1/5th to 1/10th the expense, or about $30 million/mile), but also with less visual intrusion and a much smaller footprint. Many PRT vehicles on multiple interconnected guideway loops can carry the anticipated ridership (computer models will prove this) with far more flexibility.

PRT can operate 24/7/36 without drivers providing point-to-point non-stop private rides averaging over 30mph. PRT's all electric as well, and emission-free. Any number of "offline" PRT stations can be used on the system with no decrease in throughput. As many stations as practical and/or affordable means many more points for Transit Oriented Development than an ordinary linear rail alignment would provide.

PRT fosters public/private partnerships as well -- imagine that a hotel or big box retailer can fund their own station, and even their own vehicles for guest use, thus reducing the overall expense of publicly funding the system.

PRT's been long proven on the mainland, and has implementations underway now in England and the middle east. A new system was just announced for Suncheon, Korea. Testing of very sophisticated, computerized systems have been completed with safety approvals obtained in Sweden.

There's more on PRT at www.prtstrategies.com .

Seattle Times headline from September 25th:
"Sound Transit calls light-rail noise a public-health problem".(Google will bring up the article if you search on that headline)
The Sound Transit rail is a mixture of surface and elevated. The problem is with the elevated sections and the steel wheels on steel rails. First they bought window AC units for people to block the noise. Now they're going to try lubricating the tracks on the curves.
I lived and worked in Chicago for 6 years. The L (for ELevated) train going around a curve sounded like fingernails on a chalkboard x 100.

rail is dead..no money for it, no need for it

even having light rail elevated will cause noise that planners have not accounted for. reference Seattle Times article

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localne...

It is truly sad when people fight for an inferior product.

If you live on the West side and sit 3 hours in traffic a day and your quality of life is diminished because by the time you get home you are already tired - you understand that a fast reliable system is needed now as it was needed 17 years ago.

It is also sad when I suspect much of the people making these comments are not the ones sitting in traffic for 3 hours a day.

I sit in traffic and I heard Simonetta speak here in Honolulu and he gets it. Safety alone is a reason for elevated combine that with reliability.

He is right we only have one chance to get this right and hopefully we will and move forward now for this project as I want those hours sitting in traffic back so I can do things I really want to do.

I can't wait till the rail is done. Don't have to worry about crazy drivers, slow drivers and people on their cell phones crashing like they did this morning on the H-1.

Stop at a station and get a bento, then go to work! I don't have to worry about driving! How convinient! It won't be affected by road traffic because it's elevated. I can't wait!

Larue DeTouche wrote:

Yet another fine example of the never ending sales campaign to convince the masses of the worth of the rail plan.
Who paid for his ticket to the symposium? And did he write this opinion piece for the fun of it?
What is most offensive is that he makes the same claims that have been shown to be false time and time again. this indicates that he fails to know his audience who are much more familiar with the issues and are way beyond the "sales pitch" state of mind.
Nice try Mufi. We all know who is behind this.

And what claims are those? COme on. go thru them point by point please...

Flexo wrote:

Apparently this guy isn't familiar with Oahu at all. If he were, then he would know that the area between Waipahu and Kapolei is even less densely populated than his city. His arguing that rail be elevated in this area demonstates that he doesn't know what he's talking about or is participating is Mufi's sales pitch. If at grade rail is okay for his "less densely" populated city, then it certainly should be okay for the vacant sugar lands between Kapolei and Waipahu, and probably some other areas as well.
If we're going to build this monster, then let's get as many miles for our dollars as we can.

Guess you havent been out there lately. Theres not much land left and the development on the books would consumer a good portion of it

Honolulu will not benefit from rail. This is an Island already over built with ugly high rises. Stop this madness!

The Real Truth wrote:

It is truly sad when people fight for an inferior product.
If you live on the West side and sit 3 hours in traffic a day and your quality of life is diminished because by the time you get home you are already tired - you understand that a fast reliable system is needed now as it was needed 17 years ago.
It is also sad when I suspect much of the people making these comments are not the ones sitting in traffic for 3 hours a day.
I sit in traffic and I heard Simonetta speak here in Honolulu and he gets it. Safety alone is a reason for elevated combine that with reliability.
He is right we only have one chance to get this right and hopefully we will and move forward now for this project as I want those hours sitting in traffic back so I can do things I really want to do.

You sit in traffic for 3 hours? And you want Rail? Why Rail when you can reach your home in less than 30 minutes if and only if the City had the brains to seek an engineer or architect with experience in modern highway design and traffic management. If an engineering professor can make a comprehensive design to eliminate traffic congestion and have a micro simulation study confirm the veracity of his design, it is most likely that a practicing engineer or architect can duplicate or also create a comprehensive design to eliminate traffic congestion in Oahu.

Elevated rail is the right solution; however, steel wheels on steel rails is not. The urban mag-lev, vis-a-vis steel wheels, is a little faster, much quieter, safer, and more reliable. Its narrow guideway will be much less physically imposing than the steel wheels "bridge." It also will be cheaper to build, accommodating extensions to both UH-Manoa and into Waikiki, and cheaper to operate and maintain, with enough O&M savings to enable extension into Central O'ahu.

Frank Genadio wrote:

Elevated rail is the right solution; however, steel wheels on steel rails is not. The urban mag-lev, vis-a-vis steel wheels, is a little faster, much quieter, safer, and more reliable. Its narrow guideway will be much less physically imposing than the steel wheels "bridge." It also will be cheaper to build, accommodating extensions to both UH-Manoa and into Waikiki, and cheaper to operate and maintain, with enough O&M savings to enable extension into Central O'ahu.

Rail is unnecessary. Rail will forever be a heavy burden on Oahu taxpayers. And for what? The benefit of a great minority of the Leeward population while the bottlenecks on our highways used by the great majority of the populace are ignored?

Really wrote:

If an engineering professor can make a comprehensive design to eliminate traffic congestion and have a micro simulation study confirm the veracity of his design, it is most likely that a practicing engineer or architect can duplicate or also create a comprehensive design to eliminate traffic congestion in Oahu.

So why have we never seen any other reputable engineer approve and endorse Panos's plan for Oahu? One would think it would lend significant credibility to your much cherished Sim City results.

So Move, why do we have to spend so much $$ for such a small % of riders?

The Real Truth wrote:

It is truly sad when people fight for an inferior product.
If you live on the West side and sit 3 hours in traffic a day and your quality of life is diminished because by the time you get home you are already tired - you understand that a fast reliable system is needed now as it was needed 17 years ago.
It is also sad when I suspect much of the people making these comments are not the ones sitting in traffic for 3 hours a day.
I sit in traffic and I heard Simonetta speak here in Honolulu and he gets it. Safety alone is a reason for elevated combine that with reliability.
He is right we only have one chance to get this right and hopefully we will and move forward now for this project as I want those hours sitting in traffic back so I can do things I really want to do.

Really wrote:

<quoted text>
Rail is unnecessary. Rail will forever be a heavy burden on Oahu taxpayers. And for what? The benefit of a great minority of the Leeward population while the bottlenecks on our highways used by the great majority of the populace are ignored?

Perhaps your great majority (i.e., road users) will eventually see the benefits of using a well-designed rail system and will diminish rather than increase. As much as I dislike the city's methods for pushing steel wheels on us, I sincerely believe that the number of rail and bus commuters in the future will be considerably greater than the current number of bus commuters.

Tsarbomba wrote:

<quoted text>
So why have we never seen any other reputable engineer approve and endorse Panos's plan for Oahu? One would think it would lend significant credibility to your much cherished Sim City results.

Baloney. Name any engineer or architect who have disputed the plan of Panos? And what makes you such an authority to dismiss the validity of micro simulation applied to traffic congestion as "Sim City"? You are the one who keeps posting creative fiction in Topix. Like an idiot who makes up stories to make it look that he has brains. Topix is littered with many of your stories of fiction.