The city revealed its plans for the proposed rail transit system. Critics are already calling it "ugly" and "expensive." From today's Honolulu Star-Bulletin:
"There's no hiding of a concrete structure in the middle of the road," said Toru Hamayasu, the city's chief transportation planner.
"Why does it have to be so ugly?" asked Councilwoman Ann Kobayashi, who represents Moiliili and Manoa and was shown a computer simulation of a 60-foot-tall rail transit structure that is being proposed to run along University Avenue to the university."That's one of the last photos they showed me before they ran out of my office," Kobayashi chuckled. "I was just shocked when I saw it."
Yes, more concrete in the middle of your neighborhood. The computer renderings revealed in today's paper are mostly seen from afar. Up close I have to assume the structures will loom even larger. One thing they forgot to include: The potential of taggers getting to this structure and making your neighborhood even more ugly by spraying and painting graffiti on them. It is bound to happen.
Oh yes, let's not forget the more elevated structures you build, the more free and ugly homeless shelters you have. A great potential for the homeless to set up shop underneath these behemoth structures.... Oh yes, and let us not forget the drug problems that go along with some of the homeless people.Last year State Senator Les Ihara spoke about the rail line tax proposal (he ended up voting for it I believe) stating that an elevated rail line will divide neighborhoods and communities. You will literally end up with neighbors who live "on the other side of the tracks."
What is the most appalling aspect of this proposal is the cost to build it, now estimated to be around $3 billion! I won't hold them to that because in the end the cost of this thing will certainly rise to at least $6 billion. No one is mentioning how much it will cost to maintain or whether additional taxes will be needed.
Preliminary estimates show that construction of the proposed 23-mile rail transit line between Kapolei and the University of Hawaii at Manoa will cost more than $3 billion, and initial ridership figures show that such a system could attract 120,000 to 150,000 riders per day. But the city warns that those numbers could change as more precise numbers are crunched and such things as environmental, economical, social and other cost impacts are factored in.You rail supporters really want our tax dollars wasted on these elevated concrete structures?
I wonder where the city is getting their ride estimate figures.
Strangely no one has mentioned the possibility of people's property being taken away through eminent domain in order to make way for the expensive train. Folks, it's coming and it will suck you out of house, home and business.
There will be a series of public meetings on the following days and times for this:
Links to more information
- Artist renderings (from HonoluluAdvertiser.com - flash presentation)
- Rail System Cost Estimate: $ 3 billion - Honolulu Advertiser
- Rail Line Renderings Ring Alarm Bells - Honolulu Star-Bulletin
Graphic above: as posted to Honolulu Star-Bulletin website, University Ave. near King St.
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