In Hawaii, spending more does not get you better roads
Consider, if you will, our roads.
Yes, we have a Honolulu mayor who is forever standing in awe of what a job the city has done at repairing our streets.
And we have a state Transportation Department — whenever it is not apologizing for not notifying drivers about whatever calamity happened on H-1 — promising traffic improvements across the state.
Or instead, consider several new reports.
As Honolulu Star-Advertiser transportation reporter Marcel Honoré reported this week, “Hawaii’s state-run highways and roads have held firm as some of the worst in the nation.”
The report was the latest annual report prepared by Reason Foundation, a D.C.-based libertarian think tank.
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The latest data is from 2013 so it is not fair to blame just the Ige administration, but, still, motorists are getting a lot more promises than pavement.
The Reason Foundation report rated Hawaii roads 48th out of 50 for the overall cost-effectiveness and performance.
Also INRIX, a global traffic-data company, reported that as of 2015, Honolulu has the 10th-worst traffic in the U.S.
And then consider that, according to USA Today, Hawaii has the third-highest gas taxes in the country.
If you think that spending more gets you better roads, you are going to be disappointed in Hawaii.
The national report says our urban roads are the worst in the country. A full 31 percent are in poor condition.
As the Star-Advertiser report noted: “The state spent nearly $78,000 per mile in administrative costs on its roads, while the national average for those costs was $10,051. Only Connecticut spent more per mile on administration than Hawaii.”
According to the state, administrative cost means debt service, or interest paid to borrow money to build the roads.
So obviously we are doing a whole lot of borrowing and not much building.
Not only do we not build a lot, we don’t even know how to do the job right.
Eight years ago, Hawaii received a federal report prepared by Larry Galehouse, director of the Michigan State University-based National Center for Pavement Preservation, on how to fix our roads.
Instead of action, the report generated cobwebs and was mostly ignored, even though the report “concluded that DOT staff lacked sufficient training, guidelines and tools needed to keep the roads in shape at least on par with roads in other U.S. regions.”
But the state has found a federal program it likes. Hawaii applied for and won a $4 million federal grant to learn how to raise taxes to fix roads.
This comes after Gov. David Ige asked the 2016 Legislature to raise state gas tax from 16 cents to 19 cents per gallon, and to increase the state’s vehicle registration fees and weight taxes, costing vehicle owners an extra $55 a year on average.
Because the Legislature rebuffed the Ige gas tax, we went back to the feds for a new way to slap on the taxes.
Try not to think of you paying federal taxes to figure out how the state can raise your taxes.
This Hawaii highway into the future needs only one thing: your wallet.
Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Reach him at rborreca@staradvertiser.com.
16 responses to “In Hawaii, spending more does not get you better roads”
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And this is a surprise because . . . ? The dolt Ige’s response to the legislature’s rejection of higher road taxes in the face of an inefficient, failing state highway program was to retaliate by halting all capacity expansion projects. So not only is he a dolt, but he is a vindictive dolt who seeks to punish us for our representatives having rightly, for once, questioned throwing good money after bad.
Highway 130 in the neglected district of Puna on the Big Island is the most dangerous stretch of road in the state in terms of fatalities. It desperately needs a lane expansion and signal/roundabout improvement plan to be finished. Instead of completing that already approved and funded project, the state is now proposing to re-stripe the existing roadbed and make the it even more dangerous by narrowing the lanes and virtually eliminating the shoulders. This is called piling stupid on top of stupid and will result in more accidents.
As Mr. Borreca so correctly points out, the state DOT is failing by all objective measures of performance. They need to clean up their act and streamline their bureaucracy before asking for another penny of our money. It also wouldn’t hurt to closely examine the contracting process for inside deals and falsely inflated costs. We all know what’s going on here.
Jim Nabors moved here so he could say “SURPRISE, SURPRISE, SURPRISE” on a daily basis…
“But the state has found a federal program it likes. Hawaii applied for and won a $4 million federal grant to learn how to raise taxes to fix roads.”
Doesn’t this say it all? Typical Hawaii government, don’t follow directions that could help you/us but more than eager to find new ways to tax its citizens. Instead of fixing our roads in a manner that will last, they’d rather let the roads fall apart so that they have another excuse to tax us. I remember when George Toma, the NFL grass expert, redid a grass field at UH for football. After Mr. Toma left, the UH maintenance staff decided to ignore the recommendations Mr. Toma had to maintain the field, and soon it went back to being a bad field.
Trouble with the roads and highways are that we have too many local yokels who lack the acumen in fixing and paving the roads…lack of leadership and knowledge is just PATHETIC……..I remember reading couple wks. ago where a letter to the editor addressed Caldwell and said when is Kalakaua between Kapiolani and S. King St. going to be paved and Caldwell says its in the books …in the planning stages a year or couple years down the road…..geezus, talk about lack of direction and leadership….has he even driven on this road…its absolutely ridiculous…….a real leader would get it done NOW…..none of this bureaucratic mumble jumble that its in the planning stage and it will get paved or fixed couple budget years down the road….JUST PURE NONSENSE.
Yup, the roads are in bad shape. The city just finished paving between Wahiawa and Waialua…a while ago…hang on, they still painting the lines now. Contractors show up one day or two and disappear for a month or two, then show up again. I think they ran out of paint and had to wait for the boat from the mainland to bring more. I think this was a three year contract…or was it four? I forget.
Downtown roads are constantly being torn up for new construction and this is the cause of bad roads. No amount of coordination of projects can remedy this situation. I think the only way to solve this is to stop all new construction for a few years…and this will probably not be an option.
All this adds tremendously to the cost of keeping our roads in good condition. This article just rehashes what we all know about our roads. Why is it we don’t get solutions to the problem? We seem to have many “experts” out there but no one seems to want to apply for the job. If no like help, deal with it.
Geezus, another road that is constantly getting torn up or fixed is Kapiolani Blvd…….between McCully and Date…its a constant fix..well, I guess that’s true for ALL the roads….the crews that fix the roads leave it in worse shape than when they first started working on it….JUST A SHAME…..hey, Caldwell, take a drive down Kalakaua Ave. between Kapiolani and S. King st. or Date St. or any damm urban street……don’t boast about how many shoddy miles you have paved…….poor work quality exemplifies the leadership who should be out there monitoring the quality of the job….oh, well……what’s new…..
Haha! When I arrived in Honolulu in 1979, Kapiolani was being torn up for “repairs” to something or other. There hasn’t as far as I can recall, been a year since when something hasn’t been dug up on Kapiolani.
Kapiolani…the gift that keeps on giving (for OT and union jobs)
…..and THAT is how we roll…..lucky you live Hawaii…..hang loose!
And pass a doobie…
Actually, we all knew this a long time ago; just a pity party here.
What’s frustrating is the poor quality after any repaving work is done. Is it the City not checking on the work being done or the contractor’s?
Not the city’s job to check up on contractors. Just watch Netflix and Hulu on government computers.
Richard,
You are so balanced! Making fun of 2 levels of government:
“Yes, we have a Honolulu mayor who is forever standing in awe of what a job the city has done at repairing our streets.
And we have a state Transportation Department — whenever it is not apologizing for not notifying drivers about whatever calamity happened on H-1 — promising traffic improvements across the state.”
Poor Ed Sniffen and Ford Fuchigami. You lumped them with Kwirky.
They deserve it, they are BOTH very INCOMPETENT and should be REPLACED with people who know how to do the darn job !
Has anybody at the city or state level dusted off that report (which I’m sure we paid taxpayer money for) and tried any of the suggestions?