Here we are on Oahu in 2017, miserably divided, in need of a unifying idea. Beyond the financial and environmental price of the rail guideway, there is a price less tangible. That is the price of division and mutual disregard.
The political war over rail has set friend against friend, just as it has set West Oahu against East Oahu and Windward Oahu. Have you not had a conversation about the rail that escalates from a differing viewpoint to jawboning and even to anger?
During the past week, I witnessed an alternative. I followed three people around who know their subject: Dr. Vukan Vuchic, Douglas Tilden and Gary Andrishak. Each in his own way is familiar with both the history of Honolulu and the international development of rail transit. In the ensuing conversations with people high and low, the single idea that resonated most deeply was not overhead or street-level, rail or no rail, but the livability of Honolulu.
You may know the rendering that shows the Downtown overhead platform at Nimitz and Bishop overwhelming the waterfront. With others, I’ve toted it around, pointed to it with foreboding, and inveighed against it actually happening. I have participated in a federal lawsuit, and also in some ugly debates, one in which, for example, I was accused of being a liar and all but hooted down. Ouch.
We who have advocated against the overhead guideway through Honolulu have largely given up on publicizing that rendering. No one was listening. We have come to only talk about money and certain politicians who, we allege, are throwing money away. The cost overruns and threat of higher taxes have seemed to be all that people cared about.
At least that was my notion until the past week, when I went around with the several visiting experts. I could accurately describe them as leading national and international consultants in the burgeoning movement for street-level rail transit, but that would defeat the point.
They turned out to be Livable City teachers. They centered on the idea that Honolulu is a livable place and we must plan to perpetuate and enhance its livability. With this as the heart of the conversation (which meant setting blame aside), they quickly had an actively listening audience. With policymakers at their meeting tables, as well as members of the public at the Salvage the Rail forum, the livability theme seemed like a balm.
All three of these gentlemen were keenly aware of the millennial generation exiting from the car culture. Gary Andrishak, for example, has a 15-year-old grandson who doesn’t want a driver’s license. In this new urban scene, a user-friendly rail, combined with buses, taxis, Lyft, sidewalks and bikeways, the public commons is supreme. I’m not capable of reconstructing their Livable City discourse adequately, but I can assure you of the interest it generates.
One additional, interrelated, idea resonated deeply. Whenever they talked about the feasibility of street-level rail reaching the University of Hawaii campus, everyone perked up. I thought that idea had disappeared from the agenda under the weight of the overhead’s cost, its cumbersome design and crushing stations. But no. We seem to know in our collective bones that UH is our destination of greatest need. (“Our traffic problem goes away when UH is out of session.”) A UH link would be a gift that keeps giving.
We’ve been fighting with one another over a commuter system. Coming down to street-level rail through Honolulu would give us an urban transit system. So in the ongoing debate about what to do after Middle Street, I suggest leading with the challenge of livability. See if you find yourself in a real conversation.
Tom Coffman is a researcher, writer and documentary filmmaker, and a board member of Hawaii Thousand Friends. He wrote “Catch A Wave,” documenting Hawaii’s 1970 gubernatorial election.
