Paul Lewis studies a lot of regional transit systems as vice president of policy at the Eno Center for Transportation, a nonpartisan think tank. How they’re best governed depends on the particular circumstances in that region, and each system has its unique set of those.
What makes Hawaii’s project different from most is that the 20-mile system now under construction all falls within a single government jurisdiction: the City and County of Honolulu. And that fact is at the center of the debate over the future of HART, the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation.
Should it be as run by the existing entity, a semi-autonomous agency apart from city’s elected leadership, or as a function of city administration?
“That’s an interesting question,” said Lewis, mulling over the description of the rail alignment and the islandwide boundaries of the municipality. “We’ve looked at transit agencies around the country; they all have different governance for different reasons.”
The rail system is beginning to become a lot more real these days, not only because of the traffic disruptions of construction. There are amendments proposed for the Honolulu City Charter dealing with governance. There is talk of the rail actually starting operation once it’s built as far as Aloha Stadium, in 2018.
And there’s talk about how rail and bus users could transition from one mode to another through the use of smartcards (see story on Page E4).
But the issue that will loom largest, the soonest, is the governance question. Mayor Kirk Caldwell said the city’s transportation system is defined in law as multimodal, incorporating rail, bus, bike-sharing and even a theoretical return to the cross-harbor ferry favored by former Mayor Mufi Hannemann.
The best way to accommodate all that, Caldwell said, is to keep rail within the city administration, under the Department of Transportation Services, which now oversees roadway, bus and Hand-Van networks.
“What we want to see is rail being part of this multimodal system,” Caldwell said. “What we don’t want are silos … these departments saying, ‘That’s not my job — that’s that department’s job.’ No silos.”
HART is run by a board appointed by the city’s executive and legislative branches. Caldwell said having the separation makes sense while the project is still in the construction phase — allowing the work to be done with less political influence.
But operationally, it’s a different story: The mayor’s argument is that decisions over fares and every element of transportation operation need to be made by people who are answerable to the public.
“Think of the name — Department of Transportation Services,” he said. “It should be with that department, not separate from that department. Bring it into the existing system.”
Most of the day-to-day work of running the system would be handled by the contractor, Ansaldo Honolulu, he said, and the city could oversee that entity as it does Oahu Transit Services, the operator of the bus.
“Now, that puts some politics back into it,” he acknowledged. “But here’s the reason why, in this case, it’s not a bad thing.
“You look at the Board of Water Supply, they have their own rate structure, where they collect the water fee. You look at Department of Environmental Services, they have a sewer fee.
“If they want to do things because they have a dedicated funding source, that’s one thing. But for bus, Handi-Van and even rail, there’s no dedicated funding source.”
Financing for rail operations currently is projected to come from the fare box and federal subsidies. And Caldwell maintains that a political entity accountable to the voters should make the decisions that will affect fares.
That’s why, he said, the administration has proposed to amend the Charter, removing HART’s authority over operations and maintenance, enabling the transfer of that authority and the job positions to DTS.
HART Executive Director Dan Grabauskas deferred to the HART board on this issue. Board Chairman Don Horner did not return a call for comment.
However, agency spokesman Bill Brennan said the board’s position in favor of keeping a separate body was formulated by the board’s “permitted interaction group,” or PIG.
The group did not prescribe a detailed governance structure, he said, but its recommendation clearly endorsed the notion of its semi-autonomous status:
“TheBus, TheHandi-Van and rail should be under one authority, separate and aside from existing entities, which will operate and maintain the three transportation modes.”
This position is reflected in HART’s own proposals before the city charter commission, including one seeking a committee to be established to plan the transition to a new transit authority, with the mayor and City Council having budgetary oversight. Another proposal would allow the authority to issue bonds beyond revenue bonds. A third would require the authority to fix rates and charges in conjunction with “other revenues the Council may authorize.”
Early in the rail planning process, the city studied models for transit authorities in other cities. A 2011 report prepared by consulting firm Booz Allen cited five basic models and examples of each:
>> A state transit agency, such as is established in Massachusetts and elsewhere.
>> A general-purpose transit authority, enabled by general state laws and local initiatives; Ohio has various transit authorities of this type.
>> A special-purpose regional transit authority, enabled by special acts of legislatures; these include agencies that cross jurisdictional lines, such as in San Francisco and Washington, D.C.
>> A municipal transit agency, such as the City of Phoenix Transit Department.
>> A joint powers authority, or a pact among local governments to create a new agency. For example, Caltrain was created by Santa Clara, San Mateo and San Francisco counties in California.
Within these categories there is almost endless variation, said Lewis, with state and local governments exercising more or less influence over the agencies. Eno Center did its own study in October 2014; it made numerous conclusions, including the observation that creating a governing board that balances interest groups and community representation is as challenging as it is critical.
Electing people to those positions, Lewis added, isn’t always the best way to achieve that.
“When we talk to folks that have elected boards,” he added, “nobody has said it’s a governance system that works very well. In transportation, when you make big investments, all parts of the region want a piece of it.
“It can make some transportation decisions overly political.”
Michael Formby, city Transportation Services director, countered that the experience of the city is that the administration can oversee and coordinate the collection of transportation modes efficiently because contractors are handling the nuts-and-bolts of the operation.
He maintained that the political accountability can be a good thing, because the elected leaders know their districts and constituencies better than an unelected board member.
“If you say to a (City) Council member who’s looking at an inter-modal budget, and you say, ‘Who do you represent?’, they know the bus stops, they know the route headways.”
The political turf battles pitting one route or district over another haven’t materialized, he said.
There will be a lot of ground to cover before it’s clear what the voters’ choices will be on this issue. David Rae, chairman of the Honolulu Charter Commission, said his panel has eliminated some rail-related proposals, including those calling for the ending of the line at an earlier point on the alignment.
But for governance questions, Rae said, the commission established its own PIG to sort through the proposals and make a recommendation. It’s unclear when that report will emerge, he said, but by early August, the entire commission must vote on the final wording to go to the general-election ballot.
And that, said Lewis, will be a critical question.
“Getting the governance right is a very important thing,” he said. “It’s never going to be perfect. But typically once you set it up, it stays that way.”
