Traffic Congestion
Price of Paradise · Hawaii Public Radio · aired 1995-09-03
Guests: Lou Rose (Professor of Economics, University of Hawaii); Gordon Lum (Executive Director, Oahu Metropolitan Planning Organization)
Duration: 1:01:02

[00:00:04] Randall Roth: Aloha, this is Randy Roth, host of Pop Radio. We're broadcast live each Sunday morning from 8 to 9 on KHPR, 88.1 FM and KKUA 90.7 FM and rebroadcast Sunday evenings from 8 to 9 on KIFO 1380 AM. Our sponsor is the Hawaii Community Foundation, a community-building organization that provides financial and other support to charitable endeavors throughout the state. Our topic this morning is, maybe you can tell from our background music, is traffic congestion, and the guests in the studio are Gordon Lum and Lou Rose. Gordon Lum is a registered professional engineer with a master's degree in civil engineering, who has specialized in transportation for 22 years. He's been a transportation engineer for an environmental research group and a mainland consulting firm, a planner for the city and county of Honolulu, a lecturer at the University of Hawaii, and currently serves as executive executive director of Ompou, the Oahu Metropolitan Planning Organization. It's responsible for coordinating transportation planning on Oahu. Lou Rose is a professor in what's left of the Department of Economics, he tells me, at the University of Hawaii, where he's been teaching and researching for 25 years. His work has been in the areas of land use, housing, taxes, and urban economics including transportation. He served the City Council, governor's office, and state legislature in numerous ways and includes in his credentials as an expert on traffic, the fact that he commutes daily from Lanikai, 34 miles of hands-on daily research. Gentlemen, good morning.
[00:01:47] Gordon Lum: Good morning, Randy.
[00:01:48] Randall Roth: Each of you has a piece in this morning's advertiser in the focus section, it's on page B3. The headline is, can Oahu's traffic problems be solved, and both of you say yes but. And Gordon, as I read your article in this morning's newspaper, I get a a couple of of key messages, and one is that there are a number of of relatively low-cost things that can be done that are being done, but they're not going to make a dramatic effect on or have a dramatic effect on traffic congestion. Is that right?
[00:02:24] Gordon Lum: Well, that's basically true. The strategies that we've identified in the newspaper article are what we perceive to be mainly or generally low cost short term solutions. They include parking management strategies which attempt to reduce the subsidies that employees pay receive as part of their parking packages. They also include other things such as ridesharing, HOV lanes, making the transportation system run more efficiently. But these shirt range solutions are basically going to be overwhelmed by our population increases. I mean, our population increases projected to increase by about 22% to the year 2020 which will more than eliminate some of the gains in some of these short range strategies.
[00:03:11] Randall Roth: Now, as a a motorist, when you say parking management, that that sounds so benign. And then I get to thinking, does that translate into it being harder and harder and harder for me to find a parking spot when I go downtown to transact business or or what have you? Is that part of parking management?
[00:03:29] Gordon Lum: Well, parking management could include that. I think the main thrust would be the long-term parkers. What we're trying to do here is to make it or reduce the supply of long-term parkers either by reducing the future supply of parking for these people or by increasing the cost so that they would determine, well, maybe it's not worth it for me to drive my car into work.
[00:03:53] Randall Roth: Either way, you're trying to give me an incentive to to take the bus or to somehow change my commuting habits.
[00:04:00] Gordon Lum: Yes, we want to change travel behavior because that's basically one of the one approach in this short-term solution to either affect the supply side of the equation or the demand side of the equation. In this case, we're trying to affect the demand side by having you decide not to drive your car into town.
[00:04:18] Randall Roth: Okay, and those are the the relatively inexpensive things that can be done. Over on on the expensive side, we're talking about maybe more roads or wider roads or or that sort of thing. But I think I get out of your article this morning that while we need to do that, there's no question about it, that's not going to quote solve our traffic congestion problems.
[00:04:40] Gordon Lum: Right, the the needs of the community are very varied so as such, you can't really solve the transportation problem with just one approach. In our regional transportation plan, we look at it from a multiprong approach. We're going to have to widen and improve the highways wherever we can. In fact, we identified about $5.5 billion worth of improvements.
[00:04:59] Randall Roth: That's billion with a B.
[00:05:01] Gordon Lum: Yes.
[00:05:01] Randall Roth: Okay.
[00:05:01] Gordon Lum: We also have to improve our transit system. In our plans, we identify 11 almost over 11 billions of dollars worth of improvements. And of course, these low-cost short-range solutions which attempts to make our transportation system run more efficiently.
[00:05:18] Randall Roth: Okay, so we've got some low cost, quote, solutions, and some very expensive, quote, solutions, but the bottom line of your piece this morning is quote, sooner or later, our commuting habits will have to be broken. So, we have to change our behavior. It's not something that the government can spend us out of in terms of the problem that we have.
[00:05:37] Gordon Lum: That's that's an important part of the equation, yes, primarily because in the urban core, we just don't have the right of way in order to expand our highway system. And in terms of finances, as we all know, we're in dire straits both at the federal and state level.
[00:05:50] Randall Roth: So, more and more people, we don't have more space, we're limited in terms of the money that can be spent. So traffic congestion is is with us. We're going to try to manage it, but you don't see it getting significantly better on the whole. You know, there are pockets of improvements here and there, but we're going to be living with this for a long time.
[00:06:09] Gordon Lum: Yeah, I think some level of congestion is going to be with us for a very, very long time. And I think one of the issues that we're going to have to look at, rather than congestion, is maybe mobility. That rather than concentrating on congestion, that the idea of mobility may be more important, that one has an option where one could go from point A to point B.
[00:06:28] Randall Roth: Okay. Well, Lou Rose, Professor of Economics, tell us what interests you about transportation because reading your piece in the newspaper, you see this as having a real, I don't want to say easy answer, but there's a clear answer that could make congestion go away.
[00:06:50] Lou Rose: I think it is an easy answer as well.
[00:06:53] Randall Roth: Oh, I do.
[00:06:54] Lou Rose: And I I would like first to say about Gordon's paper that that in the newspaper this morning that I really liked it very, very much as an introduction to my paper. Because Gordon ends up saying, correctly, sooner or later, and I'm quoting, our commuting habits will have to be broken. The big question is how to get the most to get most of us to buy into this concept of changing our behavior. And that's precisely what I'm interested in is educating the public about the the wonderful prospects of pricing to eliminate congestion. And I think that is what changes behavior. And you know, what you're doing is you're moving in the right direction when when you recommend that we we look to getting higher prices for parking because it takes a little higher price. You have to hit people in the wallet in order to get them to change their behavior.
[00:07:54] Randall Roth: Well now, not long ago, there was a a piece in the newspaper written by I believe a former director of the Department of Transportation, who was suggesting that maybe H3 should be opened as a toll road, that we should have to pay a couple bucks each time we we use it. How does that differ from road pricing as you're using the term?
[00:08:14] Lou Rose: Well, what I'm interested in doing is getting across the idea that only at certain times and certain places would a charge actually be imposed. And the purpose would be strictly to regulate the flow of traffic to get it moving at an acceptable level where it otherwise would be clogged up.
[00:08:35] Randall Roth: So, a toll on H3 for example, you'd have to pay that whether you drive H3 at midnight or during rush hour. But you're saying, under road pricing, if you went at midnight when there wasn't much use, there wouldn't be any cost, but if you went at 7:00 a.m. right at the peak of rush hour traffic, there would be a cost.
[00:08:54] Lou Rose: That's correct, although on H3, I doubt that we're going to see any congestion for quite a while, even during the so-called rush hour.
[00:09:02] Randall Roth: I guess that's another issue, right?
[00:09:04] Lou Rose: That's another issue.
[00:09:04] Randall Roth: But the point is that you would simply have a charge during the peak used period. And the amount of the charge would vary, it would be as high as it needed to be in order to thin traffic out.
[00:09:17] Lou Rose: That's correct.
[00:09:17] Randall Roth: Would I know ahead of time, before I drive from here to there, would I know ahead of time what that charge was going to be?
[00:09:23] Lou Rose: Oh, I think that any any reasonable program would publicize what those rates would be in the media and as well at various points along the road.
[00:09:32] Randall Roth: So they would change from time to time, maybe on a daily basis, but there would be some way whether it's a sign on the road itself that I would look at, or column in the newspaper each morning, something telling me what the charge would be during certain times.
[00:09:45] Lou Rose: That's correct.
[00:09:46] Randall Roth: Okay, is this Gordon is this something that you folks have looked at? You're responsible for coordinating all of the traffic planning on Oahu. Road price pricing, is it out in right field, left field, or or second base? Where are we here?
[00:10:00] Gordon Lum: Well, road pricing is something that we did look into back in 1980 when we were developing the regional transportation plan for the year 2000 2005. We looked at various alternatives and road pricing was one of those alternatives. What we did was we we tried to simulate that and the simulation was basically to charge people between 50 cents to $2. Depending on where they were located for a one-way trip. And we found that road pricing did divert a lot of people out of their cars and into transit. In fact, the transit needs during the road pricing strategy was more severe than the our bus option. We also our organization also at the request of the federal government and our policy committee, submitted a grant to the federal government in identifying our our desire to apply for a grant to study road pricing. I think we were one of five other cities that submitted a grant to actually study that.
[00:11:02] Randall Roth: Did you get it?
[00:11:03] Gordon Lum: Unfortunately, no, or maybe fortunately no. The reason why we didn't get it as with the other cities was that we weren't really committed. I mean, in our grant, we did not say that we would actually implement a road pricing strategy. It would be dependent upon whether or not the public accepted it and our decision makers.
[00:11:21] Randall Roth: Is it is it just me, or do I am I on to something here that that political leaders are going to be real slow to embrace this because it's something that that the public has to slowly but surely uh get used to the notion of of this being in the cards?
[00:11:40] Gordon Lum: Yes, I think the the decision makers feel that before we move into the highly disincentive oriented strategies.
[00:11:49] Randall Roth: Hitting them in the pocket book as Professor Rose would say.
[00:11:52] Gordon Lum: Yes, where where it really counts, they feel that we haven't really fully investigated the incentive oriented strategies. And I think as such they'd like to sort of pursue that as far as they can go before they going to disincentive.
[00:12:06] Randall Roth: They they think carrots are more popular with the voters than sticks?
[00:12:09] Gordon Lum: I think that's a fair assessment. But one of the things that I do agree with him on is that this road pricing concept is something that's going to be with us, and I believe in the future this road pricing concept will be more of a a given rather than a proposal. That we're going to have to rely upon road pricing, but getting from here to there is going to be extremely difficult.
[00:12:31] Randall Roth: So we have a profit in the studio today, but someday he'll be mainstream.
[00:12:36] Gordon Lum: If he is still alive, he will be mainstream.
[00:12:38] Randall Roth: Lou, what what do you think of what you're hearing?
[00:12:40] Lou Rose: Well, it certainly is true that our political leaders have not yet embraced this problem of congestion. They haven't embraced a solution to that problem that I'm proposing. The previous mayor and the current mayor have both been opposed. And in fact, I believe the reason that we did not get that pilot project money from the federal government was because Mayor Fasi at the time said no, he would not be interested in supporting it.
[00:13:07] Gordon Lum: We we received note from the federal government that they were not going to accept our proposal primarily because of the reason that I cited prior to the mayor's statement.
[00:13:17] Randall Roth: But isn't it the same thing? There wasn't a commitment here in Hawaii to this concept.
[00:13:22] Gordon Lum: Yeah, I think the primary focus for that was the equity issue. I mean, there are various concerns that were raised by the decision makers, but I think the equity issue was the primary focus and and that was because I guess contrary to most of the mainland situations where you have the affluent, so-called affluent people living within the central core such as I'm sorry, and the mainland where they are located further away from the central core, out in the suburbs. Just the opposite exists over here. You know, in central core we have the Waikiki, the Diamond heads, and whatever and on outside, outskirts, we have the the less affluent, the Waianae, Nanakuli, Waimanalo areas.
[00:13:59] Randall Roth: So what works on the mainland might not work here because of our upside down situation.
[00:14:03] Gordon Lum: Right, that the the less affluent will be driving more and as such would be probably hit more by by this.
[00:14:09] Randall Roth: Okay, well, Lou, are you inherently unfair in your approach to all of this?
[00:14:13] Lou Rose: Well, I have a lot of things to say about the fairness issue.
[00:14:17] Randall Roth: I can tell that you do.
[00:14:18] Lou Rose: And also I have some things to say about that transition. It has been made in California at two locations, and maybe we could come back to I-15 and SR-91 in Southern California, two new highways that are going to have congestion pricing.
[00:14:34] Randall Roth: Exactly what we're talking about.
[00:14:35] Lou Rose: Yes indeed, within five months, they will be operating. I could turn now to to fairness if you want to or
[00:14:43] Randall Roth: Why don't you give us one minute on fairness and I'm going to tell the people who tuned in late what they're listening to and then we're going to invite calls.
[00:14:50] Lou Rose: Well, I think in regard to fairness, it's really ridiculous to argue that this this congestion pricing would be unfair because there are certain ways to design the payment system that will rectify any inequities that might be created if you just looked at the charges alone. There are several possible solutions to the problem.
[00:15:14] Randall Roth: Well, why don't you just give us one?
[00:15:16] Lou Rose: Well, one for example would be to rebate charges to the poor using an income tax credit. Now, we have right now an income tax credit on rental expenses incurred by poor people. There is no reason why we could not have a similar rebate in the form of an income tax credit at the end of each year, for poor people who have their road charges during the year.
[00:15:48] Randall Roth: So these charges aren't like a tax where they're being levied so the government has money to spend. This is money that the government could simply turn around and give right back, but they could target it to low-income people.
[00:15:59] Lou Rose: That's correct.
[00:16:00] Randall Roth: Okay. Well folks, you're listening to the Price of Paradise radio show, we call it Pop Radio. Our topic today is traffic congestion. With me in the studio is Lou Rose, a professor of Economics at the University of Hawaii, and somebody who's been a consultant to the legislature, the governor's office, and the city council, and he has hands-on daily experience with this topic with a 34-mile daily commute. Gordon Lum is the executive director of the Oahu Metropolitan Planning Organization and a transportation engineer. As head of Ompo, he is responsible for coordinating all of the transportation planning that's being done, at least on this island. If you'd like to ask a question or make a brief comment, all you've got to do is call us at 955-8821. We realize you've got some traffic issues on the mainland island mainland, the neighbor island, sorry folks, the neighbor islands as well. And if you'd like to call and talk about that, our number is 955-8821, and neighbor islanders are always invited to call us collect. Our first caller is Jim from Waialua Kahala. Good morning, Jim.
[00:17:08] Speaker 1: Good morning. Why not let everybody ride the buses free as was suggested by a councilman some years ago?
[00:17:16] Randall Roth: Well, let's who wants to field that one first. Gordon, why don't you say something then we'll ask Lou.
[00:17:23] Gordon Lum: That's that was a proposal that was made in many areas. In fact, some of the other cities on the mainland have actually implemented fair free zones. What they found after some experience was that sometimes the homeless would stay on the bus because it was very convenient and they would continue to.
[00:17:43] Randall Roth: Instead of living in a car, you live in the bus.
[00:17:45] Gordon Lum: Right, and in order to discourage that they found that they had to put in some sort of a minimal fee in order to discourage those types of activities.
[00:17:54] Lou Rose: Well, I think that would be a move in the right direction, but it would be it would have a minimal effect. You know there was a study done in Chicago a number of years ago where they had specified that they wanted to have a certain amount of reduction in the price in the amount of car traffic on the roads. The study pointed out that you would have to pay people to ride the public transportation system in order to achieve the goal of reducing congestion. Even free buses will not do it.
[00:18:28] Speaker 1: Thank you very much, yes, it does.
[00:18:30] Randall Roth: Thank you. Our next caller is Lorenzo from Kapiolani Park. Good morning, Lorenzo.
[00:18:34] Speaker 2: Good morning, Randy. Are you on your Sunday morning walk again?
[00:18:38] Randall Roth: Yes. Okay.
[00:18:39] Speaker 2: No, it's a very complex subject, but I think first thing is we have to understand the reasons why people drive. A car gives people convenience, individual freedom, and comfort, and I think the transport experts should realize that. and it's also gives door-to-door service which public transport cannot give. I am sympathetic to some kind of uh road pricing system because I am quite familiar with the experiment in Hong Kong and Singapore. Uh it will be very difficult to implement in a democracy and in fact it failed in Hong Kong because when they start consulting at the neighborhood board level, it was thrown out by the electorate.
[00:19:29] Gordon Lum: Singapore is hardly a democracy. So that's why it works.
[00:19:33] Speaker 2: Lorenzo, hold on just a second. I want to get Gordon's reaction to what you've just said and then I'm going to come back to you so you can finish your comment. Okay.
[00:19:39] Gordon Lum: Yeah, I I think it's very important that um the transportation system basically serve the needs of the people, and given the um the high cost of living here where people wanted um squeeze in as much activity as possible, either they need the cars for the second job or to um actually go to a recreational activity such as um paddling or playing tennis or whatever, um they need the cars in order to make use of the time that they have rather than spending it with congestion. Um that's why some of the strategies that we've been proposing or has been proposed in the past, um are basically attached to the concept of mobility, that what you want to do is give people a lot of options, so that they can contribute to the trans- transportation problem or transportation solutions. For instance, um for those people who say that, well, um uh I can't take the bus. Fine. You don't have to take the bus. Um you can always um carpool. And people will say, well, I can't I can't carpool because I need my car to um pick up my daughter at school. Fine. Um you can stagger your work hours. So, by providing various options,
[00:20:47] Speaker 2: I I got to be honest with you, Gordon, as I'm sitting here, I'm saying to myself, I'm going to stay in my car as Lorenzo would say, it's real convenient for me and I complain about traffic, but the car is a lot more convenient for me than these other things.
[00:21:00] Gordon Lum: Right. That's that's one of the keys to a lot of these um strategies. The options that you select must be a viable option. For instance, um as um Lou has indicated, there's always mechanisms whereby you can correct some of the problems. One of the problems of the road pricing would be that we will be forcing people out of the cars into uh if they don't pay their um their fee into another alternative, and a lot of people are going to view that as being a lower level alternative, for instance, taking the bus or carpool. And your point being that, well, um why should I lower my level of comfort or convenience uh for this particular activity because I don't want to pay for it? But the viability would be, you have to come up with a viable option. If you're going to tell people, hey, you're going to take the bus, you're going to have to make that bus system work better.
[00:21:45] Lou Rose: Okay. Lou Rose. Uh I would just like to address the issue uh that was raised about the Hong Kong system. Um the caller um is correct that the people there rejected it, and I think it was primarily from what I have read, uh because they were they feared invasion of privacy. And of course, they live right next door to China and to set up a system like this with uh a a more totalitarian form of government moving in in a few years uh was a risky thing for them to do. The interesting thing is that the technology today does uh provide for a system in which one can retain his anonymity on the road and it is not necessary for uh you to be identified uh when you are metered.
[00:22:27] Speaker 2: I I guess the the privacy issue is because in the old days, we had these toll booths, which were terribly, you know, inconvenient, etc. but nobody kept track of of where Lou Rose was at any point in in in the day.
[00:22:39] Lou Rose: Well, my wife always knew. But under this electronic um process, there would be monitors, and in theory, some big government computer would know where Lou Rose's car at least is at any given time of the day, and you're saying that there are ways of programming that computer so that it isn't a a big brother that keeps track of people. That's correct.
[00:23:02] Gordon Lum: Gordon Lum.
[00:23:03] Gordon Lum: Yeah, the the private issue was um what was one of the issues, but the caller was correct in the sense that um um when Hong Kong tried to implement this particular road pricing strategy, it occurred at a time when Hong Kong was saying, okay, well let's transfer some of this democratic process into um actual practice. And one of the first things they did was create something like a a neighborhood board system. And unfortunately, the neighborhood board system decided that this road pricing concept would be the first issue that they would uh attack. And with with uh community input, um and transportation strategies, usually transportation strategies uh or new strategies attempt to rearrange the system to make it more efficient. So what you end up with are basically new winners and new losers, and hopefully by this new rearrangement, you come up with more net winners than net losers. Unfortunately, the new net losers are going to come up and protest because they're quality of service
[00:24:01] Speaker 2: They're going to be the loudest.
[00:24:02] Gordon Lum: Yes, they're going to be the loudest and that's that's unfortunately what happens.
[00:24:06] Speaker 2: That's the nature of the beast. Lorenzo, we've got some other callers, why don't you finish your comment, but if you could do it very briefly, we'd appreciate it. I think just meanwhile, on a day-to-day, I think we need an overall traffic management authority who can dig up the road and block off several lanes of traffic, uh who can just cone the the roadway in order to paint the lines again, things like that. You know, I see a lot of Well, I think let me ask Gordon I think they're doing that now, aren't we, Gordon?
[00:24:35] Gordon Lum: Yes, um there is some coordination. In fact, before the utility companies can dig up the roads, they have to get the permit either from the city or the state, I think primarily the city. But unfortunately, sometimes, um when an accident occurs at a utility company, they can't really wait until that particular roadway is scheduled for uh repavement or or whatever, that they have to get in there right then and there.
[00:24:57] Speaker 2: Okay. Lorenzo, thank you for your call. We appreciate it. David from Mii Lani. Good morning, David.
[00:25:02] Speaker 3: David from Mii Lani.
[00:25:04] Speaker 2: You're on the air.
[00:25:07] Speaker 3: David, are you there? Good morning.
[00:25:10] Speaker 2: Is this David?
[00:25:10] Speaker 3: Yes, good morning.
[00:25:12] Speaker 2: You're on the air.
[00:25:12] Speaker 3: Thank you. This question's for Gordon Lum. I I know they say in society, people will not make a change till they are sufficiently dissatisfied with their current condition. Uh I'm from Mii Lani and it's about an hour and 10 minute drive to my King Street location. How more difficult will that be uh in the next 10 years? Uh do you have figures that show uh how much longer it's going to take me in in the next five and 10 years.
[00:25:38] Speaker 2: How how far does David and people like David have to be pushed, Gordon?
[00:25:43] Gordon Lum: Uh unfortunately, his travel quarter, the um Milani um ever to downtown is the worst travel quarter that we have. Um we we've done surveys where we've um looked at um his quarter versus on winward versus East Honolulu, and there's no question in anyone's mind based upon the statistics, duration, severity, that quarter is the worst.
[00:26:04] Speaker 2: So what are you going to do about it? Or what are you doing about it? What can be done about it?
[00:26:09] Gordon Lum: Well, um we we do have um some roadway improvements identified for that particular quarter, but again, the primary problem that's going to exist is once you get from the Red Hill area um to downtown, you you run into traffic congestion. And the only way that you can really avoid the traffic congestion there is to either get rid of the traffic congestion, like what what Lou is proposing, ban people uh or um implement this road pricing concept to get people off of the streets, or you provide another alternative which does not have to compete with um the congestion, and that requires exclusive right of way and probably a higher capacity um system rather than the single occupant vehicle.
[00:26:49] Lou Rose: Lou, Could you could you define worst in numbers? In other words, uh they say in the Oregon plan that anybody that drives longer than 22 minutes shows a much greater dissatisfaction with their work. In other words, they say do you like your job or do you not like your job? People who drive over 22 minutes to work have a higher percentage of people saying I don't like my job. Um can you define uh you know, what you'll be able to reduce it from in other words, uh
[00:27:18] Speaker 2: From the commuters point of view, what's tolerable in numbers instead of the worst or things like that?
[00:27:24] Gordon Lum: Okay. Um what we one of the indicators that we use in our regional transportation plan is this concept called Level of Service. Um it's basically a grading system that runs from A to F, and it corresponds quite nicely with um what one might expect from the um school grading system where A and B are very good conditions, and um F is.
[00:27:43] Speaker 2: F is Mii Lani.
[00:27:45] Gordon Lum: Well, D is Mii Lani, I think they call it uh uh overheated radiators angry motorists. Don't you define it in words? You say traffic level D equals stop and stop traffic, overheated radiators and angry motorists. Um the we're a little bit less subjective than that, and we use the uh indicator the um the um the characteristic you identified earlier, not not the latter two indicators.
[00:28:10] Speaker 2: But you're you're not holding out a whole lot of hope for David and and people like him, you're working on it, but you don't see a a big breakthrough uh on the horizon. And and Lou wants to to get into this conversation, but real quickly, Gordon, no big breakthrough coming?
[00:28:26] Gordon Lum: There there has to be, well, Good question. One of the things that um my parents always told me was um you get what you pay for. And
[00:28:34] Speaker 2: And if you Okay. Okay. And sometimes you know it's
[00:28:39] Gordon Lum: I think that sums it up. Sometimes it's kind of difficult to um um to to agree with some of these uh to actually implement some of these basic concepts, you get what you pay for. Um for instance, things like um if you want to make money, you always um buy low sell high, but because of circumstances, it's very difficult to do things like that.
[00:29:01] Speaker 2: Easily said. Very easily said, but very difficult to do because circumstances. And if everybody can do it, that'll be fine. Going back to this um you get what you pay for. Let let's let's let Lou Rose respond to that because that that's his lead line, right?
[00:29:13] Lou Rose: Well, I can promise you uh total relief if you will just listen to me.
[00:29:18] Speaker 2: All right.
[00:29:20] Lou Rose: Um in San Diego, they're going to start charging uh $2.60 for a trip one way along an eight-mile stretch. They think, their preliminary plans indicate that in order to keep the traffic moving, that will probably end up around $4 to $5 per trip. That is how uh it is going to keep about, they think 15% of the people who would otherwise take in take to their cars off the road, and that's all it would require to get the traffic moving on that particular stretch.
[00:30:33] Gordon Lum: Everyone's behavior will be affected. It's only enough cars, people who value their time less than what it costs to get onto the road. It's only that 15%, let's say, that would have to get off the road in order to enable you to zoom in in 40 minutes instead of an hour and 10 minutes.
[00:30:44] Speaker 2: And Lou, as I understand it, if those charges uh were rebated, let's say in the form of of lower gas taxes, then those 15% who chose to drive at different times of the day or chose to take the bus or whatever, that they would actually be financially better off because other people charges paid by other people would indirectly benefit them through lower gas taxes or whatever. Do I have that right?
[00:31:18] Lou Rose: You have that right. Uh and in fact, one thing I'd like to point out about the fairness of substituting uh road prices for uh gasoline taxes is that the gasoline taxes are highly regressive. They hurt the poor a lot more than they hurt the rich. And uh you can't say that to the same extent, about, at least it has never been documented about road charges that there is regressive as that. So exchanging one thing for the other will actually make the life a lot fairer.
[00:31:47] Speaker 2: Oh my goodness. Gordon Lum.
[00:31:49] Gordon Lum: Yeah, in terms of the the the equity issue, I I think that's a that's one of the requirements that um some form of um rebate would have to be uh given back to the uh drivers either through income taxes or the uh some rebate in the gas tax or uh a reduction in the gas price. But in addition to that, uh one would also have to use some of the revenues generated to provide for these options for these people who are not going to be able to drive because they cannot afford afford this. And when we do that, we we look at this as being an excellent opportunity to get some of the revenues that we do not have to pay for these alternatives.
[00:32:25] Lou Rose: Lou Rose. I couldn't agree more. In fact, uh that's the one paragraph that was struck from my article this morning and I'm going to take this up with Jerry Burr. Yeah, there were a couple others. But uh that that actually is my favorite uh solution to the problem is to earmark those revenues that come in from the congestion pricing scheme for road improvements along the corridors where they are collected, so that, and that's another fair thing because then the people who are charged who use that corridor actually later become beneficiaries of the improvements that are made along that corridor.
[00:33:03] Speaker 2: Or subsidize the bus even more or something else that could benefit folks who adjust their driving habits.
[00:33:08] Lou Rose: This is precisely what is being done in San Diego. Where they go ahead.
[00:33:12] Speaker 2: Well, we just have to move on, David, I really appreciate it. It's got to be real quick. Real last question. Sam Lee, the politician here ran on the fact he would help traffic. Have you heard anything from him? Has this particular politician done anything in the last 10 years?
[00:33:26] Gordon Lum: Now, think carefully, Gordon. Well, we we have um decision makers on our policy committee. Unfortunately, Sam is not a uh member of our policy committee. However, Have you heard anything from him? Uh yes, we we have, we we we we have some suggestions from him and we are also um um using not only the suggestions from him, but other suggestions from the community. David, we've got to move on. We really do. Thank you, thank you very much. And I laugh because this has got to be one of the hottest hot potatoes that the politicians have to deal with. Carol from Mii Kiki, you've been waiting patiently. Thank you. Good morning, Carol.
[00:34:03] Speaker 4: Oh, good morning. Uh I have uh three three things, one with two of my comments. One of them is that as long as we continue to encourage growth and development and bringing more people over here to absorb the jobs and the housing, we're going to continue to have traffic problems. They say we can't help it, but that's not true. Uh secondly, um I think that the another thing that should be revived is the idea of paying for insurance at the gas tank. Then you pay your insurance according to how much you're on the road.
[00:34:35] Speaker 2: Just so our our listeners know, Gordon, Lum and Lou Rose were both nodding yes, I think as as you were saying that. Go ahead and make your your other point.
[00:34:43] Speaker 4: Okay. So I think we need to keep that one alive. And then uh one question that's kind of I guess it could just be left hanging, but I I I don't know why anybody, including you people, or anyone else, uh in taxpayers, should accommodate people's selfish and and spoiled attitudes uh in of transportation practices. If if a guy is going to drive in his car alone because he doesn't want to be inconvenienced, I say good. The more he's inconvenienced, the better. And I'm tired of dealing with him.
[00:35:11] Speaker 2: Well, let's see what Lou Rose says about that one. Okay, I'll hang up so somebody else can get in. Thank you, Carol. Appreciate it. Bye.
[00:35:16] Lou Rose: Yeah, Carol, thank you very much. I feel totally as you do. As long as we're going to have growth and development, things are going to get worse. If we think we got it bad today without congestion pricing, I think it's going to be much worse in the future. Pay at the pump for insurance is a great idea. I would love to see that happen. We've got over 30% of our motorists who are uninsured or under insured at this time. That's dangerous.
[00:35:42] Speaker 2: You're listening to Pop Radio. We're talking about traffic congestion. Our guests in the studio are Lou Rose, a UH professor of economics and Gordon Lum, the executive director of the Oahu Metropolitan Planning Organization, which is in charge of coordinating all of the transportation planning on this island. Well, let's go to the Big Island. We have Ron from the volcano area of the Big Island. Good morning, Ron. Ron, are you there?
[00:36:09] Speaker 5: Hello, Ron.
[00:36:11] Speaker 2: I think Ron left the phone. Let's move on to Myron from Tantalus. Good morning, Myron.
[00:36:16] Speaker 6: Uh, good morning. Um, I have uh one for uh Gordon Lum. Um in all this uh these discussions, we've been hearing about uh uh congestion, so forth. I've never heard anyone propose uh shall we say a limited type of overpasses along busy uh streets. I'm thinking of uh four-lane roads uh and uh providing um overpasses for the two center lanes uh for automobiles only, not trucks. I figure that they could be uh
[00:36:52] Speaker 2: Let's see what he says about that. That's a that's a good idea.
[00:36:56] Gordon Lum: The the overpasses were um are are not a new idea. In fact, when we were developing our 2000 plan, 2000-2005, a lot of people in the community felt that that was an excellent opportunity to alleviate some of the congestion for the automobiles. Overpasses um um some of those strategies are identified in our plans. For instance, we have the Nimitz Viaduct. We also have some um uh um the State DOT for instance, Department of Transportation Service, Department of Transportation, has a project whereby they plan to um um redo the Castle Junction interchange basically by using those um overpasses. Um so so they they they are part of our plans.
[00:37:38] Speaker 6: Yeah. Well, um uh I thought of that often going down towards Hawaii Kai, how I get stuck in traffic, you know, the red lights and uh uh if uh if the cars could just go through uh that they could have done that, instead of widening the road and encroaching upon people's yards along the way.
[00:37:57] Speaker 2: Okay. Let's have Gordon respond to that and then Lou, and then we have
[00:38:00] Speaker 7: to move on. Thank you, though, Mairon, for your call.
[00:38:02] Gordon Lum: Gordon Lum
[00:38:03] Speaker 7: My pleasure.
[00:38:03] Gordon Lum: Right. As As I mentioned earlier, when we try to talk about transportation strategies, we have these new winners and new losers. Um, some of the new losers are those people who are um feel that the aesthetics are going to be compromised. And And a lot of these um overpasses, such as um the the the one that's being proposed at Kasa Junction and uh the Nimis Viaduct, for instance, um they are One of the reasons why some of the people are opposing these projects are is because of the aesthetic value.
[00:38:31] Speaker 7: And the nature of the beast is the losers are always going to be louder and going to be contacting their their political leaders more often. Lou Rose.
[00:38:40] Lou Rose: Well, uh Mairon, your your suggestion that we do these overpass improvements is uh an excellent one. And so are all of the other things that are on Gordon's list. Uh, you know, things like metered on ramps and widening existing roads like Kalani Anoli, and so on. They're all temporary. And if we stand back and we look at what's going to be uh what's going to be the situation in these locations 5 years from now, 10 years from now, they'll be just like they are now without those improvements. And what we have to look at is a long-run permanent solution to the problem. And that's why I keep coming back to this pricing idea.
[00:39:20] Speaker 7: Do we call this a voice from the wilderness? I'm a a prophet of something. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Mairon. We have a caller from Kailua. K. Good morning, K.
[00:39:32] Speaker 8: Oh, hello.
[00:39:33] Speaker 7: Yes.
[00:39:34] Speaker 8: You're on the air.
[00:39:35] Speaker 7: Hello?
[00:39:35] Speaker 8: Yes. Do you have a question or a brief comment? Yes, you know, I've always been a I I want to know if rapid transit is dead because, you know, I've lived in Tokyo and I've been in Europe and I and my prob my contention is if there was a decent rapid transit system, then people would use it, you know? Well, let's let's get an answer to your question.
[00:39:54] Speaker 7: Let's get an answer to your question. Is it dead? Gordon Lum, you're in charge of coordinating all this planning. Is it is it just real real sick or is it dead?
[00:40:05] Gordon Lum: At this point in time, we do have a regional transportation plan that we're developing for the year 2020. And on that plan, we do have the placeholder in there for a rapid transit system. Now, this definition of rapid transit may not necessarily mean the heavy rail rapid transit system that was proposed by the city. The term rapid transit is very broad, and in our plan, we also make it very broad, too. And that is that it could be the heavy rail system identified by the city, it could be a light rail system, or it could be a busway system. Um, one of the key components to this, or one of the key desirability of this particular issue is that it provides the public with a hopefully a more viable transportation alternative. If you look at the Singapore example, for instance, um they have a road pricing strategy, but it's just part of their overall transportation strategy too, which includes rapid transit.
[00:40:59] Speaker 7: So you're not disagreeing with Lou Rose. You're you're just saying that in addition to his solution, you have to have reasonably attractive alternatives. And I think I heard you say that that fixed rail isn't completely dead, but there isn't anything on the front burner.
[00:41:13] Gordon Lum: That's correct.
[00:41:13] Speaker 7: Okay. Lou Rose.
[00:41:14] Lou Rose: Well, I would say fixed rail does not belong in the category of a reasonably attractive alternative. Uh, it's an antiquated system and uh it just would not work well in terms of costs. To give you an idea, in San Diego again, uh where they're starting up this system, it cost only $10 million to set this up. And when it's operating, it will cost uh only 10% of all the revenues that are collected will actually be cost. So 90% remains available for for use for corridor improvements in transportation. Uh, some of that is going into buses, some of it is going into uh uh new ramps and metered ramps. In contrast, that railroad was going to cost $2 billion.
[00:42:02] Speaker 7: Well, Okay, and I think that's a another show altogether. Uh K, I've got to make a a decision here as as host of this thing. Our our phone lines are just packed and we've been turning some folks away. We're down to the last 18 minutes of the show, so I'm just going to have to move on. I appreciate your call and I know Gordon has some more you'd like to say in response to to your question, but we just have to move on.
[00:42:25] Speaker 8: Okay. Well, I I just want to make one last comment that there's not going to be any shift unless there's a viable alternative for people in public transportation. And bus alone isn't it.
[00:42:36] Speaker 7: And I think and I think Gordon Lum has as eloquently stated that as well. Thank you, K. Uh Ed from Kaa. Good morning, Ed.
[00:42:43] Speaker 9: Good morning.
[00:42:44] Speaker 7: We have a question or a brief comment for our guests?
[00:42:47] Speaker 9: Well, I just really had a uh I have to agree with some former callers. I I really would like to see Mass Transit. I've been here 25 years stuck in traffic like everybody else, but um I'm from New York City originally and didn't need a car.
[00:43:04] Speaker 7: So you're with K. We we can talk about road pricing, but we've got to get serious about some attractive alternatives to driving in your car.
[00:43:12] Speaker 9: I agree with uh Mr. Rose saying that all of the solutions, the buses and the road improvements are all temporary because we are going to grow. People like to have babies. But the bigger issue is do we want to add taxes or add penalties to encourage people off the road. We're talking about a second city. People are going to have to get back and forth to their second city branches. I have a company in town, a company out there. We want people to move so we can have our businesses flourish and people can get to jobs not penalize them and and just make people stop moving.
[00:43:46] Speaker 7: Okay, Ed. I I've got to let Lou say something in response to that because I know you're uh you're
[00:43:53] Lou Rose: It's incredible how we we all sort of ring our hands and we say we've just got to change our behavior. We've got to get people moving, and the only way it seems like we can uh get people to change their behavior is to start charging them. It's a punitive uh solution to the problem, and we hate it, but it's going to have to happen.
[00:44:15] Speaker 7: Okay, Ed, we've got to move on. Thank you for your call. Milton from Diamond Head, you've been waiting a long time. We appreciate your patience. Good morning.
[00:44:23] Speaker 10: Yeah, thank you. And uh I just have a couple of rejoinders. One is uh on the the the punitive measures as far as like charging us for uh for for doing it. Um I work for the federal government and uh when I when I look at say driving to work from say Kaa to like where I work inside Diamond Head Crater, um uh if I get paid like say, you know, $15 an hour, if it takes me an hour to to drive to work and it costs me only $15, I'm still like breaking even. Uh because I tried catching the bus from say Kaa to Diamond Head and if it takes me three times or four times as long on the bus, it's not worth my time. Okay. Um uh another thing is, you know, one the government has to definitely encourage uh businesses to to to work alternate hours or even have people, you know, and and I'm seeing a lot more, you know, with home offices.
[00:45:17] Speaker 7: Okay. And that's something that Gordon Gordon Lum's piece this morning was saying that that they're interested in implementing. Let me get Lou Rose's reaction to what you've just said, Milton.
[00:45:28] Speaker 10: Okay, thank you very much. I do I do have one thing because uh right now like uh we have um fairly, you know, well staggered work hours wearing work and now we're a 24-hour facility. But uh because of like different like cost of keeping us like, you know, working at like the certain hours. Like this is this is the case I have right now.
[00:45:48] Speaker 7: Oh, we've got to we've got to move on. Okay, well, perhaps some other time. Thank you very much. You bet. Well, I would just like to thank Milton for uh calling our attention to the fact that our time is worth something. As an economist, I guess that's something that you think about often.
[00:46:02] Lou Rose: Well, that's the number one uh problem that uh I think I face in getting stuck in traffic is that it cost me an extra half hour, perhaps an extra 45 minutes each day. And uh there are a lot of studies that economists have done on the value of time, whether it is time spent at work making money or time spent at home, playing with the children or whatever. And the the uh the typical result that they come out with is that people value their time at roughly two thirds of their wage rate. Now, the average wage rate in Honolulu is about $12 an hour. And so if it's costing you an extra half hour uh of time because you're stuck in traffic each day, both going and coming, then that's worth to you about $4 if you're that average person. A major part of our commuting cost is the time.
[00:46:53] Speaker 7: Okay. Well, you're listening to Pop Radio. My name's Randy Roth. We're talking about traffic congestion. Lou Rose is a UH professor of Economics and Gordon Lum is the executive director of the Oahu Metropolitan Planning Organization. We've got a a phone bank full of folks waiting to get on the air and I've got just 13 minutes to go so I'm going to ask each caller to try extra hard to keep it real short. Dick Miller in Kailua. Good morning, Dick.
[00:47:18] Speaker 11: Good morning, Randy.
[00:47:20] Speaker 7: My my office neighbor at the Law school. What do you have for us this morning? I just a couple of things that I think your panelists ought to discuss. One is that we already have a pricing mechanism, and it's the worst insurance system in the in the country, uh that prices an awful lot of people off the road. Okay. Uh shouldn't uh the state be uh thinking of coordinating any reforms in this area with the possible pricing effect. That's number one. Number two, uh pay at the pump has been talked about as a vehicle for auto insurance. What about using it also as a vehicle for uh bringing in some uh deterring some driving and bringing in some cash for alternative systems of uh transportation. Okay. Thank you, Dick. Lou Miller, or Lou Rose.
[00:48:06] Lou Rose: Well, uh I I fully agree with you, Dick, that uh we need to have some pay at the pump. But uh as a means of keeping people off the road, that is far too blunt of an instrument because what we're really trying to do is not keep people off of the road all of the time, because that cancels out some otherwise worthwhile trips during the off-peak periods. What we're trying to do is come up with some kind of a of a uh refined system of controlling the flow of traffic only at the peak periods and in certain locations.
[00:48:39] Speaker 7: Okay. Bill from Kailua, you've got just uh 20 or 30 seconds to ask your question or make a brief comment. Bill from Kailua, are you still there, Bill? Bill from Kailua. Okay, let's move on to Gil, I think it is, from Waikiki. Gil from Waikiki. Well, we've got a technical Who's there?
[00:49:02] Speaker 12: This is Gil.
[00:49:03] Speaker 7: Oh, Gil from Waikiki.
[00:49:04] Speaker 12: Right. Okay. It's with regards to the convention center. It's they they've broken ground. You've got a traffic problem already. Why don't they start the uh construction of the change in the highway system because last night it took a person 2 hours to get from O'ahu, which is right near King Street and Kaka'ako, 2 hours to get to uh O'ahu and Kali rather, uh Kahill.
[00:49:30] Speaker 7: Okay. Well, we're going to do a show sometime on the convention center, and I know traffic is right at the heart of that, but I think it's a a separate show unless Gordon, if you wanted to say real briefly something about that. But we have to move on, Gil.
[00:49:43] Gordon Lum: There is a transportation study that's being conducted by the city right now, task force which involves um decision makers and the local community and in terms of coming up with solutions to it. But one of the major problems with the Waikiki area is that a lot of it is very localized. I mean, um you mentioned that there was a traffic accident yesterday traffic problems yesterday. Um that was the Saturday. Um you you have weddings, special events, and that causes a special type of traffic congestion and that's very difficult to remedy.
[00:50:12] Speaker 7: Lou Rose.
[00:50:15] Lou Rose: Now, these special problems can also be handled with congestion pricing, because if you uh tell that through the media, tell the people that it's going to cost them so much to go by the convention center anytime during the day or go buy where a parade is going to be at a certain time during the day, it will cost them.
[00:50:33] Speaker 12: Okay, synchronization of traffic lights would solve a lot of problems in this city. Okay. That's all the other comment. I don't need the comment from you right now because you're busy.
[00:50:41] Speaker 7: Why I think I think Gordon wants to comment on this one. Gordon, you've got 5 seconds.
[00:50:45] Gordon Lum: We've got one of the top three systems in the nation. Uh other cities are looking at our system to to copy, and but it's still going through various phases. I believe we're in the third phase of that particular program.
[00:50:54] Speaker 7: Okay. Uh are we going back to Bill in Kailua? Bill in Kailua, do we have you now? Good morning Randy, can you hear me? You bet we lost you for a while but we found you.
[00:51:02] Speaker 13: You can still hear me?
[00:51:03] Speaker 7: Oh, yeah, you're loud.
[00:51:07] Speaker 13: Uh, yes, uh I've lived here through the war. I was working in in the at Ford Island during the war, and I had friends up on Pacific Heights and I used to spend a good deal of time up there. And at the time the the transportation system was running shuttles, a small buses from the Heights down to the main artery where you could catch a bus to uh Pearl. Uh this worked very well and uh the buses are You're wondering wondering why we don't have them now? I do. I do. Now, another thing that ties in with this is the abandonment of the electric trolleys which accelerated much faster than these sluggish old diesels. Okay. Well, let's get Gordon Lum's reaction to both of those uh those good questions.
[00:51:51] Gordon Lum: And we think jitney is this uh uh part of our transportation solution. And that's what Bill was describing, was a jitney? Yes, basically, um um some um some form of um paratransit that allows um writers to just um hop on if they want to. Um And go down to the artery. Right.
[00:52:07] Gordon Lum: Um So, you're doing that? Well, we've got in our plans. Um Right now, there's nothing to prevent a private entity from pursuing something like that. One of the concerns that we have is that um traffic congestion is very important to us. We know that uh jitney can carry more people than a a automobile. We know that a bus can carry more people than a jitney. So, it's a matter of whether the jitneys take people from the automobile side which will improve the situation or take people out of the buses which will Oh, it be counterproductive. Okay. I can tell you that that abandoned system worked very well indeed during the war when the city was very much overcrowded.
[00:52:38] Speaker 7: Bill, let's get Lou Rose's thought on this. One more thought, just wait a minute. Bill, hold on. Hold on. Before you change the subject, we need Lou Rose's thoughts on your last one.
[00:52:49] Lou Rose: I just have one quick response, and it is that there is one thing that uh is keeping the jitneys from um operating. And that is that they're competing with a subsidized bus system.
[00:53:02] Speaker 7: Okay. Bill, we have to move on. We've got That was a matter of transfer from the jitney to the to the to the artery. Uh one more thing I want, long range planning you all better crank in magnetic levitations instead of the old-fashioned 19th-century rail system. Maglev is the is the where it's the the wave of the future and you better crank it in.
[00:53:24] Speaker 7: Okie doke. Well, Gordon Lum has a smile on his face, which I think means that he's given it some thought and that's part of the equation, and he's nodding, yes. Uh we have to move on. Uh Thank you, Bill. Eileen from uh Pavaa. Yes. Um I wanted to make a comment. We did a fledgling try of a ferry from the West Lock area to downtown and I'm wondering whether if drivers from West Lock to downtown, even from Hawaii Kai to downtown on a sharey system could team up so that two people could use one car during the day, for example, and do their running around and then take the ferry back in the evening, could relieve some of the congestion. Um Gordon?
[00:54:12] Gordon Lum: Well, the ferry system is something that um I know the city is still trying to um um analyze to see whether or not it might be feasible. In terms of the concept of incorporating a common uh use of an automobile for the users of the ferry, that's something that we haven't really um considered. Okay.
[00:54:34] Speaker 7: So we're doing pay at the pump it would make more sense. Let's see what Lou Rose says about the the ferry idea, Eileen.
[00:54:40] Lou Rose: Well, again, uh the ferry is an idea that has been tried before um a little bit and it hasn't worked out well and uh part of the reason is that people aren't finding it economic to take the ferry because they're not being charged on the road. If they would be charged on the road, then they would seek the ferry. All roads lead to road pricing, right? That's the long-run permanent fair solution.
[00:55:07] Speaker 7: Okay. Eileen, thank thank you for your call. It's one other item of fairness and that is every pedestrian usually crosses three or four streets to facilitate the movement of cars and they wish cars would take that into consideration. Okay. Thank you Thank you, Eileen. We've got a couple more people on the line, but one of the prerogatives of being producer of this show is that every once in a while you get to ask your own question and my wife was talking to Gordon Lum right before the show about what really causes the dramatic change in in traffic congestion. And you were saying something to her about UH and the private schools. What was that, Gordon?
[00:55:43] Gordon Lum: One of the questions that uh she had asked was basically, um why can't something be done with regards to school hour changes? Because that it seems like during the summer months um um the traffic doesn't seem that bad. Well, we did a study on that and based upon the study, it found that about 90% of that traffic problem is attributed to private schools and the university and as a result of that, the legislature tried to see whether or not they might be able to do something about that.
[00:56:09] Speaker 7: So if we change the hours of of private schools and the university that we could have year-round trade right now 1995 we could have year-round traffic that would flow more or less like it does during the summer?
[00:56:21] Gordon Lum: That that was the hope of that particular um um project. Why didn't it go anywhere? Uh there was a lot of opposition. Again, this concept of new winners and new losers. The new losers would be those people who would have to drop off their kid their kids at the school a lot earlier.
[00:56:36] Speaker 7: Oh, or a lot later, right? At odd hours. Uh they were thinking right, or a lot later because um commuters had to get to work at a certain time. What it meant would be that they would have to drop their kids off a lot. They would have to wait at the schools a lot longer regardless of um when school started because school would not start earlier, it would probably start later. Okay. We we have on the line, my wife got a whole
[00:57:00] Randall Roth: Hugh Ono, who is the the chief of the highway division for the State Department of Transportation, and thus far a conversation this morning is focused on the situation here on Oahu. And we thought maybe we would ask Hugh in just a a minute or so to give us some flavor for some of the traffic issues on the neighbor islands. Hugh, are you there?
[00:57:20] Speaker 14: Yes, I am.
[00:57:20] Randall Roth: And I want to thank you for, uh, for talking to us. I know you're at your daughter's wedding reception.
[00:57:25] Speaker 14: Thank you, Randy.
[00:57:28] Randall Roth: Um, give us a flavor for how this plays out on the neighbor islands.
[00:57:32] Speaker 14: I mean you mentioned the Big Island was was a situation you're particularly familiar with. What are are some of the concerns they have over there?
[00:57:40] Speaker 14: Well, on the neighbor islands, the traffic congestion problems are primarily regional and they're associated with the urban centers or the urbanization or not only the urbanization but also in, uh, in an unusual case would be the District of Puna, which is about the size of Oahu, where, uh, there are some 60,000 lots and, you know, over the years there's been, uh, uh, rapid buildup and all of a sudden, the road system or the highway system is inadequate to handle those volumes of traffic. Those are happening in in certain areas of each of the neighbor islands. Uh, on Kauai, it's along the Kapaa side as well as the Kaumualii side. In Maui, it's happening, uh, on the Kihei side, and uh, also in the Lahaina, uh, area.
[00:58:25] Randall Roth: And I I know some of those problems are unique in in in other ways. You were mentioning to me the other day about how, uh, these bypass possibilities get complicated when they go through Hawaiian homelands areas?
[00:58:38] Speaker 14: Well, not only Hawaiian homeland areas, but, uh, anytime there's a displacement involved where, uh, people will have to be relocated to create the bypasses and, uh, yeah, those are, uh, challenging situations that we face. Uh, nonetheless, uh, uh, you know, the problems have to be solved one way or the other, so we keep on moving ahead and trying to, uh, you know, improve the traffic congestion situation by lane capacity.
[00:59:03] Randall Roth: The the people haven't been forgotten whether they're on Oahu or on the neighbor islands, there are folks like you and Gordon Lum who are working on it daily.
[00:59:10] Speaker 14: Uh, certainly.
[00:59:11] Randall Roth: Okay, Hugh, thank you for calling in. We're flat out of time, and I want to thank Lou Rose, a professor of economics from University of Hawaii, and Gordon Lum, the executive director of the Oahu Metropolitan Planning Organization, for being our guests this morning. Our producer is Susie Roth, our Director of Operations, Jeff Vilardi. Next week, we're going to be talking about a situation where the rights of individuals sometimes come into conflict with the interests of the broader community. For example, we're going to take a look at Malama O Manoa, the, uh, situation where some folks are wanting to impose some ordinances that would restrict people's ability to do with their private property what they might want to do, and I think we'll go into some other neighborhoods around the state to show how this tension is is being reflected. You've been listening to the Price of Paradise radio show. I'm Randy Roth, Aloha.