Honolulu is a special and beautiful city unlike any other. Seeing Hawaii for the first time, here is what famed poet Mark Twain wrote: “no land in all the world has any deep, strong charm for me but that one; no other land could so longingly and beseechingly haunt me sleeping and waking, through half a lifetime, as that one has done. Other things leave me, but it abides; other things change, but it remains the same.”
Honolulu’s greatest gift to its people and to the world is its beauty. We have an enduring responsibility to malama aina – to see to it that while other things in this world may change, the beauty, character and charm of Honolulu should never change.
As you can see by these expert computer renderings produced by the Honolulu Chapter of American Institute of Architecture, rail will mar the natural beauty of our city for decades to come. Ugly also comes with a price tag of $5.27 to $7 billion dollars to Honolulu’s taxpayers.
Ben Cayetano came out of retirement to run for mayor because he wants to preserve a Honolulu whose enduring beauty is worth handing over to our future keiki and to preserve the finances of our hardworking taxpayers. That’s why we need you to pass the word to all your friends on what Honolulu Rail will look like once completed, get involved by volunteering or donating to Ben’s campaign and most importantly,
Please Vote on Saturday, August 11th for Ben.
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I hate to break it to you, but everytime a skyscraper is built, a new store, and even with more roads, it’s taking away from the beauty of Hawai’i. … You guys need to stop with the advancing of technology. You guys are so close minded. Rail is needed as traffic situation is not getting any better, you can go ahead and extend lanes and what not on freeways, that is just going to add to the congestion already.
Mr. fung are you from China or maybe Tibet? When did you land? I dont. think you understand that rail go only east to west. and what if you need to go north to south? Rail only going take you along one narrow corridor. What if you like go down beretania St from UH to kalihi and rail only travels along kapiolani blvd. What u going do? Walk the 5 blocks to get there? or call a rickshaw? And what if after rail is built and all your developer and consultant friends get their big windfalls and leave this town, and you find out they not your friends after all, and now you got to pay $12.00 to ride the thing every day (Bay area rapid transit current round trip fare to ride from San Francisco to Freemont California.) and you and your children are also now stuck with taxes of $14,000.00 per family even if you can’t afford to ride the darn thing cause the rail job they promised you went to a guy from Alabama instead. NOW who needs to stop with the advancing of technology? duh, what was that ?
Mr. fung are you from China or maybe Tibet? When did you land? I dont. think you understand. Prease listen grasshopper: Rail go only east to west, and what if you need to go north to south? Rail only going take you along one narrow corridor. So; what if a student like go from UH to Kalihi down Beretania st. but rail only goes down kapiolani blvd. What they going do? Walk the 5 blocks to get there every day? Or, ask the city to build another one that travels along beretania? or call a rickshaw? And what if after rail is built and all your developer and consultant friends get their big windfalls and leave this town, and you find out they not your friends after all, and now you got to pay $12.00 to ride the thing every day (Bay area rapid transit current round trip fare is 11.50 to ride from San Francisco to Freemont California.) and you and your children are also now stuck with taxes of $14,000.00 per person even if you can’t afford to ride the darn thing cause the rail job they promised you went to a guy from Alabama instead. NOW who needs to stop with the advancing of technology? duh, what was that
Rail is the solution if you live in Waipahu and work for Aloun farms and need to get to work.
Wait, stop and think about this. You want to spend $5.5 Billion so a few farmers can get to work on Aloun Farms. For this price, it’s cheaper to provide free limousine service for life to these farmers.
May I remind you guys that every time there is a major accident on the road, it affects everything.. even buses. Every time it rains, everyone all of a sudden clogs up the roads. What should only take 30 minutes to drive all of a sudden adds another hour. Rail is the alternative we need.
And may I remind you that rail going be hard to use. Mr. fung where you going park when you ride the rail? what you going do, if while you wait for a train to come, someone pulls a knife or gun and robs you or even does bodily harm to you in the isolated rail stations in late night and early mornings. May i remind you that if you decide to say, open a business along the rail route, to be prepared to get your hearing checked every month as you will be pleasantly surprised how loud that rail (steel wheels on steel tracks) really is.and finally here’s a reminder to just let you know
that you really should help stop rail so we can all have our sewers, water mains, rubbish dump, roads, all up to par again.
HART CEO Grabauska now says the rail completion – to finish the project – will cost $9.03 BILLION!
May I renind Tony Fung that the the Highways and Busess go EVERYWHERE but the RAIL
WILL NOT !
$ 9 Billion ( Rail head cheese latest statement ) for a 20 mile Rail ONLY from Kapolei to Ala Moana is FISCALLY INSANE !
I have ridden the bus everyday for 10 years, it does not go everywhere, it is a very slow demining, and jarring ride, I spend more time waiting for the bus than I do riding it. BRT absolutely will not work here. Rail systems are greatly increasing their usage on the mainland and many cities have had to shut down BRT due to people don’t want to ride it but they did ride rail when it opened.
ok what about the way it looks, what about the double decker freeway by the airport, the elevated freeway in Makiki, and Kahalo these are monsterious compared to any elevated rail renderings I have seen, if we do not build elevated rail we will build more elevated freeway
the continuation of the Kahala elevated freeway will probably be next. Plus aren’t they going to start building 650ft buildings here that is really going to be a very blocker.
these complaints about how the rail will look are just ridiculous.
LOL !
So Tony Fung’s answer is to add exponentially more UGLINESS to that already there ?
not really, so is the elevated freeway at the airport an item of welcome to Hawaii which is the first thing you behold when arrive from plane in Hawaii. if we don’t build elevated rail they will build something much more ugly and much more intrusive. This complaining about what it will look like is just an opinion without any thinking
It was anti green, anti environment , anti anything that is fragile in our precious eco system, Sen. Dan, out of touch Inouye, who probably pushed that airport via duct into commission just like he plowed thru beautiful, pristine, moanalua halawa valley and carved out those majestic koolau mountains to install the H3 freeway which only a few use today. just like rail, get it buitl at any cost and at the expense of our beutiy and tranqility and let the peices fall where they may. and its fools like you who cant understand what is right and what is wrong. the answer to the traffic problem is to have less of it. and the way to have less of it is to have no more development. New developements are just for outside investors who will then rent to us locals or they are for big developer windfalls and profits and let the local buyer struggle with the enormous mortgage.
I can tell you because I grew up near heavy railroads….they are very quite and have a peaceful sound…NOT! They are noisy as hell.
For me, waiting in traffic is small inconvenience that happens only a few days a week – much less during school breaks. Compare that with 365 days (and beyong) of relentlessly having to pay more in taxes and fees. Like residemts in Hawaii Kai, Waimanalo, Kailua, North Shore, Waialua, and Kaneohe, I know I will never use rail if it’s ever even built. So many families here are barely able to make mortgage payments as it is, and this rail will spell catastrophy for them and the rest of us. Very scary! Rail is being shoved down the peoples’ throat this way for their benefit? No, thanks! You don’t want to be sorry for it later, believe me. It’s being advanced as an “investment” (supposedly) for the future, but only the special-interest individuals are profiting from it. It’s their special kind business venture in Oahu. It’s for the rich, so rich they are too big to fail, unlike me and the rest of Hawaii people. As to the candidates, for me it’s a choice only between caldwell and cayetano because both are Hawaii-born (keep it local…or, kamaaina). too bad, though, the anti-rail guy gets our votes.
well not really, everyone benefits from rail… you and me and all of us benefit from people riding the rail systems in New York City… just because you don’t ride something doesn’t mean you don’t benefit from it. when they build H3 that too was paid by taxes paid by people living on other islands. You and I pay taxes to build roads in Afganistan. Our current Bus system here is already too over burdened and its riders are just riding it because they have to. Many people will ride the rail by choice like BART in the bay area, many park their cars and ride the system to work it is a heavly used system. Cayetano, will not be able to fix roads either. besides I lived in the foot hills of california for a long time we have roads here many times better shape that what I had to drive on. This is just another bunch of complaining that is way overstated.
http://youtu.be/DbGiFyqMY2Y
Not good… no way… no how.
Now our crooks I hear they cannot wait
For riders to park and walk up to the gate
And return around five o’clock
Find their car on a concrete block
And their rims already being shipped out of state
GoBenGo
NoTrainNo
the answer to your comment is to raise gas tax to 25% and cover the entire island with roads and parking lots. thats what you are voting for.
I do think that if you remove the contractors, the developers, the people that bought up land along the route, the union members, the politicians and the family members of the above, then we could see who REALLY wants this thing. Everybody I mentioned will profit or THINKS they will. If this thing fails there will be a lot of crying like babies.
The City & County will probably be on the hook for millions, but at least that’s not BILLIONS. At least we won’t risk the huge showdown when the Rail gets to town (if ever) and plows right through the corridor with the sacred burials.
An expert in the field has told me that putting gigantic concrete columns in the stream bed is a bad idea and he feels there will be multiple places where the support columns may not be stable. These and so many issues can turn a really bad idea into a nightmare. BUT when it’s said and done…..I think a lot of families-some that have been here for generations will have to move to the mainland to escape the oppressive taxes.
Think about 80 cents more a gallon for gas and 40% higher property taxes.
and just who is this great expert of yours. well they have already hundreds of pillers in streambeds already from our free ways we will continue to more of them in streambeds even if we do not build the rail.
SIMPLE QUESTION: How many busses can we buy for $5.7 billion (or $9.3 billion)?
we now have about 561 buses in our fleet, the large ones with ths trailer in back cost about $300,00 per bus. maintaince is very high, the contribute heavy to road damage, add to congestion, require hiring Union paid drivers and is currently an overburdened system. Rail btw is much less expensive in the long term, can carry many more people and can opperation with fewer employee’s plus it gets the system off the main roads giving more room for cars.
BRT has failed in many cities already and can not be used here. then too if we do not build elevated raill we will be forced to build elevated freeway which we already have too much of.
All i know is that I wonʻt use it….thatʻs the truth. It wonʻt take me where i need to go. And sorry Tony Fung, if itʻs raining or thereʻs an accident, then getting to the rail station in your car or on a bus is still gonna take longer. I do believe it would help….but just a little and for the price, Iʻd prefer to sit in my car for half an hour longer and look at beautiful, unobstructed scenery. Fix the sewers and the roads…..
never say never, you will
I am for rail, but I think this rail is wrong. To me it will be the rail to “No Where”. The rail should go to the university, airport and downtown. Who in there right mind will take rail to Ala Moana? I would not want to carry my shopping back on the rail. The rail should have started at the university and then made its way out west. Then at least it could start earning an income. Now who will ride from Kapolei to Aiea when it r uns out of money.
They have plans for it to go the University, but they have to build the first segment first then they add extension. I was architecture here before I retired and saw the priliminiares for the rail to go to UH. it would be a heavy ridership. Just take the bus A now and see how many students are on it. They also in time will extend it to Hawaii Kai
Ray, FYI, According to HART’s Dan Grabauskas, to extend rail to UH, Kapolei and Waikiki would cost $4 billion which would mean $5.27 billion + $4 billion = $9.27 billion. The Waikiki business leaders oppose the extension into Waikiki because an elevated, steel on steel, heavy rail system running through Kuhio Avenue would be blight to the area. As for the UH extension, to go over the freeway, the rail structure would be more than 100 feet high.
The problem is that Hawaii traffic sucks and will only get worse. I bet that the majority of rail supporters are only supporting the idea of reducing traffic somehow without fully understanding the consequences and costs of building and maintaining the thing. Alternative options for reducing traffic were not given nearly as much publicity thanks to Mufi’s heavy campaigning. I didn’t support Panos Prevedouros because he only cared about one issue, but I liked how he pointed out that according to the city’s ridership projections, it would be cheaper to buy all the new riders condos in town.
I went to several of the Mufi meetings, there were a lot of studies done, this is not a Mufi pipe dream, millions were spent on studies by professionals in transportation, and their concluseion was rail was the best option. we are only doing what many cities in the Us are already doing and the same process, also there was oposition too but when rail was successfull the oposition was silent. I try to be very fair with this issue am basically 51/49 for rail there is problems with it. But our other chooses just don’t impress me. Hawaii has too much road warrior mentallity to it.
I went to Mufi’s meeting and they were biased pro rail propoganda. The people attentding were not allowed to ask questions verbally but had to submit written questions that were screened so that they would not have to answer pertinent questions. It was one sided with the public being censored if they did not agree.
About Time! ! we all need to get to point A to Point B in less then 20 minutes. hate siiting in traffic. I use live at Hawaii Kai took me 45 to hour to get to work in Downtown. now takes me 7 hours 45 from Houston Tx. hahaha
beerry fuunny grasshopper. what do you mean,” now takes me 7 hours and 45 minutes from houston tx.” are you tripping? do you mean to tell me that you would ride a rail from houston to honolulu, instead of calling first. Do you have a lot of scars on your back and on the back of your head from swimming across the Rio Grande and climbing under the barb wire to get into houston Texas?
If I remember correctly. This been in the talk since late 90′s
well acutally it been since the 1970 when mayor Fasi proposed rail, we should have done it then.
yeah, and what kind of rail do you suppose it would have been in 1970? Like the one maybe that goes from pearlrigde mall phase 1 and 2. I think that was built in 1970 and it only cost a quarter at the time. What if that was the technology of the day then. I tell you what people like you and all the other uninformed, misinformed rail pushers should go to disney land and ride them rail till you get your fill and then at least you dont have to pay for it every day even if you not going use it and when you feel the urge to get another rail joy ride then go back diiney land and get your fill again and you can even ride on the dumbo the elephant ride while you at it.
well, they built BART in the bay area in the 1960 and its still is a very heavily used system and thousands of people pard their cars and ride. yes it did not relieve congestion but it did prove that those who won’t ride the bus will ride the rail. much of it is elevated and the space undernteath is used for traffic and other. Its technology has been upgrades. BRT is a very lousy way to go it just another pain in the already existing traffic. It too will cost more than rail and is a maintenance nightmare. Ben wants us to have low rated system that someday we will have to abandon.
Thanks, Governor Cayetano, for all your efforts.
So… no one here is aware that rail is actually a DEVELOPMENT SCAM??? I agree that we need to reasses our transit situation, but rail uses public demand to further insider agendas. Developers would cover this whole damn state in concrete if they were allowed to. Rail takes the real demand for lessening traffic congestion and gives developers a back door to develop heavily in these areas. It’s called TRANSIT-ORIENTED DEVELOPMENT. If you haven’t heard of these words, please stop commenting while only half-informed.
The Bus go’s everywhere BUT the Rail will NOT
Yet the City is DESTROYING the BEST BUS SYSTEM IN THE USA and is taking approx $ 245 Million from The Bus Funds to prop up the Rail. INSANITY !
Hey Ray Salmon
If you love Ugly Rail so much then go retire in CHICAGO !
ALL Cities with BAD Congestion have RAIL ( UGLY RAIL ).
Folk don’t ride the Bus because they have to. Many choose to becsuse it’s convenient.
Again ! The RAIl will NEVER be as FLEXIBLE as the Bus !
It will only go from Kapolei to Ala Moana !
This is awesome, however if it’s only limited from Kapolei then what is the point. I ride the 94 Bus once in awhile from Kapolei and it’s fine. But have any of the other people that are against the rail ever rode a rail in another city. It’s fast and exhaust free and smooth flowing and relatively clean. So the installation of the rail system is a plus however, I agree that the rail line does take up alot of space and there is possibility of homeless people deciding to plant their ass under one of those stuctures which will be another nuisance.
It bothers me when they compare our island with the mainland.we are just a little dot in this vast ocean.Can you imagine when a cup over flows with water it destroys everything it touches and thats is happening to our Island, how many homes can you put on one island,how many cars can you put on this island, is there no end!!!!!!!!!!! electric, water, sewage gas going up,up,and up with no end in sight. (and it wont ever go down either) These CEO that run these companys want bigger profits which leads to fatter paychecks for thier pockets.These people live in another world, we are just pawns in their eyes. So I say to all of you out there vote for the truth.We are all adults look around you , Ask your self, Do I want my children to live in a third world country with a nice rail and destruction all around us or do we want to live on an island with lots of aloha.(not this fake aloha that these politicians give when they want something) So I say ask your self? much mahalo