It isn’t often that I agree with Lee Cataluna of The Honolulu Advertiser on local news, but in her Sunday June 25, 2006 op-ed, she has it half right. Her editorial “Rail Bad? Just look at us now” was somewhat on the mark. But not for the reasons she might envision.

The recent renderings by artists of what rail might look like have shocked many and brought home the reality of what they are considering. City Council budget chair Anne Kobayashi was prompted to ponder, “Does it have to be so ugly?” Well, yeah, if you know what it is you are considering you know it is going to be more ugly than you can possibly imagine.

This is where Cataluna makes a salient point. “Maybe the kids will finally stop spray-painting people's redwood fences. They'll have trains to adorn with graffiti instead, just like the big cities.” They almost certainly won’t just spray paint the trains but all those wonderful support columns that are going to be fodder for endless artistic amusement. The police aren’t busy enough chasing ice addicts and dealers now they can focus on clandestine graffiti artists defiling the rail columns, stations and trains as well. Oh joy!.

In Portland, Oregon the criminals have learned to work the light rail system so they can quickly escape to another part of town after committing a crime in downtown. Cataluna’s assessment that the homeless and other marginal residents will find new ways to exploit the rail system has more validity than her tongue-in-cheek assessment indicates. Crime on rapid transit is a major drawback to such systems.

Her projection that people will forego automobiles in the Ewa suburbs for rail isn’t drawn out by the facts though. People expect other people to forego “their” cars, leaving the highways open for rail advocates.

The vast majority say they will ride rail but when confronted with the reality of the time delays public transit entails quickly abandon it then lament that others aren’t availing themselves of the system we all “sacrificed” to build. The car thieves will still have plenty of vehicles to steal.

The final conclusion in her commentary though is faulty “So bring on the rail. Might as well.” The implication being that it cannot be worse than what we already have.

In that she is wrong, it could be worse, much worse. And considering the amount of money and resources that would be wasted on such an endeavor that will do nothing to relieve traffic congestion, I agree: “Rail bad.” Enough said.

Ref: http://tinyurl.com/hwu4u

Don Newman, senior policy analyst for the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii can be reached at: mailto:don@grassrootinstitute.org