The purpose to owning an automobile is the “mobility” that it makes available. The United States, and even the state of Hawaii enjoys the prosperity it does because of mobility. We move people, we move goods via trucks, we move emergency vehicles, we move all manner of things all on the basis of easy and available mobility.

Traffic congestion on Oahu increases dramatically when the school season sets in. This is because of the mobility of parents taking their children to school. It is the safest, most efficient means by which to get children to their schools. The same pattern is repeated in the afternoon when schools let out and parents pick their children up. So there is a twice a day crush.

Public transit can only handle a tiny fraction of this traffic. The mobility that is required to get children from school to soccer practice makes having private transportation a necessity. The afternoon traffic congestion crush is precisely because parents cannot wait to get their children, for various reasons, and then get them to other destinations. Public transportation will never be able to fill this need.

The real difference is that buses can be flexible and routes changed over time. This is not true of fixed systems like rail. They are inflexible and as population patterns change they cannot be modified to meet changing conditions. Rail advocates like to state that rail stimulates economic development around rail stations but this hasn’t been proven to be the case.

There is an interesting anomaly though. Housing prices are higher the closer to rail stations even though the vast majority of residents don’t actually use rail. This serves to drive up housing prices even though there is little corresponding increase in transit ridership. The high density mixed use developments touted as the main justification for rail that surround transit stations do not pan out as thriving economic communities.

This has proven true in Portland Oregon and other cities that have followed this paradigm. What ends up happening is the city gives huge subsidies and tax breaks to those who will actually buy the units to live and work there. This means the rest of the city residents are subsidizing the developments. Not only are they taxed to pay for the rail system the majority will never use but they will also have to pay subsidies to make the Transit Oriented Developments become economically attractive.

The amount of increased mobility offered by the proposed rail system is extremely limited. It is designed, and will only service, a small fraction of the island’s population. The rest of the island will gain nothing even though all will be pay the increased General Excise Tax. Not only that, those that stand to gain are among the high paid, higher income people of the island. As is often the case with rail it is a subsidy for the affluent.

True mobility would be served by expanding the highway and roadway system. Hawaii has the lowest lane miles per capita in the nation. Even Puerto Rico has more lane miles of roadway per person than Hawaii. The traffic congestion we experience is actually due to years of neglect.

High Occupancy Toll lanes, an expanded expressway network would do far more to increase mobility than any fixed rail system. There is a reticence to overhaul the H-1 freeway from the School Street merge into downtown but, in fact, it is inevitable. Individuals as well as businesses will continue to lose time, money and productivity until this is done. The economic damage will eventually force it.

It is a strange thing that rail advocates have no problem using eminent domain to secure right-of-way for rail but object when the same proposal is made for highways. There is something of a double standard at work. The anti-automobile crowd is never consistent in their viewpoints and advocacy except to obstruct the use of the automobile.

The mobility of businesses, their employees, commuters and family members is far more important than creating a transit “alternative” for a small percentage of the population in a narrow population corridor. The island as a whole would be far better served if our transit officials would stop thinking of only one option and investigate what has been proven to work in other cities. Toll ways are the wave of the future.

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