Drive Time
Airborne spotter gets the big picture
By Mike Leidemann
Advertiser Transportation Writer
Tony Scott, Hawai'i's only eye-in-the-sky traffic reporter, sees the big picture. You can't miss it when you're flying several thousand feet over the H-1 Freeway on a brilliant, traffic-jammed O'ahu morning.
Most days, things are fine coming into town from the Windward side. Ever since the H-3 Freeway opened, Windward traffic has been pretty much a non-event, Scott says.
Out toward East Honolulu, things are holding steady, no better or worse than in the years since Kalaniana'ole Highway was widened.
"What's steadily getting worse is the trip from Central O'ahu," Scott says. "There's certain choke points people just can't avoid, and yet we're still building homes out there faster than highways."
So if someone appointed Scott the czar of Honolulu traffic, here's his plan:
• First he would do whatever it takes to force more businesses to the Kapolei area. "Until you get a significant percentage of traffic moving in that direction, things are going to keep getting worse," he says.
• Then he'd build the highway to end all eyesores in Hawai'i. It would start in 'Ewa and end past downtown. It would go across Pearl Harbor, makai of the reef runway and over Sand Island.
Of course, he knows that will never happen. Too many political, environmental and economic objections.
So Scott does what he can every morning to ease your commuting woes.
He's up at 4 a.m. and at the airport by 5. His first airborne traffic report goes on at 5:45 a.m., when most drivers are still asleep. For the next three hours, he's flying up, down and all around looking for
hot spots of trouble and reporting alternate routes to commuters who listen to his reports delivered on more than two dozen radio stations. After a short nap, it's more of the same — in reverse direction — from 3:45 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.
Meanwhile his wife (and producer) is at home in Kailua, monitoring a specially approved police scanner and the city's traffic cameras for early signs of trouble and radioing them up to Scott.
"The important thing is that people get the news right away," Scott says. "Maybe three or four times a week, I can help people out in the early stages of a traffic jam and steer them around it."
Once the word gets out, though, the alternate routes can get clogged, too.
Scott, who started flying in 1986, was working as a radio station engineer and producer in Kansas City when he began doing airborne traffic reports. In 1995 he heard that Honolulu's legendary helicopter traffic reporter Capt. Irwin Malzman was retiring, so Scott decided to bring his business here, selling the reports to local stations.
This month he faces a challenge. A major client has stopped buying the reports; instead it will trade for them with commercial airtime, which Scott must sell. In the trade, it's called a barter system, and Scott says that's the way most traffic-reporting businesses are handled on the Mainland.
"It's a good opportunity for us to grow, but we need to get some clients right away, someone who wants to have their name associated with our business," Scott says.
Someone who can see the big picture and wants others to see it, too.
Mike Leidemann writes about transportation issues. You can call him at 525-5460, write him at The Advertiser, P.O. Box 3110, Honolulu, HI 96802 or e-mail mleidemann@honoluluadvertiser.com
