EDITORIAL
Latest transit planning adapts to new reality

There are different ways of painting the picture, but it is clear that the administration of Mayor Jeremy Harris has moved toward a pragmatic, conciliatory approach toward transit planning in Honolulu.

Various ambitious plans for massive rapid transit projects for Honolulu have been floated over the years. All have faltered, for reasons ranging from questions of cost-benefit values to fears about new taxes and construction chaos.

Now, the city appears to have adopted a modest, incremental approach that will build a more robust public transportation infrastructure without eliminating the option of more ambitious plans in the future.

City Council Chairman Gary Okino fears the administration may be becoming too timid.

"If you are going to try to do something different, go for it," he told Advertiser transportation writer Mike Leidemann.

But the city has apparently decided that "going for it" is a political and practical impossibility at the moment.

Earlier plans had called for dedicated bus lanes, transit corridors down the middle of major streets and new, high-technology vehicles. Those plans are abandoned. Instead, the buses of this first stage of the BRT system will share lanes with other buses, both public and private.

Okino has a point in that, by making this project one which avoids most major objections, the city has reduced it to a level where the benefits might not meet the costs.

But doing nothing is not an alternative. Honolulu has a heavily used transit system with its current bus service. "Dream" solutions such as a futuristic monorail and the like are years away, at best.

The debate over a perfect transportation solution for Honolulu is endless. The need for an alternative to the private automobile is obvious.

What the Harris administration proposes today is a sensible interim response to an intractable problem.