By Bob Krauss
Advertiser Columnist

What's in the future of Our Honolulu: buses or fixed rail transit? What about water taxis?

Perhaps it would be instructive to step back 100 years when we were trying to decide between bicycles and electric or gasoline automobiles.

It's Oct. 8, 1899. Honolulu's first automobile is whizzing by, an electric contraption owned by H.P. Baldwin, the Maui sugar magnate, who is dressed in a dark suit with high collar.

He doesn't have the nerve to drive it. Behind the wheel is E.D. Tenney, a persuasive speculator who has organized Hawai'i's first auto dealership. The machine performs faultlessly on a drive out King Street to Punahou at speeds of 4, 8 and 14 mph.

What? An electric automobile? They hadn't been invented yet.

Wrong. The smelly, trouble-prone gasoline automobile received far less attention at first than the noiseless, suave electric, probably because the rattle and roar of a gasoline engine scared the devil out of horses.

Tenney announced in March 1900 that 20 electric cars were Honolulu-bound from Chicago. They carried batteries with a capacity for a 25-mile run. Some of Honolulu's leading citizens invested hard cash to build a service station where they could charge their batteries.

Almost simultaneously, The Advertiser ran a story about the first drunken driver. He careened wildly up Kalakaua Avenue, then known as Waikiki Road, causing harrowing escapes for people in his path. Two bicyclists went into the ditch for safety.

The editor lamented this newfangled danger on the road, already beset by bicyclists, carriage drivers and unmanageable steeds. Now comes the auto fiend!

In July, four months later, Lili'uokalani took a joy ride to Waikiki in her locomobile. Manipulating the levers herself, with a servant at her side, she proudly whizzed out toward Paul Neumann's country place. Suddenly, the machine came to a stop of its own volition.

Royal commands didn't budge it. Lili'uokalani had to return to town in a streetcar.

Another historic moment occurred three days later — the first auto theft in Our Honolulu. Pat Cochoran, a fireman, was drunk when he came by the Opera House where Louis Grant had parked his splendid new electric auto.

Seized by a frenzy of possession, Cochoran jumped into the driver's seat and worked the levers. Nothing happened. Honolulu's first auto theft went nowhere until Cochoran happened to hit the gong button, which warned pedestrians to get out of the way. Police converged and arrested Cochoran. The car hadn't budged.

It wasn't long before the electric-car company, Hawaiian Auto, went bankrupt. Its stock of cars burned in a fire, but insurance paid a third of their investment.

The moral of the story is: Don't throw away good money on speculation. We've got a bus system that works. Let's go with it.

Reach Bob Krauss at 525-0873.