SECOND OPINION
BRT: a pattern of deception?

By Cliff Slater

There has been so much misrepresentation lately in the city's promotion of its Bus Rapid Transit project that one can only concur with the former chair of the Hanauma Bay Community Task Force, who said the city "raises the practice of spin to the level of outright deception."

For example, when opponents of the In-Town Bus Rapid Transit charge that the project will remove general traffic lanes from Ala Moana Boulevard, the city responds that they are not taking lanes from Ala Moana Boulevard 'ewa of the Ala Wai bridge. When challenged, the city is forced to reveal that while they will not be taking lanes next year, they will be taking them in 2007.

When opponents say that narrowing lanes to just 10 feet will exacerbate traffic congestion since 10-foot-4-inch-wide tour buses are wider than the lane, the city responds that the opponents are wrong, the maximum allowable width of tour buses is only 8 feet 6 inches. But that is only the maximum body width, not the mirror-to-mirror width. Is the city indulging in spin? Or deception?

You will have heard the city say frequently that there will be a 10-minute time savings using BRT from downtown to Waikiki. But that is only if you compare the BRT's 25-to-30-minute time with a regular No. 19 bus along the same circuitous route the BRT takes. A more direct bus route would be Route B, which takes only 22 minutes. Spin? Or deception?

Many people now think the city has decided to cut back on most of the exclusive lanes it once planned for BRT. In fact, three years from now, the In-Town BRT will have all the exclusive lanes it had originally planned and announced. Is this public misunderstanding the result of spin? Or deception?

Have you been led to believe that BRT will help reduce traffic congestion? Think about this: For the afternoon commute from downtown going diamondhead, commuters will find that two of the lanes on King Street, two lanes on Kapi'olani and one lane on Ala Moana Boulevard have been taken over by the BRT and cannot be used by regular traffic. Help reduce congestion?

In its efforts to mislead voters on BRT, the city has one major advantage: At City Council hearings, the city administration can present for as long as two hours; the opponents are allowed just one minute to rebut — no matter how qualified or how knowledgeable.

For example, Dr. Panos Prevedouros, UH traffic expert, who has conducted computerized simulations of BRT's traffic congestion effects, was told he could speak at council hearings after city transit officials had made their presentation — but for only one minute. He obviously could not make any contribution of value in a minute and stayed away. In his absence, city officials characterized his work as "simplistic."

Dr. Prevedouros, as you can quickly determine from his record, does not do "simplistic" work, and characterizing his work as such is not spin; it is deception, pure and simple.

For my one minute at the most recent City Council Transportation Committee hearing on BRT, I could only begin to testify on a list of the deceptive statements the city had just made in its presentation before my time ran out.

To be fair, it is not just Honolulu that practices deception in transit projects. Many academics have written on deception in the promotion of transit projects as being the norm nationally and internationally.

Last year, Aalborg University in Denmark published a study of 258 transportation infrastructure project costs in 20 countries. They found that cost overruns for transit projects averaged 50 percent and that transit officials' lying about their projects was usually the problem.

There needs to be some way — possibly formal debate — to allow Hawai'i voters to hear from legitimate opposition by responsible community organizations that have studied city projects, such as the BRT, and found them wanting.

Cliff Slater is a regular columnist whose footnoted columns are at www.lava.net/cslater.