Hawaii Liberty Chronicles

By Panos Prevedouros

This second part provides excerpts from the last 12 commentators and our brief conclusions.

12. Ed Wytkind, President, Transportation Trades Department, AFL-CIO
“Transit investment will relieve road congestion and offer environmentally sound transportation alternatives to increase economic efficiency and global competitiveness.” Sad to see that unions simply copy-paste boilerplate half truths.

13. Steve Van Beek, President & CEO, Eno Transportation Foundation
“Input straight-line assumptions about behavior today and out will come results which suggest public transportation will play a marginal role in the future. (Such an analysis when the Model T was invented would have led to a future replete with horses and buggies and with underbuilt road networks.)” Unfortunately Mr. Van Beek not looked into Bureau of Transportation Statistics showing that public transit share of trips is very small and diminishing, and that the increasing share of telecommuting begins to dwarf rail transit.

14. John D. Porcari, Secretary, Maryland Department of Transportation
“We have to start by leveling the playing field. While we get highway funds by formula, states and metro areas fight for transit monies primarily through earmarks, and the race to the bottom known as the New Starts program. End the false dichotomy between highway and transit funding by making system preservation needs the first call on federal dollars (whether highways and bridges, transit, aviation or port needs) and then using local, regional and state land use plans to drive new capacity (transit or highway) investment decisions with the remaining unified federal formula dollars.” Highways, bridges, airports and harbors generate their own revenues from user fees and are rarely subsidized by taxpayers. Electricity, telephone, water and sewer services break even and can be profitable. Where is the revenue stream for rail and bus? It is remarkable that people who charge one dollar for a trip that costs over ten dollars are in leading and expert prositions.

15. Greg Cohen, President and CEO, American Highway Users Alliance
“The current funding arrangements are set up so that federal highway user fees subsidize transit expenses — thus creating the unfortunate reality that transit does compete for funding at the expense of highway programs. It is important for policy makers and the public to recognize that (excluding air travel) between 98 and 99% of all passenger miles and vehicles miles of travel occur of our nation’s aging roads. Both private auto use and efficient public transit use in most areas is largely dependent on a good network of safe and efficient roads.”

16. Robert L. Crandall, Retired Chairman and CEO, AMR and American Airlines
“In the furor over finding ways to increase and sustain employment, and the understandable desire to use infrasturcture investment to attach that problem, we need to remember that money invested in the wrong tools is the equivalent of money wasted. Bob Poole’s thoughts on how to use buses and rapid transit lanes strike me as worth very careful thought.”

17. Bob Poole, Director of Transportation Studies, Reason Foundation
“For the 22 Metropolitan Planning Organizations whose long-range plans were reviewed, transit spending averages 41% of the total, while transit’s projected mode share is just 5.5%. Something is wrong with this picture. First, MPOs project only modest increases in transit’s mode share by 2030, despite devoting more than 40% (on average) of all transportation dollars to transit. Second, they project that traffic congestion in 2030 will be significantly worse than it is today. There is a direct connection between under-funding the highway infrastructure that buses, car-poolers, and individual motorists depend on and continued increases in congestion. The key is to use congestion pricing for these express lanes. More than a decade of experience with HOT lane projects in half a dozen states has demonstrated the power of congestion pricing to provide reliable, high-speed, uncongested traffic flow on such lanes. Transit agencies would love to have exclusive busways, but a congestion-priced lane is, in fact, the virtual equivalent of an exclusive bus lane. The pricing simply allows enough paying automobiles to share the use of the lane, without degrading its uncongested performance.”

18. Geoff Anderson, Co-chair of the Transportation for America Campaign, President and CEO of Smart Growth America
“There is an undeniable linkage between our broken economy, our broken energy/climate policy, and our broken transportation system. Investing in a 21st Century transportation system with an emphasis on mass transit solutions – while creating safe streets for walking and biking to with them — is a three for one deal: it kick starts our economy and generates jobs, gives hungry Americans transportation options, and begins to solve our climate crisis.” Pure “smart growth” nonsense. There is no significant link between broken economy, walkable streets, bikeways and the ozone layer. You can, however, wordsmith good looking paragraphs and drive up the deficits in the absence of cost-effectiveness and accountability.

19. Deron Lovaas , Federal Transportation Policy Director, Natural Resources Defense Council
“The short answer is that yes, the time is ripe for making a larger commitment to public transportation than has been the case in the last 50 years.” Why? Spending 20% of the transportation budget in the last 20 years on transit systems that carry 5% of the public has not been bad enough?

20. Paul M. Weyrich, Chairman and CEO, Free Congress Foundation
“I have my doubts about the effectiveness of stimulus bills, but since it is clear President elect Obama is intent on advocating one,I certainly hope the Congress will include $8 billion of American Public Transportation Association short-term transit projects in whatever bill they come up with.” This is $8 billion nationwide. Relatively tiny Honolulu would like to build a $5 billion rail … pretty please Mr. Obama.

21.Robert Puentes, Senior Fellow and Director, Metropolitan Infrastructure Initiative
“Although almost all of our buses serve the top 100 metro areas but half are concentrated in just 10 large metros. Heavy rail (subways) exist in only 11 metros like Philly and San Francisco. Commuter rail is in only 14 metropolitan areas – primarily in the Northeast and California. And light rail can be found in only 26 – like Minneapolis, San Diego, and Denver. Based on the admittedly simple inventory of transit infrastructure available, 54 of the 100 largest metros do not have any rail transit service and also have relatively weak bus systems. As employment has dispersed through metro areas, lower income workers are finding themselves increasingly isolated and therefore need to spend higher proportions of their income to reach their jobs.” So how can a single rail line with 20 stations help them? Did I mention that it costs $5 billion?

22. Rich Sarles, Executive Director, NJ TRANSIT
“At NJ TRANSIT, we have experienced five consecutive years of record-high ridership with nearly one million trips taken on the system each weekday. Ridership continues to be strong, despite lower gasoline prices, especially on rail service on our busiest lines serving Manhattan. In the next 25 years, we expect ridership on these lines to more than double, creating new challenges to acquire the infrastructure (station capacity, track, rail yards, etc.), rolling stock (rail cars and locomotives) and resources needed to support this demand.” This is really where the nation should be spending its transit monies.

23. Pete Ruane, President and CEO, American Road & Transportation Builders Association
“According to the U.S. Department of Transportation (U.S. DOT), there is $20 billion annual shortfall at the federal level between current highway investment levels and what is necessary just to maintain road conditions. For public transit at the federal level, the shortfall is about $4 billion annually.” It is too obvious that priority one is maintenance and restoration of what we have, and cautious investment in new priced roadway capacity including exclusive busways and exclusive truckways.

To answer the original question in the subject line: All cases of rail transit in the U.S. excluding Chicago, New York City, and a few other legacy systems have been hyper expensive dinosaur resuscitations at taxpayer expense.

It would be a remarkably poor and expensive choice of President Obama to sink taxpayer dollars in rail transit New Starts. We can barely afford to keep the CTA, MARTA, BART and other metro rail systems alive. Let’s please leave all future dinosaur resuscitations to the movies.

The HPU Reason Club, Students in Free Enterprise, and Grassroot Institute of Hawaii are hosting Dr. Jose Cordeiro for a formal presentation this week at HPU.

Guest speaker Jose Cordeiro–currently a Visiting Research Fellow at the Institute of Developing Economics, IDE - JETRO, in Japan, speaking on “Economics of Oil and Power: From South America to Asia.” He is an independent consultant, writer, researcher, professor and “tireless traveler.” A graduate of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (BSc and MSc Mechanical Engineering), Cordeiro also studied and Georgetown University and the Institute Européen d’Administration des Affaires (MBA). Cordeiro has worked for the French company Schlumberger, as an advisor to many major oil companies and with the international consulting company Booz-Allen & Hamilton. He is a member of numerous societies and has a resume too lengthy to reproduce here. Please visit www.cordeiro.org (and choose English) for details and other information.

Date:
Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Time:
3:30pm - 5:00pm

Location:

Hawaii Pacific University

Street:

1166 Fort Street Mall, Room FS 303

Honolulu, HI

Wendell Cox

By Wendell Cox and Ronald D. Utt, Ph.D.

Many environmental groups, business trade associations, and state and local governments anticipate that new Democratic leadership in Washington next year will lead to major changes in federal surface transportation policy. With the current highway authorization law (SAFETEA-LU) set to expire in September 2009, many of these organizations are recommending a substantial increase in federal transportation spending and expect that it will be funded by an equally substantial increase in the federal fuel tax (now set at 18.3 cents per gallon of gasoline).

At the same time, many environmental groups, labor unions, consultants, and construction companies are urging the federal government to redirect federal transportation policy toward 19th century transportation options by shifting federal resources from highways and autos to transit and trains, as well as hiking and biking, in the belief that these latter modes–while slower and more costly–are more fuel efficient and environmentally friendly. With an opportunity to receive greater subsidies, the transit and train lobbies have moved aggressively to influence Congress and the media, and many in Congress are already promising to push for these changes.[1]

But as the facts reveal, such a shift would cost vast sums of money, yield little or no transportation benefits, and undermine our economic well being by limiting mobility and raising the cost of travel.

Money in Transit

Despite claims of underfunding, the share of federal spending on transit vastly exceeds its passenger market share. Whereas about 20 percent of federal surface transportation spending is devoted to transit,[2] only 1.9 percent of all urban passenger travel[3] and 4.9 percent of all commuters use transit.[4]

Despite many years of massive government spending on transit–a total of $1 trillion (inflation adjusted) since 1970[5]–transit has experienced serious market share losses. In 1970, 8.5 percent of commuters used transit, but 4.9 percent did in 2007.[6]

Although carpooling receives very little government financial support, in 2007 more commuters carpooled (10.4 percent) than used transit (4.9 percent). Where modest government investments have been made in carpooling, the results have been impressive: In the Washington, D.C., suburb of Prince William County, Virginia, where a dedicated HOV lane is supported by remote commuter parking lots and a well-organized driver/rider system, 17.6 percent of commuters carpool, compared to the 4.7 percent that use transit.[7]

The share of “commuters” who work at home–an employment option that also receives little federal encouragement–reached 4.1 percent in 2007 compared to 4.9 percent for transit. At current trends, the share of the job market that works at home will exceed that of transit by 2012.

Jumping the Rails

U.S. transit ridership is concentrated in just a few metropolitan areas. In 2007, 74 percent of U.S. transit ridership took place in just seven metropolitan areas: New York; Philadelphia; Washington, D.C.; Boston; Chicago; San Francisco; and Los Angeles. In the Portland, Oregon, metropolitan area, which has made massive investments in a light rail system and transit-oriented development, only 5.5 percent of commuters in the area used transit in 2007,[8] well below the pre-light-rail (1980) share of 8.4 percent.

Despite exaggerated claims that Americans are turning to transit, more than half of the much-heralded increase in transit ridership is concentrated in a single metropolitan area: Of the 10.8 percent increase in nationwide transit ridership that occurred between 2005 and 2007, 60 percent of that increase occurred in the New York City urbanized area.

Transit advocates recently claimed that high gas prices have encouraged motorists to abandon their cars in favor of transit, but a detailed analysis of recent trends reveals that only 3 percent of the reduction in auto use shifted to transit by early 2008. The other 97 percent of the reduction in vehicle miles traveled in automobiles was absorbed by carpools, working at home, less auto use, walking, and more efficient auto use (combining trips, for example).[9] This estimate closely tracks recent polling results on changing travel patterns, which found that 4 percent of commuters used transit instead of driving, 9 percent shifted to carpools, and 66 percent combined multiple trips into a single trip.

Is Amtrak Underfunded?

Passenger rail advocates have made similar claims (and complaints) for Amtrak, but the record does not support them. Despite claims of rising ridership, Amtrak still serves less than 1 percent of the intercity travel market. A 15 percent increase of a miniscule share of the market is still a miniscule share of the market. Indeed, despite ridership gains, so far this year Amtrak trains are only 51.6 percent full, compared to more than 80 percent for commercial airlines.[10]

Amtrak’s complaints of being underfunded are also exaggerated. Although it accounts for only about one-half of 1 percent of the intercity passenger market, it will receive 2.5 percent of the federal surface transportation spending in FY 2008, nearly five times its market share.[11] Of all of the modes of travel, Amtrak riders receive far and away the highest per passenger federal subsidy. According to a 2004 U.S. Department of Transportation study, Amtrak passengers received a federal subsidy of $210.31 per passenger per thousand miles, compared to $4.66 for intercity buses and $6.18 for commercial airlines.[12] Automobiles earn a “profit” for the federal government since only about 63 percent of the federal fuel taxes paid by motorists are spent on roads; most of the rest is spent on transit.

Claims that Amtrak subsidies are justified because trains save on energy are also not supported by the facts. According to an earlier U.S. Department of Energy analysis of per passenger per mile BTU use by alternative travel modes, intercity buses are nearly three times more fuel efficient than passenger rail (Amtrak).[13] In effect, America could achieve significant savings in energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions if it shut down Amtrak and transferred all passengers to buses.

Laying the Groundwork

Congress may soon be embarking upon a massive spending program that is without precedent. And while the purposes of such a package will be both to stimulate the economy and “lay the groundwork for long-term economic growth,” as President-elect Obama promised, the facts presented above suggest that money devoted to technologically obsolete transportation schemes that the public does not use will undermine both of these goals, and America will be a poorer place because of it.

Wendell Cox is a Visiting Fellow and Ronald D. Utt, Ph.D., is Herbert and Joyce Morgan Senior Research Fellow in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation.

[1] Lindsay Peterson, “Rep. Mica Urges Area To Queue Up For Public Transit Cash,” The Tampa Tribune, November 25, 2008, at http://www2.tbo.com/content/2008/nov/25/ rep-mica-urges-area-queue-public-transit-funding/ (December 2, 2008).

[2] Ronald D. Utt, “Congress Undermines America’s Infrastructure by Looting the Highway Trust Fund,” Heritage WebMemo No. 2046, September 3, 2008, at http://www.heritage.org/Research/SmartGrowth/wm2046.cfm.

[3] See “Estimated Diversion of Roadway Traffic to Transit: 2008: Quarter 2,” Demographia.com, at http://www.demographia.com/db-hwytr2008q2.pdf (December 2, 2008).

[4] U.S. Census Bureau, American FactFinder, “United States, Selected Economic Characteristics: 2007

[5] See Urban Transport Fact Book, “U.S. Public Transport Expenditures, Subsidies and Passenger Usage from the 1960s,” at http://www.publicpurpose.com/ut-ussby.htm (December 2, 2008).

[6] The figure bottomed out at 4.6 percent in 2000, before the substantial increase in gasoline costs.

[7] U.S Census Bureau, American FactFinder, “United States, Selected Economic Characteristics: 2007.”

[8] Ibid.

[9] “Estimated Diversion of Roadway Traffic to Transit: 2008: Quarter 2,” Demographia.com

[10] “Amtrak Monthly Performance Report for August 2008,” Summary Metrics, p. A-2.2, October 6, 2008, at http://www.amtrak.com/pdf/0808monthly.pdf (December 2, 2008).

[11] U.S. Office of Management and Budget, Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2009 (Washington, D.C., U.S. Government Printing Office, 2008), p. 100.

[12] U.S. Department of Transportation, Bureau of Transportation Statistics, “Federal Subsidies to Passenger Transportation,” December 2004, Table 3.

[13] Ronald D. Utt, “Congress Should Link Amtrak’s Generous Subsidy to Improved Performance,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 2072, September 20, 2007, Table 3, p. 12, at http://www.heritage.org/Research/Budget/bg2072.cfm

This Tuesday, December 2 at the Warmer Auditorium at Hawaii Pacific University Greg Rehmke will address freedom and economics in India in the first session and energy economics in the third. He is a consultant with the Foundation for Economic Education and directs programs at Economic Thinking, a program of the nonprofit E Pluribus Unum Films in Seattle. He has written ‘The Complete Idiots Guide to Global Economics’.

Ken Schoolland will address freedom and economics in the second session. He is presently an associate professor of economics and political science at Hawaii Pacific University. He has written ‘The Adventures of Jonathan Gullible’ that has since been translated into more than twenty languages.

When:

Tuesday, December 2nd from 445-8p

Where:

Warmer Auditorium HPU (the penthouse)

1060 Bishop St.

Honolulu, HI 96818

What:

445-545 Freedom and Economics in India

6-7p       Freedom and Economics

7-8p       Energy Economics

By Dan Douglass

Permaculture is a dual combination of the words permanent and agriculture as well as permanent and culture.  It was coined in the 1970s and has since been most promoted by Bill Mollison.  To find out more about Bill and his work visit his site.

Urban Permaculture in Chicago, Illinois.

Farms in unused plots of land is a concept I was introduced to by a Salt Lake neighbor here in Honolulu.  In his profession he analyzes trends in non-profits.  He expressed his deep concern for food supply in Hawaii.  The food banks experienced significant decrease in consumables donated while a significant increase in need.  He recommended unused land be put to wise use through community farms where the governing jurisdiction lease land for low or no cost to the willing and able public to grow fresh produce.

Urban Permaculture in Brooklyn, NY.

The following videos demonstrate that Urban Permaculture is not only possible, but that it has been successful in a variety of municipalities in the U.S. and world.  Why not here in Honolulu and the rest of Hawaii?  Many of our schools are adjacent to City or State parks where even as little as five thousand square feet of land allocated to permaculture could yield year round produce and instruction opportunities to our children.  The City could offer property tax incentives to associations that implement urban permaculture.  And forget the politically and economically bankrupt ‘Transit Oriented Developments’ that destroy Honolulu’s beauty, Hawaii as a whole needs ‘Agriculturally Sustainable Development.’ With our ideal tropical conditions and nutrient rich soils permaculture can be a reality here to the benefit of our environment, economic and consumable needs, cultural enrichment and the next generation.

Parts 1-4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qpyocn1Vc5U

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCyDN9nAnVQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmW4nIgjkb4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYhCtpJY1NI

By Ed Case

The price of crude oil is down to $50/barrel from its high of almost $150 just a few months ago. Many are tempted to place our long-sought goal of energy conservation and diversification back on the shelf yet again. But does anyone really expect it to last, and isn’t it far better to prevent another crisis rather than react to it?

I just participated in Hawai‘i Energy Challenge 2008, organized by the Hawai‘i Leeward Planning Conference. An outstanding public-private assemblage, including national and local energy experts as well as leaders of Hawaii’s principal utility (Hawaiian Electric/HECO), alternate energy providers, landowners (interested in agriculture for energy) and business and labor sectors (as energy consumers), met for two days to consider, for Hawaii’s energy needs, where are we today, where we’ll be if we do nothing, and where we can be if we work together.

Every great debate faces the initial challenge of getting the facts straight, and few subjects have more factual confusion and denial than our energy future. Matt Simmons, international expert who wrote the best-seller Twilight in the Desert, opened with a compelling recitation of the evidence for “peak oil”, referring to the point at which international petroleum production hits its maximum and, not being a renewable resource, begins its decline.

This is, of course, a crucial point, as, with our world (and Hawai‘i) heavily dependent on petroleum-based energy, worldwide supply declines plus demand increases (e.g., China and India) equal irreversibly accelerating prices. Mr. Simmons’ conclusion is that we’re either at peak oil or, if we’re not, it’s rapidly approaching, and either way the cost of extracting remaining petroleum reserves is rapidly accelerating. His views have been questioned by oil producers, but just this month a report by the International Energy Agency, an organization of the major oil-importing countries, essentially agreed.

Hawai‘i is particularly impacted and exposed by reason of our geographic isolation and lack of fossil fuel-based energy sources, compounded by many factors including our current inability to transmit electricity between islands. Even today, blessed as we are with the best alternate energy resources and potential in our world (solar, wind, ocean, hydro, geothermal and biomass, for starters), we import and use fossil fuels for some 90% of our energy needs and pay the highest energy costs in our country. For each and all segments of our community, from tourism to construction, transportation, small businesses, government employees, social services and beyond, the question of where we’ll be without collective action was a no-brainer for conference participants, and it wasn’t pretty.

How, then, do we forge our own better energy future rather than let another future just happen? Much, of course, depends on our national energy policy, especially in the areas of renewable energy development, energy conservation and greenhouse gas/carbon emissions. In this, I welcome President-elect Obama’s focus in his recent economic recovery speech on incentivizing jobs in clean energy research and development, as well as his administration’s anticipated cap-and-trade emissions control initiatives. (His remarks also dovetailed with a report to our conference by Lisa Gibson of the Hawai‘i Science and Technology Council that technology jobs are growing in Hawai‘i, with energy-related jobs growing fastest.)

Here at home, we’ve at least begun to create our different future. The renewable portfolio standards on which I worked as a state legislator (requiring an increasing portion of our utilities’ energy production from renewable sources) and our second-in-the-nation carbon emission standards law are two such efforts.

But most of our conference discussions focused on the Hawai‘i Clean Energy Initiative, a joint effort between our state and the U.S. Department of Energy whose ambitious but doable goal is 70% clean energy for Hawai‘i by 2030, with 40% from renewable energy and 30% from enhanced energy conservation. There are many moving parts to this initiative requiring various legislative, regulatory, business and community efforts. Most immediate, however, are proposals for major change to our state energy statutes and regulations to be considered shortly by our legislature and Public Utilities Commission (our state agency regulating utilities including the rates we pay). These proposals arise largely from an October 2008 Energy Agreement among the State, HECO and PUC. Both agreement and subject are complicated and replete with various terms of art like avoided costs, feed-in tariffs, decoupling and interconnectivity. But what it amounts to is establishing a level of longterm stability and predictability in the price of Hawai‘i electricity which accelerates development of renewable energy and its delivery infrastructure and ends up costing us all a lot less than had we done nothing (plus caring for our environment).

In all this, the devil is very much in the details. Much depends on whether our government, utilities and others have really seen the future and feel a sense of urgency in molding it, as I hope and believe is the case. It also must be accompanied with further energy conservation, emission, and renewable R&D initiatives. And we will all be called upon to make some tough short-term choices to achieve inescapable longterm goals.

What is crucial at this point is that the discussion expand rapidly beyond the walls of the State Capitol, PUC and HECO boardroom and into the communities where we live and work. Because, as Dr. Makena Coffman, UH economics professor and co-founder of Kanu Hawai‘i, reminded participants, in the microcosm of our Hawai‘i we not only experience external factors first and acutely, but have better potential than elsewhere to collaborate toward solutions. We all have a stake in our energy future, and, if Hawai‘i Energy Challenge 2008 is any indication, we are ready, willing and able to chart it.