Imua Rail is an Oxymoron
Oxy – Moron
The political pulp that is being promulgated by mega-corporate-group-person that calls itself Move Oahu Forward is an insult to our collective intelligence. I have not visited the site that is advertised on the television commercials: imuarail.org, but I am offended by its cognitive dissonance. It is concrete proof of who thinks they own native culture. Imua and Rail do not go together. Imua has its place in Hawai`i. Rail does not. What an insult to the Hawaiian language, and the people of Hawai`i.
Imua rail is an oxymoron. An unfunny joke. Perfectly awful. Pure Evil. A fine mess. A “little” big. A sincere lie. A terrific headache. A white lie. Willfully negligent. Voodoo science.
Rail itself is a cluster bomb of stupidity, with consistent uncertanties. Arguments made for it are consistently inconsistent. Thinking is conspicuously absent.
Rail is creative destruction of our environment. It will be a crash landing on the environment. When they actually start to build the cars, it will be a dark day in Hawai`i. Although its costs are already rising, it promises us easy payments and economic stability. It is an express bus that stops 19 times. They say rail got a fair trial with the manipulated question on the election ballot, but it is fairly obvious that with 5 million dollars on the side of rail, that people did not know what they were voting for.
Rail is a creation of the developers; the reason traffic will increase on O`ahu is not because people will buy more cars, but because the corporate landowners want to develop their land, and reclassify their ag land to commercial land. This is the reason for rail. Based on land classifications, development of O`ahu was likely to be complete and done by 2005. That was seven short years ago. Now they reclassify the land; they approve developments and : we need rail! There was a thirty year moratorium on building in Waikiki. That was smart. Then it ended. That was dumb.
The problems that have cropped up around rail are positioned as innocent bureaucratic blunders. Based on insane logic, the argument is made that rail will offer comfort and ease getting into town. That being said, if it were to be built, and its cars were to have the 64 seats they now say they will have, and if they get the ridership they claim, more than half the passengers will be standing. Unable to sit down.
Is rail the lesser evil or the lesser good? Middle East Peace will happen before steel-on-steel rail makes sense in Hawai`i.
Imua Hawai`i. Say a’ole to rail.
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Gloria. Circa 1955.
Gloria. Circa 2012.
Other than working for the American Red Cross in Korea for two years, Gloria Garvey has lived in Hawai`i since 1971. Her opinion and other writing has appeared in: The American Philatelist. Honolulu Weekly, The Honolulu Advertiser, The Honolulu Star Bulletin, The Star Advertiser, Hawai`i Reporter, Pacific Business News, Island Scene, The Design Management Journal.
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I agree on the part that voters never knew what they were getting into…..our rising taxes on our car registration every year is ridiculous, my truck is up to 443.00 this year! Also now what would it cost to ride this thing…….I rode it in San Fran., Ca and it did fit the lifestyle there cause the cities were faraway from each other………I also heard not enough seats were being put on the cars (wth)…….gosh the city can’t even keep up with the road conditions now and they want to maintain a rail system (pshh)……..
I think there is nothing wrong with standing up, heck…most of the times half of the people on a bus are standing up, why would it be a problem standing up on a rail wagon? I have no problems with people criticizing rail, if….they had a better solution, but none so far is better then rail! Cayetano’s solution you say? Removing a traffic lane to be used only for buses? Has anyone ever seen a mere two car accident, just blocking off a lane for a little while? Traffic will build up for miles! What do people think will happen, by taking away a whole lane, for the majority of the day? And what happens when all the buses reach the town area? Will they have their own dedicated lanes there too? I am sure it’s easy to see where I am going with this! They might both be evils, but the rail is by far the lesser of the two evils!
The rail campaign is a series of lies told by those with a greedy thirst for taxpayer dollars.
Rail will NOT reduce traffic.
Rail will NOT provide for faster transport.
Rail will NOT save energy.
Rail will NOT create jobs.
What rail will do is saddle our city with debt, and double our property taxes to pay that debt.
Why is it that when politicians cant get a vote passed on a ballot that they really want to they keep on putting it on the ballot election after election and keep advertising it until it gets passed, but if the public passed it they first time, why cant we have it put back on the ballot during the next election to this time deny it?
The ads are lies!!! They brag about INCREASING bus service–NOT! Up here on the N shore where rail will have no impact at all—they cut our bus service in HALF!!!! The money they save… goes into rail. Gee thanks.
Nobody will use the train(‘cept maybe a few UH students)–everybody wants everybody ELSE to use it so they can drive unimpeded.
North shore is really upset at the cuts in bus service. The schedule is out the window too. We can have NO idea what time the bus is coming. Just add an HOUR for your trip–> 2 hours if ya have to transfer, 3 if you transfer twice. Suddenly it takes 3+ hours to get to Ewa beach.
Rail works well in every other city I’ve visited. And it works in conjunction with bus systems. Much cheaper than catching a cab or owning/driving a car. We complain that we’ve got the arguably the worst traffic, highest gas prices, highest car registration and maintenance costs in the USA and finally we will have an alternative!!! ….Still some whiners want to complain!
Fascinating.
As a person whose been living here in Hawaii for the last 40 years, please tell me: has traffic increased or decreased in that time? In the next 40 years, is traffic likely to increase or decrease? Without additional modes of transportation, what does traffic look like in 40 years?
Rail will NOT reduce the amount of cars that we have on the road today, but will reduce the number of cars that will be on the road in the future.
Rail will NOT necessarily provide faster transport than what we can expect from traveling in our cars today, but will provide faster transport than what we can expect in the future.
You think road conditions are bad today? With more cars on the road in 40 years, what will road conditions look like then? Road conditions will be bad regardless of rail, but will be worse without it.
Rail is an effort to proactively do something about our city’s infrastructure.
It’s interesting to see how many people complain about traffic and yet don’t support alternatives.