We're back, we're live one o'clock rock and today we have a special show, welcome to Life After Statehood on TinkTek, I'm your host Jay Fiedel and our guest and co-contributor for the show is Ray Tsuchiyama. Today our show is called Rail on the Ground, and we're going to talk about articles on the subject that Ray wrote and others have written. Our guest is great to have him here, Ray Tsuchiyama, welcome to the show. Happy New Year of the Booster and it's great to be here and we're going to open the New Year with Rail, the giant elephant in the room that's sleeping very quietly. Rail has been on and off again, it's in this discussion continues but you know now it seems to be more ardent, we're in a financial pickle, it's more visible every day, I hope people get that and we've got plans or lack of plans that we can't afford, we're lurching is not good for any community. So it's time for a change in my view and I agree with you absolutely in your article that we would have come down from elevated and get on the ground with ground rail, wouldn't that be better for everybody? So let's talk about it, tell us about your article, tell us about some of the other articles. Well it's not a new idea and it goes back even to 2009, there was a report commissioned by Kamehameha Schools in fact by Mr. Phillip Greg, a consultant who said why don't we have a rail system that goes elevated to Middle Street and then at grade on the ground with cars and pedestrians from Middle Street onward to Alamona and oddly enough that was 2009 at that point. Now several years later, it's very prophetic when you think about it. It makes sense in the sense that the long distances across long landscapes over there you can have elevated rail and maybe land is easier to achieve there but when you get into the central part of the city you really have to go on the ground for many, many reasons but I want to tell you a short story. Go ahead. My wife and I go to Europe. We drive all over Europe, we love driving in Europe and everybody does and we're heading toward Paris from Rouen to the west of Paris that's a freeway you know and it moves really fast at 120 kilometers an hour or something like that and all of a sudden we go into a tunnel okay well they got tunnels that's good, we stay in the tunnel, we're driving you know many miles or kilometers you know tens and twenties and thirties of kilometers in this tunnel what's going on and then at the last minute the tunnel pops up at the Arc de Triomphe. In the center of the city. So you know what happened is they put it down so it wouldn't screw up the city and then you come up in the center of the city and I think the same concept here, where in either countryside you can have a freeway when you get in the city you want to change it so that it comports with the city and works better in sort of the central and that was useful in Paris and I think ground rail would be very useful here but say why. Well as I said before there was a trolley system here in Honolulu that went to the outskirts of the city back then which was for chapter ministry so oddly enough all these geographic points come back to our discussion. First of all it's about construction costs, elevated rail takes hundreds of tons of concrete to put up, once you have a rail station and that's a major cost by itself and a series of rail stations well you just can't say oh we made a mistake we have to move the station you're stuck with that station forever and ever for time. At grade stations you can move them around you can say well we'll put one here but I didn't attract so many people we're going to shift it about a hundred meters of this way or that way and at ground it services categories of people who may find an elevated station more challenging. The elderly, the handicapped, people with bicycles, surfers, with surfboards, children, all those categories we find and tourists who love to board it anyway like the JTB buses in Waikiki to Alamona. So the other one is of course the aside from costs is about going to a rail station extend the rail system the spurs to Waikiki and to UH Manoa. Elevated rail just won't cut it to Waikiki through Kuhio or whatever and what a mess going across the Alawai Canal you know building elevated rail and to spur to UH Manoa. So automatically even when we talk about spurs in the future I think that's going to be a real real challenge even to plan out elevated at that point. Now going back to at grade we have a situation here that we can have not only the stations planned out but we can also have an elevated section that's already been in construction that stops already in Middle Street. So the FDA, the federal government is asking for a response and that's one of the things right on the table. By end of April you have to give them a working within a budget what are you going to do after Middle Street? So the idea would be they should listen to what you're saying. People should speak up on this issue and they should include this in the plan. It goes to Middle Street and it goes at grade. Simple enough and cheaper way cheaper. Right it's according to the latest statement from the AIA Hawaii chapter the whole report is focused on costs and costs of overruns. Now you have the first 10 miles and they had a hundred change orders and so forth. We don't know what's below downtown we just don't know many many things that are going to come up during construction and so at grade yes that's much easier of course it's going to take money to do that but it's going to be far less than elevated. Yeah so what are the downsides I mean I just just thinking the gadfly here it would make noise right next to me it would maybe stop stop the traffic as you know it crossed streets I don't know it could it could be a troublesome thing to have in your neighborhood tell me how you deal with that. Well the glass is half empty half full and I have to say that the Portland experience that I think you've been there has a mixture of rail buses cars and pedestrians all intermingling at the same time. It has contributed to a renaissance of downtown Portland in fact economic business living activities and that has been phenomenal for any downtown. Now you're correct that in order to have the firm middle street onwards you have to have a driver in the car that's one thing to navigate through the streets and so forth so that means the current car configuration has to be redone and also there has to be a new way to electrify or power the cars. Right now there's a third rail that's electrified all the time and that can't be dangerous for pedestrians cars etc. So you need a way to charge them the cars when they're over a contact less powering station there are many technologies out there that's very innovative other cities are using it they get powered up at the station then they go for several stations they get powered up again and so forth so you don't have the overhead nor the electrification along the rail. Let's go one at a time and backward. I think the technology is not a problem in terms of you know my phone gets charged that way it's not a problem it's not dangerous it's probably much more high tech than the third rail the third rail is dangerous you know whoever is up there or down there wherever it is I mean I remember I grew up in New York the third rail that terrified people and there were a lot of unfortunate incidents with the third rail which was going to happen as long as you have a third rail. This other technology that's not going to happen. The other thing is you mentioned that it would resuscitate revitalize neighborhoods sort of like the way it has in Portland and if anybody has a bit of Portland go to Portland you'll see what I mean it's a beautiful downtown it's everybody cares so much and there's so many great shops and things to do it's a walking city. I'm afraid to say Honolulu is not a walking city it should be a walking city and rail done properly at grade would make it a walking city would revitalize everywhere from the university all the way to the end of Chinatown even further and the result would be mom and pop businesses lots of businesses lots of places you could go and have a nice outing and spend your time and love the city. We do not have pride in our city I think this would give us pride in our city. I don't see the noise as a real problem it's not as noisy when you're down there on grade right? No it's not going to be that noisy because of course it can accelerate that fast. And again when we talk about the last five six miles within from Middle Street to Alamona the stations are point six miles apart they're quite close together. It's not like you're going for miles and miles on an accelerated track it's quite short. Every time you accelerate it decelerates. You're there at the next station and so people there and you're correct about mass transit and the stations being the key to economic and cultural revitalization. Vancouver, Portland and many cities have seen billions of dollars being invested like five hundred feet around the line. All kinds of new housing, new cultural symphonies, concert halls, shops and so forth are invested in those areas.  So it becomes a kind of micro destinations along the line to really revitalize the city and to create neighborhoods around the stations. Yeah and it's lovely for tourists they would find it charming like New Orleans you know has a great rail everybody takes the rail it's charming. The fact that it moves more slowly than elevated rail doesn't bother me at all. I mean I think we ought to move a little more slowly and I don't think it's going to make any difference at all. If there's a five or ten minute variance on you know the amount of time you spend on the train. I think if you're at it's like riding a bike you know if you're at grade you see more. You can enjoy the city more and the city can enjoy you more. But you see that's the point or is it of rail if you look at the cultural downtown renaissance yes all those factors come into play but remember the sales point of rail was to get people living in West Capole to downtown within a forty to forty five minute window. That and then what happens when suddenly you're coming into Middle Street and things slow down. You see I'm looking at it for the computer computer perspective that all of a sudden where you want to accelerate and get to your downtown you know law office or bank office in a hurry things began to slow down. So that's something that we have to deal with that the community on the West side have to understand that there's going to be a system from Middle Street onto why you see it. That's slower than you so what. Yeah that's a different world. It's okay they can enjoy coming into the city it's like coming into Paris you know slow down relax. And it may get people to move back into the city also. I think it would. And abandon their cars because one of the considerations still when you have stations in Capole or whatever people drive there so you know they're not banding in the second or third car they're still driving the car to a station parking it and then taking it to downtown. Yeah one other thing is you talked about automated versus you know actual human conductor. I don't have a problem with human conductors you know we have a price tag on this thing 10 12 billion maybe more I think more if it goes the way it's supposed to it's set up to go now and anybody guess what's the cost of having a conductor there. Peanuts that's right tiny tiny it's a small coin sliver of total system. I don't have a problem at all in putting a human conductor on I think that'll actually be more charming and that we need that. Let's take a short break right. We come back and we talk about how we're ever going to figure out a way to do this and make it happen you know go from the transition from now to to then we'll be right back you'll see you'll see how it's done. Hi I'm Marianne Sasaki and I'm here today to tell you about the women's march on Washington on January 21st it's incredibly significant march in which all both men and women are going to stand up for women's rights women's reproductive rights and all the rights we've accrued over the past 40 or 50 years. There's also going to be marches in each city on each island is one in Oahu. I urge you to join a march and stand up for women's rights. Aloha I'm Reg Baker the host of Business in Hawaii the broadcast live every Thursday from 2 to 230. Today we were very fortunate enough to have a Dr. Miller and her service dog Muffin. We talked about the ADA and we covered some of the different dos and don'ts of having service dogs in your establishment and how to sniff out the fakes. Please tune in for Business in Hawaii on Thursday to find out all about service dogs. Aloha. Okay we're back with Ray Tsuchiyama discussing probably one of the most important issues affecting our city and you know by by inference our state and that's what we're going to do with rail here because we're in so deep we have unlimited liabilities of 40 billion plus that we have no way to pay. The ERS the most recent scandal 12 billion when Abercrombie took over it was 3 billion now it's 9 billion more on the ERS. How are we going to get the money to afford any of this? This is going to kill us. They can make poor people really poor because you know the GT is regressive. That's the way the political establishment wants to go here by putting a further regressive tax on people who really can't afford it and not raising the property tax. This is all backward so many bad decisions so here we are and let's assume that you're right. Let's assume that people out there listening would say let's do what Ray wants to do. How do you get to do that? First of all I'm pro rail. I've ridden a million of the trains and subways in Tokyo to Amsterdam to Bangkok. It's very efficient. So I used to take one every day in Tokyo to work. That's one thing. The other thing is that I don't think that the people are looking at rail as part of like you're saying an economic business living cultural renaissance for downtown Honolulu. I think we have to come back to that. Come back to that first of all. That is an investment for more investment but especially from the private sector because we've been talking about public-private partnerships P3 for ages. We haven't really seen that because we really haven't seen how this ROI or return on investment for many businesses. The other one is of course that it is good for tourism. It is really good for if you got people from Waikiki into Alamona. Wow. They don't have to take the noisy bus. The greatest attraction of all is to get them out of Waikiki. Haven't looked at the local community. They can go to local people. They can go to Chinatown. Chinatown will be revitalized and there'll be hundreds of tourists every day eating their shopping there. There'll be whole new malls and so forth built right there around the station. So I don't think they're looking at as a tax generating mass transit kind of project. It's a tax drain. It's like we're trying to create a way for people to get to their office and go back again. And that's it kind of thing. It can be much more than that. It's not a creative enterprise. In fact it's not a transportation issue. It's a real estate infrastructure cultural business kind of project that those kind of people have to be part of the project not the real people just the real people but people who can lease new restaurants or lease shops or create affordable housing near these stations. So there's a whole paradigm shift you get to get out of. So going back to paying for rail and so forth that is a very complex question because a taxpayer looks at it and says I'm going to give money especially for the neighborhood who are outside the state of Oahu as they call this a county of Honolulu. How to make this a project that you will see a lot of money coming in in the future and you can see that on the return of investment that has not been explored and explained to the people. Yeah so I give you the main question which is coming up right now this month and in the months to follow during this session should we extend the you know the extra half percent on the GET and by the way there are political issues about that in the original time it was let's see Linda Lingle wanted to effectively extort 10% of the amount collected from off the top for the state and give the balance to the city. The moves now are way higher percentage like 30% off the top for the state and you know fill the general fund with it and then give the balance to the city. Oh that's awful that's Uji. So the question now is should we extend the GET in order to satisfy the FTA. That's a really complex question you know and I have to go back to why the FTA and the city and county are always talking to each other in the United States Mastras is a municipal responsibility. The city has to be with it and of course get federal funds to match it and so forth but we're living in a state or a city and the state that the city has very few ways of raising money when you think about it even the coins in the meters going to the state and so forth so I and whether the state follows or will acquiesce to the city's you know great project that's a question mark. It doesn't really help the state and the state legislators it's not their project and so yeah they could easily let the city roast in its own juices here. The only way that the city really can raise money is through proper taxes. Yeah which is very popular and nobody wants to go there. Well because it's the middle class or the upper middle class and owns the property and when they do a pushback it's more powerful push back since they're the ones who contribute to campaign. And so they vote. They vote a lot. So that is so it's the city is between Iraq and a hard place. It's very few ways to raise money and so they'll be holding on going to the state for for money and the FDA is looking every day at what's happening. I recall and there's no real predictability here but I recall that Donald Trump said he was gonna put a big box into infrastructure and this whole project is infrastructure. Does this make you feel more comfortable about federal funding Ray? Notice the delay in the answer. Yes and no. I think that what the President-elect is looking at is things that will ensure our infrastructure because our highways are aging. Our ports need really are ramping up to modernize. Our airports throughout the nation really needs to be much more security-conscious and to be built up for more plans. So I don't know where a municipal 20 mile rail system will be a priority in the Trump administration. I don't know.  Maybe not. I mean it just is at this point just as much likely as... And remember that 67% of the Hawaii electorate voted for the other candidate. Right. He remembers that. So we're thoroughly on the other camp but I think you know going looking at at the future April again you know we keep delaying a big big decision we just but the elephant is in the room all the time and April is still in the middle of the legislative session and there are you know alarms that we just don't know whether the laws will be really passed and signed and enacted to be able to be explained in detail to the FDA in a letter. So again can that be changed? It was like it was not June. They want of course June was a date where the legislative session would yield laws and regulations. So they could take it to the FDA and say we have the money and we will take it in this direction. So they have to think enormously and creatively until the end of April for the FDA to say that there is a viable system that ends at Alamora Center. Well I'm sure the mayor is trying to think of that. I mean he's hitched his wagon on this on this project and he's got to do everything he can to make it happen. He ran on that basis. But question if you know if I'm listening to this or if I you know feel this way from historical reasons or current reasons and I would like to you know scale it to ground ground level rail starting Middle Street which I personally think is a great idea. What do I do to make my voice heard? What do I do to participate in making this happen? What do I do to save us from the complications of the existing elevated program? I think the legislature really has to look at this much more closely than they've had before. I mean the council has been wrestling with the issues a lot more but here we have a state legislature that's maybe the key it has to be the key the funding mechanism and all this and for the neighborhood boards and and the people to go up to their legislators and say you know this is you have to look at this very carefully as we go into the new funding tax scenarios is coming up. What I hear you saying it's very interesting if not provocative is that the legislature could say okay you want more money give you more money but we have the power to attach conditions to that money and we like raised plans. I thought my plan. Okay a plan like this okay and they said we'll give you an extension of the GT you can have it for X years not forever but for X years and we'll help you out and maybe we'll even you know reduce the amount that we vigorish that we take off the top but you've got to go to ground rail. Well that's the only people they would listen to. You go where the money is if there is no money you can't build it and there isn't I don't see any other source a private or public otherwise to come to the rescue and so it is either or you give it up like Randy Roth said you know that's plan C on your show so I'm not for that I think we have to look at still at mass transit in some form going forward and it has to be synchronized with buses that's very true that's to be synchronized with with good software with mechanisms that allow the trains at great to go very quickly through Congress straight congested streets all the above I mean we have to try it everything but right now and get to a place where 20 years from now we see you know a huge amounts of investment in in the inner city and going from Waikiki all the way to Middle Street and Kali he has changed with new jobs you know new housing and new malls I mean this could be a renaissance transformational yeah and that's what Scott Wilson and the other architects who are recommending this and who have always recommended it or thinking they want to make a city that's pretty right it's not pretty now but it could be pretty and this could be the transformational event to make it pretty and I buy what he's saying completely I I think this would be fabulous for our city and would lead to pride which we don't have now pride is something so important to bring a community together and when you go as a tourist to Vancouver or New York or San Francisco when you say you're from Honolulu they would say wow that's where the greatest mass transit system is at and the Honolulu I love that city it is the most innovative city in the world wow wow even to hear you say that well tell people what they should do Ray give your you got one minute to well give you a parting message my parting message is that we need to have everybody look at mass transit very carefully coming in the new 2017 there's a bit a whole history of it we don't have many options but to look at one option of at rail at at grade rail and other options exist but I think it it should be explored more and I think that's that's a way to go forward that will save money and be more flexible that will yield spurs to eventually Waikiki and UH Manoa. That brings us to the end of our show we've enjoyed bringing it to you I'm your host Jay Fidel Ray Tujiyama has been our guest as always he's so it was so informative and productive in these discussions we've been talking about as you know rail on the ground thanks to our production engineers a rebender our floor manager Robert McLean and all the people who care about and contribute to our think tech productions if you want to see this show again you go to think tech Hawaii dot com or YouTube dot com think tech Hawaii where there'll be a link to more shows just like this one thanks for watching we'll see you next time hello