I smell a rat in the traffic

No matter how you look at it, traffic in Honolulu has reached epidemic proportions. Cars, trucks, vans, SUVs, and buses are everywhere you want to be.

It’s not that traffic congestion was much less 10 or 20 years ago. It was less just five years ago. It was less just two years ago. What happened?

Two words: rail system.

Is it possible that all the recent snarls in Honolulu traffic are the result of one or both of these two scenarios?

1 -  There are too many vehicles. Land is finite, but residents and businesses continue to buy new vehicles, more per household than ever, which clogs city streets and highways, which have not been upgraded to handle the increased number of vehicles. Or,

2- A conspiracy is underway by proponents of a fixed rail system to provide strategically placed traffic aberrations, which, in turn cause massive traffic jams, which, in turn changes public opinion about said fixed rail system. Toss in HPD’s penchant for closing down H-1 whenever a car hits a bump, Hawaiian Electric’s penchant for all but closing a main city thoroughfare every few months for “upgrades” and conspiracy theorists have something to chew on.

I smell a rat in Honolulu’s seemingly increased traffic congestion.

Are there alternatives to a fixed rail system? Yes, but not good ones. The Bus is as close as a city can get to competing with an automobile, and that’s what has to happen to move hundreds of thousands of Oahu residents into and out of the city.

How about bicycle lanes? Be serious. The number of bicyclists in the city at any given moment during the day probably equals the daily ridership of The Boat. In other words, negligible, nil, near zilch.

What alternatives are left? Not much. Even the fixed rail system is not an attractive alternative because it cannot compete effectively with the car or truck, or even The Bus.

Traffic watchers? The future is grim.