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I'm going to guess you don't live in Hawaii. We already have a bus system (TheBus), which is decent but still painfully slow compared to a personal vehicle. And

by Zanni 5y ago

I'm going to guess you don't live in Hawaii. We already have a bus system (TheBus), which is decent but still painfully slow compared to a personal vehicle. And we're in the process of building light rail system which, due to budget overruns and bizarre blunders, will be years before it ever sees operation and goes roughly nowhere to nowhere. "Frequent high quality public transportation" is great for dense urban cores, which doesn't remotely describe Honolulu.

dustintrex 5y ago
It's a common mistake to think of public transport as something imposed on unchanging cities, but it actually drives considerable change as well. Whatever the flaws of Honolulu's LRT may be, it will drive increased density in the corridor it serves, and that's exactly how it's supposed to work. This does, however, assume that zoning near stations is also adjusted to allow this, which is something that many US cities including the Bay Area are notoriously bad at.
- Kye 5y ago
  People can see how highways affect development: you only need to look at any overhead view of any major city outside the pre-WW2 core. Metro Atlanta is full of little outposts dangling off roads. Wandering around this mall was one of the only things to do growing up other than watch TV and mess around on the internet: https://www.google.com/maps/@34.0657829,-83.986029,3799m/data=!3m1!1e3 https://www.google.com/maps/@34.0657829,-83.986029,3799m/dat... Everything else cost money or was too far away. I think underdeveloped imagination is why so many people can't see that better transit options would have the same effect, but with increasing density rather than increasing sprawl.
jacobolus 5y ago
I do not live in Hawaii, but from what I can tell (from visiting one time and looking at what maps/analyses I can find in 10 minutes of web search) most of the traffic sources and destinations in Oahu are within a couple miles of a single 20-mile-long stretch of freeway (H1 / H201). We’re talking about hundreds of thousands of people trying to drive every morning/evening along the same stretch of freeway in individual private vehicles (3–4 lanes wide in each direction), instead of riding some more space-efficient mode of transportation along the same route.
bluGill 5y ago
> Honolulu is plenty dense for good public transportation. Density is useful, but it is overrated. The important part is the public transport system go when and where people need, lacking that people won't ride and thus you get a vicious circle that people blame on low density but in fact is just bad service is driving people away.

by Zanni 5y ago

dustintrex 5y ago

It's a common mistake to think of public transport as something imposed on unchanging cities, but it actually drives considerable change as well. Whatever the flaws of Honolulu's LRT may be, it will drive increased density in the corridor it serves, and that's exactly how it's supposed to work. This does, however, assume that zoning near stations is also adjusted to allow this, which is something that many US cities including the Bay Area are notoriously bad at.

Kye 5y ago
People can see how highways affect development: you only need to look at any overhead view of any major city outside the pre-WW2 core. Metro Atlanta is full of little outposts dangling off roads. Wandering around this mall was one of the only things to do growing up other than watch TV and mess around on the internet: https://www.google.com/maps/@34.0657829,-83.986029,3799m/data=!3m1!1e3 https://www.google.com/maps/@34.0657829,-83.986029,3799m/dat... Everything else cost money or was too far away. I think underdeveloped imagination is why so many people can't see that better transit options would have the same effect, but with increasing density rather than increasing sprawl.

jacobolus 5y ago

I do not live in Hawaii, but from what I can tell (from visiting one time and looking at what maps/analyses I can find in 10 minutes of web search) most of the traffic sources and destinations in Oahu are within a couple miles of a single 20-mile-long stretch of freeway (H1 / H201). We’re talking about hundreds of thousands of people trying to drive every morning/evening along the same stretch of freeway in individual private vehicles (3–4 lanes wide in each direction), instead of riding some more space-efficient mode of transportation along the same route.

bluGill 5y ago

> Honolulu is plenty dense for good public transportation. Density is useful, but it is overrated. The important part is the public transport system go when and where people need, lacking that people won't ride and thus you get a vicious circle that people blame on low density but in fact is just bad service is driving people away.