BY GLORIA GARVEY – 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.
It matters not the color of our skin; our collective hearts and souls understand the environmental degradation caused by the over-development of our island. But unfortunately, Oahu is a tiny little island with major traffic problems. I am fairly new to Hawaii and the traffic issues here, but if our light rail system is electric, it could help prevent degradation of air quality and reduce traffic congestion. We all agree that elevated rail would be a constant eye sore on our precious mountain and ocean views. If the city planners had been more visionary, they would have built a ground system along current bus routes (or replacing and expanding existing bus routes with rail) thereby reducing the overall construction footprint.
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