Republican mass transit: It won't even go all the way downtown!

[KamaAina]

http://starbulletin.com/2004/01/08/news/index2.html

State Sen. Cal Kawamoto will push an increase in the state general excise tax to 4.5 percent to help fund the planning and construction of light-rail transit on Oahu....

When Gov. Linda Lingle (R-Bought Election with Massive Ad Blitz -Ed.) first proposed the fixed-rail line from Kapolei to Iwilei and a $200 million "flyover" elevated highway above Nimitz Highway, she said taxes would have to be raised to pay for the projects.

For you poor souls who haven't (yet) been here and are unfamiliar with the geography, Iwilei is a warehouse district about three-quarters of a mile from the downtown business district. (This cubicle, as it happens, is in Iwilei.)

I have not read how Lingle proposes to get the commuters over that last stretch; no doubt it will involve the same advanced technology that Bush* uses to balance the budget. :-) Seriously, if people have to transfer to buses at Iwilei to continue downtown, then no one will ride the rail line in the first place. Thus, we will have spent over a billion dollars on -- well, basically nothing. Repuke Enronomics at its finest.

Edit: Can't even type a smiley. Time to swap out that keyboard...

[Lydia Leftcoast]

1. Repiggies pretend to be for good stuff

and then practice passive-aggressive sabotage of their alleged plans.

No Child Left Behind is a great example. So is undermining affirmative action by purposely hiring unqualified candidates when qualified ones exist. Building bad transit systems to ensure that no one will ride them is another.

[hatrack]

2. Then they can offer this as "proof" that public transit "doesn't work"

They'll shrug their shoulders and say "Gosh! People just won't give up their cars!"

Then they'll go back to the business of shoveling out money for more road, more bridges, more overpasses and more parking lots.