The above photo is the Honolulu waterfront today; Aloha Tower is to the right.  The AIA rendering above is their projection of how it would look with rail.

— SaveOurHonolulu.com —

TV and Radio spot commentaries 

TV Spot 1: Kirk Caldwell misled the voters about future traffic congestion:

Our first TV spot for PC users may be viewed here, and for Mac users here.

As the City Managing Director and Acting Mayor during the period January 2009 to October 2010, Kirk Caldwell, in his official capacity, repeatedly said that rail transit would relieve traffic congestion. He did not qualify that statement and consequently most people assumed he was referring to the relief from the current level of traffic congestion. He  should have said that it would relieve traffic congestion relative to what it would be otherwise without rail transit but that even with rail traffic congestion would be worse than it is today.

Of critical importance, he did not inform the voters what he well knew about future traffic congestion from the Final Environmental Impact Statement. He knew that:

• A clear statement had been made by the City that, "traffic congestion will be worse in the future with rail than what it is today.”
• The City was forecasting automobile traffic during the rush hour would increase by 23 percent if we did not build rail, or 21 percent if we did.
• The use of the phrase, rail “will remove about 40,000 vehicles off O‘ahu roads,” was misleading since he failed to note that it was a decrease in face of the 2,800,000 foecast daily vehicle trips, or a miniscule 1.7 percent reduction.

He refrained from telling voters that traffic congestion in the future even with rail would be worse than today, or that rail's effect on the traffic increase caused by population growth would be minor. Caldwell knew that a 1.7 percent reduction in traffic would be barely detectable by motorists and the voters would certainly not consider that it justifies the multi-billion dollar cost of the rail project.

As a Honolulu voter we know you want the truth from your next Mayor. Unlike Kirk Caldwell, Ben Cayetano has demonstrated that he can be trusted to tell you the truth even if its not what you want to hear.

For details about future traffic congestion, go to http://www.honolulutraffic.com/Congestion_2.pdf

For sources of the information not supplied above, see below:

"As mayor and managing director, Kirk was the city’s primary point person for two of the biggest issues facing Oahu; transit and homelessness." http://kirkcaldwell.com/pdfs/roadmap.pdf

Acting Mayor Kirk Caldwell: "[rail] will provide badly needed traffic congestion relief for our island’s residents."http://www1.honolulu.gov/refs/csd/publiccom/honnews10/caldwellmeetsinouyeaboutrailtransit.htm

"With the release of the rail transit Final EIS, we are poised to move forward with rail transit, create jobs and deliver long-term traffic relief to commuters and businesses between Kapolei and downtown Honolulu," said Acting Mayor Kirk Caldwell. http://thevoiceofkapolei.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1045

Honolulu Managing Director Kirk Caldwell said he was disappointed Lingle did not mention the city's $5.3 billion commuter rail project as a means of traffic relief and economic stimulus. http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2009/Jan/27/ln/hawaii901270348.html

TV Spot #2: Caldwell was reckless in awarding rail contracts prematurely:

Our second TV spot for PC users may be viewed here, or for Mac users here

While serving as the City’s Managing Director and as the self-described "point person" for rail in 2009, and then as the City’s Acting Mayor in 2010, Kirk Caldwell participated in the awarding and managing of huge rail contracts and the push to get rail beyond a point of no return as quickly as possible.

State and federal lawsuits were expected and had even been provided for in a special $300,000 defense fund. None of the requested $1.55 billion in New Starts federal money had been committed (and still has not been). Yet Caldwell pushed forward.

A Federal Transit Administration internal email, sent at the time Caldwell was Mayor, expressed concern that the City was putting itself in a “pickle” by rushing needlessly, which may "magnify their delay claims."

Rushed contracts resulted in large delay penalties before the State Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the City violated the law by starting construction prematurely (i.e., before completing an archeological inventory for the entire route). That forced the City to stop construction completely, and it now looks as though the City will incur another $100 million in delay costs, at the very least.

The $483 million West Oahu/Farrington Highway rail contract was awarded in October 2009 yet the Notice To Proceed, on even preliminary work, was not given until nearly two years later. The $195 million Maintenance Facility construction contract was awarded in mid-2010 yet not given the initial go ahead until over a year later.

Virtually all today’s major problems resulting in added costs can be directly traced to the rushed contracts awarded during Caldwell's time in office and the rest are a predictable consequence of what he set in motion in 2009 and 2010.

Caldwell’s actions were reckless; we cannot afford to elect that kind of mayor.

For sources of the information not supplied above, see below:

"As mayor and managing director, Kirk was the city’s primary point person for two of the biggest issues facing Oahu; transit and homelessness." http://kirkcaldwell.com/pdfs/roadmap.pdf

This linked internal FTA email was obtained through a court order and was never intended to be made public: "Currently they have told Kiewit to expect these [Notices to Proceed] NTPs in March 2011. We have warned them several times in the last couple of months that these dates are improbable, but they haven't listened. We strongly feel that giving the contratractor (sic) dates that are known to be impossible may magnify their delay claim."  See email at: www.saveourhonolulu.com/Pickle.JPG