Transportation / Honolulu, Hawaii

Credit:FHKE/Flickr

The Pacific island of Oahu, Hawaii, boasts towering mountains, gorgeous ocean views, and a dense metropolitan region that keeps on growing. Oahu Transit Services, known to islanders as TheBus, serves as the Honolulu region’s main transit source. About 69 million passengers take advantage of TheBus’s bus, vanpool, and elderly/disabled access services each year.

According to Center for Neighborhood Technology data, Honolulu rates highly among medium sized metro regions (with between 250,000 and 1 million people) for affordable transportation, transit access – second in the nation after Jersey City – and number of commuters using transit. It has also adopted environmentally friendly policy; with an eye to both climate change mitigation and easing congestion, the region has embraced clean fuels, elevated rail, and bicycle initiatives.

TheBus and the Oahu Bike Plan

“There’s no law against diesel fuels in Hawaii, but Hawaii is one of the most fuel-dependent places on earth—almost everything is imported,” says Public Transit Division Chief James Burke. “We’re still members of planet earth. Why not get more efficient at what we do?”

Functioning in cooperation with the Honolulu Department of Transportation Services (DTS), TheBus system is moving to convert its 531 buses gradually to low-emission or hybrid models. Today, TheBus has 60 hybrid buses and has ordered 19 more; 24 clean-diesel buses round out the eco-friendly fleet.

Transit Access in Honolulu Metropolitan Region (light green lines indicate location of metro region with darker brown regions showing higher transit access), Credit:CNT H+T Affordability Index

Recently “we received a [federal] grant to bring eight electric buses to the Waikiki beach resort area,” Burke says. To prepare for the battery-powered buses, the DTS will be conducting a regional circulator study. “Besides just buying new buses, we’ll be doing a study to route them [appropriately],” Burke says. “We want to serve the Waikiki community. [The electric buses] will reduce the [environmental] impact, they’ll be quieter and cleaner.” Burke hopes that these buses will nudge the private sector—namely, the tour bus industry—into making clean-fuel choices of their own.

A focus on bicycle use and safety helps gives islanders more mobility options. “One of [our] goals is to be recognized as a bicycle-friendly community,” says Chris Sayers, bicycle coordinator at the Department of Transportation Services. “There’s been a bike plan in place since 1999 [and since updated] and we’ve been implementing projects all along.” Signage projects, a bicycle safety program for fourth graders, and cooperation with other transit authorities are all cornerstones of Honolulu’s bicycle plan.

Elevated Rail

“We’re expecting 200,000 more people on this island in the next 20 years,” says Scott Ishikawa, public information officer for the Honolulu High-Capacity Transit Rail Project. “Right now, a lot of homes are being built on the west side of the island. The dilemma we face is that the jobs are still in town.”

The highway connecting suburban West Oahu with downtown Honolulu snakes along the south of the island, with steep mountains on one side and the Pacific Ocean on the other. “It’s a very restricted area, and there’s really not much room to build new roads,” Ishikawa says. An elevated light-rail line, running down the grassy medians of highway H-1, will provide a compact solution to a pressing transit need. Both a 0.5 percent increase in the general excise tax for Oahu—a ballot measure approved by Oahu citizens—and federal grant money will fund the project.

“We’re estimating a weekday ridership of 116,000 by 2050,” Ishikawa says. The 20 miles of elevated track would take 40,000 cars off the road. New bus routes will also provide direct connections to the stations. Passengers commuting from West Oahu and Honolulu will see travel time reduced by a third, from an hour by car to 40 minutes by train. Some days, Ishikawa says, congestion along H-1 is so bad that the trip takes almost two hours. “We want to create a public transit system that’s attractive,” Ishikawa notes, something safe, fast, and readily accessible.

Legislative Support

“The only real choice for us is to turn to transit,” said then Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann at the American Public Transportation Association’s 2009 Rail conference, adding, “There is no road space to expand from the mountains to the seas, and that inspired us to build the light-rail system.” Hannemann noted that the area has seen its gas usage double over the past 20 years to 290 million gallons per year. “We have to give the people more choices…we have as many registered cars as we do [Oahu] residents.”

The state of Hawaii hopes to limit statewide greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020,  with the exception of emissions from airplanes. Air travel—both commercial and military—represents the state’s largest source of transportation-related carbon emissions and the state’s second-largest emissions source overall. Little energy is needed to heat buildings in tropical Hawaii, and tourism—the state’s main industry—is not highly energy-intensive.

In Honolulu, transit providers have kept their focus on meeting demand, lowering congestion, and greening their operations. Honolulu’s Energy and Sustainability Task Force hopes to develop a citywide vision of sustainability that will take into account everything from water conservation to wildlife preservation, transportation, and protection of Polynesian cultural heritage—an approach that would guide urban development in the future.

“It’s really hard to do anything but fly from one island to another,” Burke says. “Do we want to be connected with the rest of the world? I think we do.” Ferry service can’t compete with the ease and speed of air travel and carries its own environmental impact. In the future, carbon credits or more efficient jet fuels may provide a solution; for now, the Honolulu region will keep its focus focusing on preserving the island’s natural beauty and making urban living as low-impact as possible.