 Good afternoon. Welcome to Moving Hawaii Forward. I'm your host Tim Appichella, a show that's dedicated to transportation and traffic issues. Our today's show is called Transit, the Vital Piece of the Traffic Puzzle. My guest for today's discussion is Mark Gioriti. He's the Director of the Department of Transportation Services. Mark, welcome to the show. Thank you very much for coming. Thank you, Tim. It's a pleasure to be here. Yeah. Well, Mark, I have more questions. I know we have time. Transportation is particularly what you folks do. We can probably make this into an hour-and-a-half show easily. But it's only a half hour, so we're going to do the best we can here. Mark, I'd like to talk a little bit about Kakaako area. It's been in the paper a lot lately. A lot of the condominiums are now coming online. The collection and the symphony and 400 kiavies are all coming online. So eventually we're going to have about 4,000 units, maybe even more impact that particular area. And of course that's all by design. And so the question is speed and reliability, particularly along Alamoana and Nimitz and the service you have there. I think that's the 18 and 20, the routes. Yeah, 1920. A number of bus routes serve that area. And so the question is, with all the new densities coming in, how is speed and reliability going to work there? Well, you know, as you mentioned, Kakaako is essentially designed to be dense. And we're really venturing into a sort of a different mindset and a different pattern, a different way of doing things than we've done in the past. Typically when developers have built these tall buildings like they're building in Kakaako, they would put in these giant parking garages and design everything to be driven to. People would drive to them, park and then go up into their tower and it would be completely independent from every other place. But Kakaako is being designed to be a walkable community. And what that means is that people might still drive there, but they're going to park in one location and walk between uses. There's going to be lots of restaurants on the ground floor. The streets are all going to be designed to be very pedestrian friendly. And that's also going to work very well with transit, with our bus service that we have a lot of already. And with the new rail line coming in, that's going to have two stations in Kakaako. And what that means is this neighborhood is going to feel like an urban neighborhood. It's going to be very friendly for people walking, bicycling, getting off and on transit. And yes, people will be able to drive there, but it's not going to be oriented towards driving in the way that past development has taken place. And in the way we think of other neighborhoods in Anahu. Well, what if you're coming from Waikiki and you want to come into, you're not living in Kakaako, but you're coming from Waikiki or maybe someone else, Kahala area and you want to come in. Or the people that just are going to the airport or just transporting goods and services. Do you perceive any traffic patterns that are going to kind of press down on Alamoana Boulevard and Nimitz Highway? Well, Alamoana is a major artery and that's going to continue to see a lot of traffic in the future. I think what our hope is, is that through the investments that we're making in high capacity transit, that we're actually going to shift a lot of trips that serve the urban core from vehicles into transit. And then as I mentioned, Kakaako itself is going to be pedestrian friendly in such a way that even if you're driving from another neighborhood, maybe you come into town, you park once in one of these garages and then you enjoy the day or the evening there without getting in your car again until the end until you're ready to go home. And then plus there's going to be other options, not just transit, but things like car sharing and Uber and Lyft and enhanced taxi service and that sort of thing that provide options for people. So, you know, in the future, we really think that the residents of Kakaako, although they may own cars, hopefully will not feel a need to use them as much as people have in the past. That's really what we're counting on. You know, we live on a relatively small island and yet the population continues to grow. How do we have a sustainable transportation system? In the past 20, 30 years ago, we thought, how do we move cars? But now it's about how do people get around? How do people connect to the things they need to connect to? And in some cases, using a vehicle may be the best option, but in other cases, there are many other options out there. And you know, technology has helped as well. Using your smartphone to know when the bus is coming wasn't even an option until a few years ago. But now when you go to a bus stop, you see everybody with one of these apps. I use it all the time telling me when the bus is coming. So, knowing when the bus is coming, knowing what transportation options you have, makes it much more comfortable and easier to use these alternatives. Yeah, it's amazing using your apps for, I won't mention the company's name, but car sharing and Uber Lyft. I mean, it's there and it's present and it's a technology we didn't have 15 years ago. Exactly, exactly. And 5, 10, 15 years from now, there's going to be even more. And I think what you're going to see is a lot of people are going to realize, you know, it doesn't really make sense for me to own a car because I have all these other options. I can rent a car for a few hours at a time if I need it. I can get a ride so easily just by using my smartphone that, you know, it doesn't make sense for me to pay $15,000, $20,000, $25,000 for a car and then pay to park it as well and pay for insurance and gas and all these things. And the depreciation. Yeah, so not everybody's going to make that choice. I recognize that. And the transportation system has to continue to work for everyone, including some people who drive, but we want it to serve everyone and we want it to be sustainable, which means we want to push the envelope and push towards moving towards modes that are generally more sustainable and less energy intensive. And that means things like walking, bicycling and transit. Yeah, that's good. You did mention high capacity transit and when I think of high capacity, maybe I have a wrong idea about this, but it's when the transit lane is separated from general purpose lane and you're running very fast frequencies of maybe 15 minutes or even less. Do you envision a day when we start segregating our transit only lanes from general purpose lanes? Well, if you're talking about buses, then I'm not sure that we're going to be doing that in many cases. Right now we do run express buses and of course they use the zipper lane and HOV lanes wherever they're available. So in a sense we do have a high capacity system in that regard. And we also use larger articulated buses which have higher capacity and we run them fairly frequently. But you're right, we don't have dedicated lanes on the streets. And I'm not sure whether that is in our future. It could be on certain corridors. But I think what we're really all counting on for the high capacity in our future is rail itself. The trains that are going to be running overhead, completely independent from traffic are going to be running very, very fast and very, very frequently. The system is going to average 30 miles an hour over the length, over the 21 miles including stops. So it runs 60 miles an hour between stations over the 21 mile length and there's 20 stations and it takes about 42 minutes to go from end to end which is all the way from the Kroc Center, you know, out in East Kapolei all the way to Ala Moana. And with two stations in Kok Ako, someone could theoretically live in one of these towers that you're talking about in Kok Ako and then they can get to the airport in less than 15 minutes. Speed and reliability, that's what it's all about. Exactly, so when you talk about speed and reliability and knowing that the train's going to come because it's completely independent from traffic. And the trains are going to run every few minutes. So you're not even necessarily going to need to look at your smart phone to know when the next train is coming they'll run so frequently you just go upstairs, go to the station and if the train just left you're going to know that in a few minutes another one's going to be coming. Well, Mark, I get an earful, I live in Waikai so I get an earful about all the adverse articles about rail in the paper. I certainly get an earful about, you know, gone from 5.6 billion up to 9.5 billion and then I hear the ultimate, why couldn't we have just had a rapid transit system for a fraction of the cost and a viable high capacity rapid transit system versus rail? And I don't have an answer for that, so... Yeah, well, you know, I don't want to say you get what you pay for but I think, and to a certain extent, we are spending a lot of money on a rail transit system that is going to provide speed and reliability and it's also going to provide an opportunity for a new type of development around the stations where people can live, work, play and exist without owning a car. A bus rapid transit system, like what I think what you're talking about, has some benefits of rail transit but it doesn't have that level of certainty to generate a transit-oriented development around the individual stations. If you go to other countries, Japan is a great example, I've spent a lot of time in Japan. The train stations themselves are generators of development and although the major department stores, major office buildings are centered around the train stations because that's where the accessibility is located. They know that the train is going to be running there very, very frequently for a long time because a major investment was made to put the train in and that's what we're talking about. We're talking about an investment that is going to last decades and all of the stations, especially starting at the Alamoana and Kakako, that area, but eventually all of the stations are going to eventually become magnets to a certain extent for development of one kind or another and of course not all of them are going to have the same type of development and we don't want that either. In Waipahu we want to provide the access for the people out there and there's already a lot of density in that area. There'll be some development around the stations but really it's about improving accessibility for all members of our community and everybody, regardless of whether they drive or take the bus or use transit or bicycle, should have good access to the system. Do we have enough land at each station where people can park or are you envisioning another means of getting to those rail stations versus a single occupancy vehicle? Four of the stations will have major park and rides and there'll be a lot of parking. I don't know if I want to say plenty because I think actually there's going to be a lot of demand for people to drive to these stations and park but in a lot of cases what I was describing is that we're trying to build a community around the rail stations where people can walk and parking lots are not always totally compatible with that. So we have to balance the various needs that we're trying to accomplish here. We do want to encourage people to use the trains so we want to provide accessibility and in some cases that does mean providing parking for them and there's going to be a very large parking garage at the intersection of H1 and H2 in Pearl Highlands area that you'll be able to access right off of H2 coming down from central Oahu and I think it's going to have 1,700 parking spaces so it's going to be a very large... Yeah, it's going to be a very large garage. There's also going to be a large transit center there so there'll be an excellent bus service coming down from Wahi Wah and Mililani that will also connect to the rail station and at all of the stations there will be bus connections and all of the stations will have bicycle and pedestrian access and bicycle parking and they'll be tied into the network and we're improving the crosswalks and the sidewalks and the walkable environment around the stations because that's really the most important way that people are going to access the stations and think about it, even if you drive to one of the stations that means you're getting off at a different station, right? Correct. And when you get off at that station you want to be able to walk or get to your final destination and that may involve walking, could involve bicycling remember we're going to have bike shares starting next year it could involve taking a taxi or an Uber or Lyft or hopping on a bus so we want to make sure that all of those options are available but all of the stations wherever possible. Great. We're going to take a break but Mark, when we come back I'd like to talk about connectivity at these rail stations and how we actually move people from the rail car to their destination. So we'll talk about that in a moment. This is Hawaii Moving Forward. I'm Tim Apachele and we'll be right back. Ah, I'm Stan Energyman and I want you to be here every Friday. Noon. ThinkTekHawaii.com. Watch the show. Be there. I pity the fool, Hawaii. Aloha. My name is Richard Emery, host of Condo Insider. More than a third of Hawaii's population live in some form of association. Our show is all about educating board members and owners about the responsibilities and obligations and providing solutions for a great association. You can watch me live on Thursdays 3pm to 4pm each week. Aloha. Aloha. My name is Danelia, D-A-N-E-L-I-A and I'm the other half of the duo, John Newman. Welcome. We are co-hosts of a show called Keys to Success which is live on the ThinkTek live network series weekly on Thursdays at 11am. We're looking forward to seeing you then. Aloha. Welcome back. This is Moving Hawaii Forward. I'm Tim Apachele, your host. I'm here today with Mark Girity and Mark is the director of the Department of Transportation Services. Mark, again, thank you for coming. Thanks again. Before we left, we talked about connectivity, getting people from once they get off the rail car to points of destination. And how do you envision that? Do you envision a lot of smaller transit buses? Do you envision... How do you think that connectivity is going to happen? It's going to be a lot of different things, Tim. So there's first and foremost, we want to create a walkable environment so that when you get off the train and get down stairs onto the street, hopefully your destination, it's either very close by or even if it's a bit of a walk, that is a walkable and a pedestrian-friendly environment. If it's further away, maybe there's bike share available. We anticipate having bike share stations at each of the rail stations and also lockable areas where if you ride your bike to the rail station, you could lock it up that way when you come back a few hours later the bike is still going to be there and it's going to be safe. And then as you mentioned, in some cases, we're also going to provide access for transit and that means handy van or paratransit service is going to be available at every station. So if you are disabled, you're a regular user of handy van, maybe you can use both the train and then when you come downstairs, because of course there'll be elevators, especially ADA accessible at all of these station areas, hop on the handy van or regular bus will be available at the station or nearby to take you to your final destination. We talked about bus routes and buses earlier. I think what I envision is that in some cases we might actually be using smaller buses in the future that provide more access to the neighborhoods and think about, say, IAEA, that area. So we've got a station at Pearl Ridge near the mall and all of those Malka communities, some of them are well-served by transit but some are not so well-served. But in the future, maybe we have more bus routes serving those Malka areas but they're with smaller buses and they come down. Can I talk about transit demand or just a circulator? Yeah, and you know how we talked about technology earlier? Maybe some of the routes are, you call it up on your phone and it actually deviates from its regular route to come closer to your house and pick you up. There's things like that happening and the changes in technology are making stuff like that more accessible and easier to install. Well, that sounds encouraging. It really does, particularly now if I want to take off in a half hour and the possibility of having the transit come down my road just off my phone app, that would be pretty spectacular. Right. I want to talk a little bit about where we are right now as far as of all the transit service hours and I'm not sure how many what you're told is of transit service hours excluding paratransit. How would you classify whether they're commute-related or just general-purpose routes? Well, we have a few different kinds of service. We have service that we would classify as something like commute or routes that only serve, only provide service during peak hours and a lot of them use the HOV lanes or the zipper lane, for example, and provide access sometimes in only one direction. And then we have more local routes that provide service up into the neighborhoods like that on a somewhat frequent basis in all day but maybe 15 to 30-minute service and then we have what we call our trunk urban lines the number two, number one route and they are often with our articulated longer buses that are heavily used, sometimes they provide service into Waikiki or other urban neighborhoods and they run frequently throughout the day and all, you know, every day. What I'm getting at is with the advent of rail do you foresee a greater percentage going into a commuter route as far as allocation of service hours or do you foresee the current mix? Well, you know, some of our current routes are serving the same area that rail will be served and so we'll make adjustments to those service hours or some of those routes where they might change or shift or operate on a different frequency. We're still going to need bus service between the stations because the rail stations are in some cases rather far apart so the buses that are serving that area might still be there but in some cases they might run more frequently or less frequently depending on what is needed. As I mentioned, I think in some cases we're going to be moving more towards a feeder type system where buses are connecting the local areas to the rail station and we're encouraging people then to use rail to either get to their destination or to another location. Would you classify that as a spoken hub system? Yes, yeah. Okay, because the only, sometimes the initial obstacle or hurdle is those transfer times whereas a rider is normally accustomed to getting on point A arrives at point B and there's no transfer in between and so that is a challenge and getting those transfers down is a bit of a challenge. It is and that's why it's very important that the rail system which will be essentially the spine of our system runs very frequently and provides very reliable service which it will by being on an elevated guideway. So these trains will be running every few minutes, something like every five or six minutes during the peak hours maybe a little bit less frequently during the day but to the point where you won't really need to look at the schedule and the buses themselves, we do our best to keep them on schedule but because of all the traffic and because of a lot of construction activity and detours and things like that it's harder for us to keep our bus system running on schedule and that's why people so frequently are using those apps to find out when the next bus is coming and we'll do our best to time the departure of the buses at the rail station to match, you know, when the rail station when the train comes in, train comes in people start coming downstairs, get on the buses and then a minute or two later the buses will depart that's what we're shooting for but you know in some cases the train might be running much more frequently than the bus themselves Well, increased frequency means increased hours increased hours means increased budget Do you foresee a new allocation of transit hours to match up with the connectivity of the rail? I think that everybody recognizes that this is going to be very, very important well into the future we want to provide the best possible transit system and make it efficient as possible so we know that we're going to need additional operating hours just with the train itself and we want to continue to provide the excellent bus service that we're already providing and make it better that takes money I can't say exactly what the budgets need to be going out into the future but we're not going to sacrifice the bus to provide more service hours on the rail it's got to be both because they all work together and it's very, very important and you do have transit-dependent people that are relying on these existing routes and we're providing more and more service on the handy van we increased that budget by 20% in one year the previous fiscal year to try and meet that demand which is growing every year as our elders continue to age more and more people rely on these types of services and nobody should feel like they're isolated at home we want to make sure that people can get around we want to provide access for our kids and for our elderly to go out and do the things that they want to do and that's where a really good transit system can support that you're hitting on my next topic here and that is a transit system that can be used by all one and all and I, again, I hear an earful about why people won't ride the bus I don't know how to put this politely or diplomatically but there's some kind of indication that you somehow take the public out of public transportation which is to say there's people that they don't want to sit next to or they don't want to ride with because they feel one way or another, you know maybe there's bad behavior or things like that so the question is, as I looked at the website I know that there's a public safety portion but is there a code of conduct for a transit system? we do have rules about eating and drinking and no smoking and whatnot on the bus and no bad behavior, no playing, loud music, things like that is that stated on the bus? it is there are some rules on these signs that we have inside the bus but, you know, as you mentioned the bus and the public transit system is really to provide service for everybody so generally we don't try to kick people off the bus or anything like that unless they're really behaving egregiously or very badly so we do want to respect everybody and we want everybody on the bus to respect each other I understand that some people might not take the bus and I thought you were going to actually talk about some other things and that some people would be more likely to ride the train than ride the bus and I think that could be possible but I think it's related to the service level that we're going to provide I think that gets back to an earlier question and that was a commuter population versus a non-commuter population where there's a level of conduct or a code of conduct that's more applicable to a commuter train rail or even transit and I guess that's what I'm trying to get at is how do we address that before it actually occurs and to make sure that people feel comfortable from day one that they want to get on a system that is more rider friendly we're going to do our best to make everybody feel welcome on both the bus and the train and as we were talking they really work together so once someone tries out the train let's say they drive now but once the train starts running they want to try it out and if they like it maybe they start by driving to one of these parking rides that you're talking about and they have a good experience it takes them to work or what not we're hoping that then they realize oh, this also works in the evening to go to a restaurant or on the weekend to go to a football game at a lowest stadium or somewhere else and they start to think about how transit can become part of their routine and then eventually they realize the bus connects to the train I could leave my car at home I don't even have to drive and then that whole thing starts to change people's mindsets and people start to realize the whole transit system is great it's good for everybody and frankly, I ride the bus every day and I see everybody that you would imagine on the island is on the bus from rich to poor all different backgrounds and it's great to see that that mix of people or ohana is using the transit system in fact that's one of the reasons that the bus has been rated one of the top in the country and you've done a lot of heavy lifting and to make it that kind of system so congratulations on that is there anything that before you leave is there any project or any task that you wish you had accomplished? well I do want to mention that there is a good thing coming up that we haven't really talked about we've talked about technology but you may not be aware but we're actually moving towards an electronic fare system sometimes called a smart card so right now people use paper passes or they pay cash but a couple years from now in fact we're going to start testing it on the bus next year you're going to be able to have a smart card which you can tap on a reader it has a chip in it and it's tied to your account and that's going to change the way people pay for the bus it's going to provide all kinds of new opportunities so I'm excited about that there's good things coming up that is actually that's going to have the multimodal between the rail the bus who knows maybe you're going to be applicable to Uber or Lyft or something like that or bike share or parking it could be that you load the value on this smart card which could end up being not your card but your phone in the future and you pay for you pay for a whole variety of things this way who knows maybe the more you use it the more credit you get I didn't mean to put words in your mouth on that well again as I said there's a lot more questions I have today than we have time so Mark I'd like to say thank you very much for joining us today I think we've learned a lot and today's show is now over and this is Moving Hawaii Forward I'm Tim Appichella thank you for joining us and we'll see you next week