 Rossick, I'm your host here on the two-wheel revolution on Think Tech Hawaii, a show where we talk about what's called micro-mobility or personal mobility, that is bicycles, electric bicycles, e-scooters, e-skateboards. Eventually we'll get to wheelchairs when I'm ready. But we also talk about the original kind of personal mobility, which is walking and pedestrians in Honolulu. And I'm very lucky today to have, as my guest, Marcel on Array. He is mainly the transportation writer for Civil Beat. Before that, he was the star advertiser. So he's been covering everything. A related transportation for some time. Marcel, thank you. Welcome to our show. Aloha. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. We'll jump right in. You've covered transportation for both of our for our leading newspaper, our leading online news service, and everything you've obviously covered rail a lot, like it or not. But tell me where you think we are overall in our transportation picture here in Honolulu. Oh, man. Just like with rail and everything, I think there's enormous potential. You see it, but it always just seems to be like right over the horizon, right? I mean, like we just had rail open up. And I think people are seeing the system, but you know, it's still not quite what it needs to be getting into town. They just see the potential for it. And I think there's there's some parallels there even when we're talking about micro mobility and some of the other options. Where when you say potential, what do you mean by that? Yeah, it's elaborate a little more. You know, I think sometimes you go. I think of a trip I took a few years ago. I was on content. I was in New York, you know, you see e-bikes just everywhere, you know, it's they are there. They have established themselves. And so in places like that, and obviously, you know, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, these are going to be the big precursors to what's coming and eventually makes it to other cities transportation wise. But I, you know, you're starting to see, you know, more e-bikes and scooters and, you know, personal micro mobility around town. This is just kind of my general observation. But I think in terms of really setting up more infrastructure and not even just in urban Honolulu, but, you know, points farther farther, ever farther west leeward, you know, you're seeing that there's an interest here, right. And in fact, in in 2019, I was looking it up ahead of this in ricks, which is the big, you know, transportation research firm ranked Hawaii, I think not ranked Honolulu, the top city in the United States with the market for the most potential for micro mobility. I think also about in 2018, when, you know, Lyme, and we can get into this more, but, you know, back then Lyme was kind of a different, more disruptive, let's say company, and they parachuted in here for a few days. It was a whole to do that the scooters were gone and impounded by the city within I think about four days, but they called it the most impressive launch. Despite all of the problems with that launch, they called it at the time the most impressive launch they had seen to date out of like 60 markets. So that's all to say there is enormous potential, and there has been potential here for years, and you're starting to see it. But I just think, you know, given the landscape here, literally and figuratively, it could be a lot more. Yeah, well, we have a long history of skateboarding coming out of surfing, I guess, and and it's had its it's been a mixed bag. You know, we don't hear too much about it now, but it used to drive the motorist crazy. And mostly kids, not necessarily being the most responsible riders. There was a lot of controversy around that. But I don't think most people know, Bikki, our bike share system is among the top five or six in the nation in terms of ridership. And when the Japanese visitors come back, I think they'll they'll reclaim that. So you're a cyclist, bicycle is yourself, I understand. And what do you ride traditional bikes, bicycle, electric bikes? Yeah, it's a hybrid. I'm still, I haven't made the leap. Largely, it's, you know, that I'm interested in ebikes, but they're a little pricey. But I'll still use my giant hybrid escape. I'm probably due for a new bike, but but my hybrid is still treating me well. And that's what I'll use wherever and whenever I can. I still do own a car, you know, but if I use that for, you know, for long distance trips and the like, and big store runs, but but where I can and when I really do try to bike first and foremost. Yeah. And you know, there are I've interviewed on this program, people from ebikes, why from other bicycle shops, new out there on a wildlife near near where you go to work. It's right over my shoulder, actually. Yeah. Yeah. They haven't, you know, they're very impressive. They have a range from scooters to to what I call mopeds and electric bikes. And they've got a very good reputation. So we have a lot of choices, I think, when you're ready to but it is a it is a pretty penny. No question about that. Yeah. Right. Right. Overall, in the time you've been covering this subject, would you say we've gotten a little safer here in Honolulu, less safe. Obviously, the more people that are out there percentage wise, you're going to have a certain more number more accidents, but then you have to look at it realistically in terms of how many people are riding just as a anecdotally, or yeah, from my personal observations, I, you know, and I'm thinking I primarily access the King Street cycle lane and the protected lane there. And I think we're doing better. I've never gotten the impression. I mean, I'm sure they're out there, but I was never worried about, you know, when I'm worried about my personal safety, it's not drivers that really want to actually threaten me and do harm, but it's just getting, you know, drivers more accustomed. They're just not looking out for and they're just not attuned and they're not used to they weren't used to at least, you know, looking out and sharing that area with with cyclists and bike commuters and the like. I think that has gotten generally better. I think, you know, that the city has has created, you know, some good spurs with, you know, Pensacola in there now at Ward, in addition to, you know, South and Macaulay. I think some of the, you know, early controversy about that, you know, the growing pain more or less dissipated people have kind of come to accept this. And that's that's good for town. But again, I think we always have to have an eye towards, you know, connecting, I think, and or at least providing that, you know, in other communities around Oahu. I mean, micro mobility, I think usually we're talking about these small trips one to three miles. That's where those they can really do the best good. It's not not necessarily doing a, you know, going across 20 miles across the South Shore. I mean, it helps to have that all in place where you can, you know, you have the connectivity to do what you need to do. But I think, you know, you look at what's available in town and for obvious reasons, this is the densest, most populous area. But I do think, you know, we need to get safer infrastructure that makes it more accessible for, you know, for more people besides just more able-bodied people, right? In other places. So anyways. Oh, good point. And I think, again, people on either side of the issue forget it took Amsterdam and Copenhagen and cities like that that are famous for their bicycling, bicycles, being bicycle friendly, it took them 40, 50 years to get to where they are today. And they did, you know, they looked at their city and said, we can't continue to add cars. Now in Amsterdam, there are many, many more bikes than there are people. So but it takes a long time. And I think I hope you're right that people are getting used to the bike lane that you have to cross sometimes if they want to do a left turn off King Street. Not exactly related just because I'm interested. What do you think to the the speed bumps that have been going in a lot is that, you know, I personally, every time I go over them, I say, damn it. And then I say, well, you know, good thing, but I'm not thrilled. So but what do you, what's your impression of that? I think about like for the pedestrian. Yeah, where they raise the pedestrian crosswalk or sometimes they're just speed bumps that are in, you know, not necessarily they combine them sometimes with crosswalks. But sometimes like going up the poly, which is close to where I live, there are some that are just there to slow down the traffic. Yeah, I mean, off the top of my head, I don't have any, you know, stats on, you know, what we've seen before and after. But they have installed those for what it's worth in areas that they're not. I think of those ones that, you know, on the poly. And I also think on on Farrington, you know, why not and not a Cooley in those areas. I don't know if there's one and not a Cooley, but for sure, you know, up and down the leeward coast there. I mean, those are areas where, you know, they've been some of the worst areas for pedestrian fatalities and just getting hit deeply unsafe places. So it makes sense that they're there. I, to be honest, so I'm not sure I don't have anything that shows Oh, and, you know, I don't know what the record has been before and after. But we were talking a little before about scooters by Lyme in particular, which dropped in here parachuted in here with a hundred or more of their scooters dropped them on corners with no plans. It was a very bad reaction. And I think the city then said, you know, we're going to figure out what the regulations are. And what's the status of that, you know, the status is that it's still ongoing. They don't yet have an ordinance. And, you know, we're talking about it. You can have personal electric scooters, but we're talking about something that would allow and enable companies, you know, to rent kind of like you'll see in these other cities where, you know, they'll just they'll be in public areas and you can just kind of pick them up and zip around where you need to go. So Lyme did that with enormous fanfare and controversy and really ran afoul of the then administration very quickly. But yeah, and the takeaway from that was look, these aren't even, you know, covered under the city's vehicular code, the state vehicular code. I think, you know, all the state and county level bureaucracy that goes into regulating these. They're like, we haven't even done this yet. These guys just kind of popped in literally. And so they're still playing catch up. It's my understanding. My understanding, I think the state a couple of years ago created some sort of enabling legislation to allow the counties to then create their own programs. And the city and county is still working on an ordinance that would cover rental companies. There are a couple of, I want to say smaller scale companies that do operate like I think across, you know, even as far west as the airport, but they are they're supposed to it's a gray area where they are supposed to stay and only do business quote unquote on private property. So it's like, yeah rent scooters, but you know, just duck into one private parcel and leave it on another private parcel. And I don't know how, you know, how well they're able to stay off of like, you know, state or keep them off of parks and sidewalks and things like that. So there are some like low level, I think the better term for it, but they're out there, but they're not, you know, the city is still working on getting something where you could have, you know, scooters. And I know, you know, there's mixed feelings, I think, still about, you know, you see just a scooter just, you know, plunked down in the middle of a sidewalk or something like that. But the if you have these things and they're properly regulated, it's I think that the benefit that people would point to is, you know, again, reducing or replacing car trips, you know, single car trips and helping to curb some of the congestion that comes with all of that. I think you're right. Mostly the regulation will be around people doing business. We're calling it scooter sharing or scooter rental, whatever it's called. And, you know, the city did set up a relationship with Bikki. And although there are a couple of other small enterprises that have tried off and on to do shared bikes, Bikki's kind of the king of the hill. And whether it's two or three scooter companies that are able to come in, I know there are very reputable scooter companies that are operating on the mainland and Lime has gotten to be a much better player, I believe as well, that they're all kind of waiting to see what the regulations say because that will determine, you know, what what we're able to do. So the next question then is, you know, we're getting more scooters, more personal scooters. Someday there'll be more shared scooters. We've got bicycles, we've got e-bikes, we've got people on various kinds of electric skateboards. Do you see some kind of a conflict coming between, you know, the bike lanes or the lanes that are there are small by comparison to some places because we just don't have enough room to make them bigger or we haven't been willing to commit to room to make them bigger. Do you see a coming conflict between various modes of personal mobility? Potentially, I think, you know, it's growing pains just like anything. You see the protected lanes go in and, you know, that was kind of in a sense that was a conflict, right? That people just had to kind of get used to it. And now, right, you're talking about different modes in between there. On the, so the like take the King Street protected lane, I'm, if memory serves it, I'm pretty sure I've got this right. You cannot have, you can have some preference of e-bikes. I think like low speed e-bikes are allowed on the protected lane and, of course, regular bikes. And that's what is allowed. Anything else, so you almost inherently have a conflict. If you're on the King Street lane and you're cycling or you're doing a low speed e-bike, see anything else fly past you? That's not a car, right? But is, is, you know, a motorized vehicle that'll, you know, shoot past you a scooter, something like that. I think by, you know, just inherently there's a conflict there if they are currently not allowed. And they're certainly not allowed on the sidewalk. But then that kind of kind of gets to your point, well, where, what do we do? That means you, you know, how are we going to accommodate all these modes? And, and, you know, the ongoing tension of taking space from motorists, right, who are used to having the street, there's a lot of controversy when the, you know, they gave up, I think it was a full lane on King Street. And motorists were really worried about, you know, how much, how that was going to impact their travel times. I think the city went to great lengths to show, oh, actually you're not seeing a huge impact on the travel times, despite that. But again, it's just kind of this transition and it's like a slow ship to turn around, right? It's, it's, it's turning a big ocean line or around. It's kind of the metaphor, I think, where, where, yeah, it might, you might be taking, might be talking about taking more street space from motorists and this idea of, you know, complete streets and sharing the road and all that. And motorists might obviously be concerned, hey, we're getting less and less space. But as you slowly try and get as many people as you can on these other alternative micro mobility type of vehicles or modes of travel, and the idea, right, is to have fewer cars to compete with in the end. If you're having more people in these different modes, taking up less space and requiring less parking. But yeah, I think there is an inherent tension and there's growing pains, right, as you try and make that transition, incentivize people, for sure, not everybody is happy about that, right? And wants to, wants to go along with that. And that, you know, of course, or I've even heard, I've even heard traditional cyclists, what I sometimes call the, the Spandex and Clipshoe crowd, who are, you know, they say, well, you know, we fought for so many years. To get these protected bike lanes. And now we're, you know, contending with electric bikes that are going to whizzing by even, even faster ones. And you know, there's a sort of a, there's a little bit of a purist mentality among people who are doing all the sweating against people who are just mildly perspiring because they're on electric bikes. So we've made better ways to go in this regard. Sure. Beyond that, we talked a little bit about infrastructure, we've talked about some regulation. What do you, what do we need to do here? How can we move in the, in the right direction, you think? That's a good question. You know, you mentioned Beaky before. And, you know, Beaky certainly, you know, first came the, some of those protected lanes. And there was a lot of chagrin from a lot of motorists and people in the communities. Look at this, what's the point of giving up this space and how many people are really going to use this lane? Is this the best use? Kind of like what you're seeing with, with rail right now, with the really limited, you know, initial ridership on this very limited stretch, right? What's the, and, and, but what happened then was, was Beaky came, I want to say several, I think the first protected lane opened in 2014. Then Beaky came, I want to say 2017. And then you start seeing a pretty decent use, right, with all the, the daily rides that they, they continue to have even post pandemic. But then you start saying, okay, we've got a system, right? So I kind of look at, at Beaky, as you mentioned, kind of, they're the big, the kings of the hill right now. And so, you know, I think they're, they're looking at, and this is still some years out, but electrifying or offering, you know, electric bikes, even potentially offering electric scooters, if that can fit in their, their mission, if they can expand to that. And I just, yeah, I'd point to them as, as kind of the tip of the spear, since they, they do so many rides, I think they're still at about 2,500 rides a day. And that's all micro mobility rides, right? So if, if you can get them humming, but again, that's, again, it's, it's a few years out that goes back to my, my first comments, which is it always, you know, it shows a lot of promise, but it always just feels a little on the other side of the hill, so to speak. Yeah, I'm always bugging Todd, either in person or on the phone or on this program, occasionally when he greets to come on about electrifying, getting electric bikes, because to me, that will, that is the, that is the big deal changer, I think. You see them in San Francisco, you see them in New York. Obviously, if you're downtown and you want to go to a meeting in Waikiki, you don't want to arrive there, you know, sweaty, yeah, heavy breathing. If you could do an electric bike, you could, I think, I think it would open things up tremendously. But as he points out, first of all, it's not cheap. It's another big commitment. And they're, they're not a, like any other transportation system, they don't make any, they need support other than what they get from customers. So it would take a big infusion of cash. And, but there is this huge, I think, potential of electric bikes, electric scooters, on street charging for electric cars, which would make, you know, could all be somehow combined into, you know, I used to work for the electric companies, so I'm kind of aware of the cost of the infrastructure to get, you know, get enough power. We were all, the Hawaiian Electric has installed a number of fast chargers, which are big, they look like a little, like a refrigerator, and they take a lot of power, and you have to require a neighborhood. So there's a confluence of interest, I think, in getting more electricity into all the transportation for the sake of climate and getting more bikes and scooters out there for the sake of trans, of congestion, which is probably more, you know, more interesting to people. So we're quickly running out of time, I appreciate your comments. And anything else, any other observations you want to make about, I know you've written about specifics, specific cases along Wile I and so forth, where they need to improve the infrastructure. You know, as we say, think a long time, lifetime employment for transportation riders is, anything else you can see in the future in your crystal ball? Oh, man. I, you know, before the show, to be honest, I was hoping to see where we're at in terms of bike infrastructure, bike routes, that kind of thing. But really, and I know, again, micro mobility, you're generally talking shorter rides, but I'm really interested in how to better connect, you know, you look at, you know, like rail stopping at Halava, and then it's like, well, what do you do at that point? Right. And that's always been kind of case. So we're the Pearl Harbor bike path stops at that same general area. What do you do? Where do you go? I mean, it could be such a gem if there was more connectivity, allowing for, you know, more options to do these smaller rides all the way across the island. I'm thinking that, wondering whether the city, and I don't know if the top of my head state, you know, they're looking at from off of Fort Weaver, when you go around Westlock there, to connect to the Pearl Harbor, that there's like a path right there. It just needs to be updated. There are long term plans, as you say, it takes, and the Pearl Harbor bike path has to be, you know, cleaned up fairly frequently because of some of the stuff that goes on. Yeah, that's a whole other show. Again, if there were more people using it, it would make a big difference. So we're going to look for expansion out to the west side, maybe get a little out beyond Waikiki and into East Honolulu. That would all be great. Marcel, I want to thank you so much. It's been very interesting. I'm going to ask you to come back some time. We'll talk a little bit more about this and about our progress, but I really appreciate your point of view and keep on, keep on covering it because it's, it's historic, I think. And with that, absolutely, great. We're going to have a micro mobility moment. I try to end most of these shows with a micro mobility moment. So here it is. We've got a lot, as we discussed, go on to that next slide. We've got a lot of stuff happening, and it's, it is going to take us all kind of getting, working together in a sense, getting along with each other and these interactions for the infrastructure and so forth. Next slide. So these are just a few samples of what's out there. Go ahead. East skateboards, we have folks from the one wheel group were on the last show. Electric bikes are getting more and more diverse, they're getting more and more interesting. Mark Twain once said, get a bike, you'll enjoy it if you live. And that kind of Albert Einstein famously said, life is like, like learning to ride a bicycle. And we'll go on and we'll close on this. This is all talk about from Deloitte about insights into looking into what's going on there. And basically it is this necessity to increase the infrastructure, increase the understanding, increase the cooperation. And finally on this, I hope you note Albert Einstein and the dog who doesn't chase people on bicycles. I will say thank you for watching. I hope you enjoyed it. Stay in touch. We'll be back in a couple of weeks again to our guest Marcel. Thank you so much and keep on civil beating because it's a very important part of our civic, civic life here. Without it, I don't know where we'd be. So thank you again, Aloha to all to both of my regular viewers, and I will see you in a couple of weeks.