 Aloha, I'm your host Peter Rossig and you've joined the Two-Wheel Revolution here on ThinkTechHawaii.com where we talk about all kinds of personal mobility, e-bikes, e-scooters, e-skateboards. Eventually we'll talk about electric wheelchairs. But thank you for joining us. Stick with us the whole half hour. I think we'll have a fun micro-mobility moment at the end, but you're going to have a very interesting conversation. Aloha, it's my pleasure to introduce Kiana Otsuka, who is with the Hawaii State Energy Office, also a member I know of the Mayor's Biking Advisory Council. Kiana, welcome and start off by telling us your title. I tried to do it, but my tongue gets tired. Sure. Hi Peter, thank you for having me. I have a very long job title, so brace yourself. I am the vehicle miles traveled and active transportation specialist. Okay. Wow. All right, so let's talk about vehicle miles traveled, which I think most people probably have an idea, but what does it precisely mean? Yeah, so vehicle miles traveled is simply a way to measure how much we drive. So it could be measured in sheer numbers. So today I drove 10 miles, for example, or it could be looked at over a certain period of time. So it could be an annual measurement, could be a monthly measurement. And then more interestingly, it could also be a per capita measurement. So we could do an average of how much people drive in Hawaii per year, for example. So it's really just a simple way to describe a measurement of how much we're driving. Okay. And I've always wondered, a vehicle, a hummer, even an electric hummer going 10 miles with one person in it is one thing. My little Toyota Celica with six people in it, that's a whole different ball of wax. So is there some way to distinguish those things, or is it only possible to consider any kind of vehicle and how many miles it goes? So there isn't a specific way to distinguish between the number of miles of smaller vehicle drives and a larger vehicle, but that's sort of how we capture how efficient a vehicle is. Is that per capita measurement? So someone driving a smaller car with more people in it is far more efficient than someone driving a large car as a person alone. So that's something we refer to as a single occupancy vehicle. It simply just means driving alone. Mm-hmm. And do your calculations include buses and vans, or is it, again, we just say a vehicle, whatever kind of vehicle it happens to be? Yeah. So this measurement, or the data that I mostly use is via the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism. So they take an annual measurement of the amount of the amount of vehicle miles traveled per person. And we don't know whether it's a light duty vehicle, medium duty vehicle, or heavy duty vehicle. So it's simply just everybody and how much we're driving. Okay. I guess when we all get our chips implanted, you'll be the government will be able to keep track of all that kind of stuff. But until then, it's a good indication, but it's somewhat of a guesstimate of how it works. Am I right about that? Yeah, for the most part. And I think what we're working on implementing potentially is the road usage charge. So we'd potentially be able to have that data per vehicle. But at the moment, it is a mixture of vehicle registration data. Our state DOT takes annual average daily traffic count. So that helps we use that to sort of estimate how much people are driving. So yeah, it's relatively accurate, but there's still some guesstimate involved. Especially for comparisons. But is it different somehow than just saying, look, there are more cars than people here on Oahu in the state, I guess. Just the number of vehicles is not enough. Is that a fair way of looking at it? Yes, correct. Okay. So how do we reduce the number of vehicle miles traveled? That's your question for today, tomorrow and the rest of the year? It is. Yeah. What do we do? What do I do? So we're really working on trying to expand transportation choices for people through a number of different ways. So I'm really focused on transportation and land use strategies. So we are trying to make it easier, more affordable, more convenient, more accessible for you to drive your car less. Or even like for you to carpool, for example, we really want less people driving alone is sort of the goal that we can reduce the number of people driving all together. So what that looks like, for example, is in the bike contact, since we're focused on bikes today, is making it easier and safer for people to take their bikes to where they need to go. So we're really focused on the interested but concerned rider. I'm not sure if you talked about that on your show before. But that's the majority. Oh, okay, great. That's the majority of folks who are currently not biking. It's a good chunk of our population and would only buy it if they felt safer biking, for example, is one of the primary concerns. So things like implementing more protected bike lanes would help folks feel safer biking. And then there's like the land use piece of it, right? So if people can't bike to their daily needs, whether it be work, maybe it's the grocery store, maybe it's dropping their kids off at school, they're not going to bike either. So making sure that we have good land use in place that allows people to complete these trips that can be made via bike that are close to home, for example, or maybe once they get to work, maybe they work in town, maybe now they feel they can bike to do their errands while on town, which is something that I do. So really working on trying to make it easier, safer, more accessible, more affordable for folks to get on their bike, as well as other modes of transportation that aren't driving alone. So there's two parts to this. Obviously, one part is the policies and the actual and the implementation of the things you need. And the other part is the convincing these interested or concerned, but not riding too much people. And what's the balance door? Is there, you know, how much of what you do involves this policy part? Is the other part, you know, left to Bikki and Hawaii Bicycling League or or others? Or how does that work? Yeah, I think at the moment, my job isn't really involved in policy. I think we're sort of working our way up there and trying to figure out what kinds of policies would be helpful and impactful here. At the moment, we're really focused on or I'm really focused on completing studies that would inform policies. So at the moment I'm working on a mobility hub study for the island of Oahu, looking at state-owned parking facilities and figuring out which locations are great candidates to be converted to a mobility hub. So a mobility hub would be or simply is the co-location of transportation services. So maybe you have like bike share, scooter share, you have maybe a car share there, like in conjunction with like the community space, really thinking about like how we can provide the transportation service to people, for example, who don't own their own bike, but would still like the opportunity to bike. And when you look at these for these kinds of places, are you are you limited to publicly owned places? Because it always seems to me, you know, there are church parking lots, which, except for Sunday morning, mostly sit empty. And it seems like that's a place where there could be a hub. Is that possible or is that kind of outside what you can realistically do? So the study I'm working on is focused on state-owned properties, because it's a lot easier for us to coordinate and execute a potential mobility hub. But certainly other entities could implement a mobility hub. So if somebody could decide they want to do it on their own, so to speak, and and, you know, get get Bikki to put a put a station in front of their near their park on their parking lot and make the space available during the week, no parking on Sundays and so forth. If they it's probably got huge liability implications for a private church or nonprofit or something, but it's possible. Yeah, it certainly is possible. I think it would just take a lot of I mean the same thing with us is just take a lot of coordination and working with different entities to make it work. Got it. Of course. And especially when you start putting in any kind of infrastructure, I've worked for Hawaiian Electric and getting people to agree to put in an electric vehicle charging spot was was almost the easy part getting the infrastructure and the wiring and so forth. That was the next easy part, but not easy. Yeah. So yeah, that's a big thing there. And what about the city? I mean the city, the city of the state not talking to each other on this one? The city is working on a bunch of different mobility hubs that are really centered around the upcoming rail stations. And so we just identified the need to look more closely owned facilities to do this work. So the city is definitely working on it. And I think they're hoping to work on implementing more mobility hubs and providing more options for folks to get around to. Okay. And I also saw on your bio you're working on is there still I hope maybe this is a whole bio I don't know shift worker transportation demand management another on twister, but what does that mean? Yeah, so I have a project going that looks at developing some strategies that would address shift worker transportation challenges. So we think of a shift worker as maybe someone who doesn't work Monday to Friday, maybe doesn't work nine to five, maybe doesn't work in a high employment center like Waikiki or downtown Honolulu and thinking about how can we best serve their transportation needs. So this is often a population that's not focused on in the transportation planning process. Our planning process is really focused on people who work nine to five, who work in primary employment centers. So you'll notice like, for example, bus service is not as good in the evening. You know, isn't as good when you're not going in and out of town, basically, or like these kind of primary urban core areas. So really thinking about serving folks who have limited options, because of their income, because of their ability, because of the time that they start or finish work, things of that nature. So really focusing in on these folks who have limited mobility options and or maybe feel like they need to own a car to get to and from work because services at the moment don't serve them. So really, this is a project I'm really excited about. I think is really kind of really innovative for transportation planning purposes. I'm really excited about it. So we're just getting that started now. And our next phase is to engage with a community-based organization directly and have them do engagement and outreach to a prioritized population. And then looking at developing an action plan to figure out what's it going to cost to coordinate with and then looking for funding and hopefully at least piloting a shift worker transportation demand management strategy. All right. That's very cool. I hope when you get a little further down the road on that, you'll come back and talk to us and involve us. I'd love to use this show if we can to help whoever that community-based organization is to get out to the public to have their meetings available to people and so forth. Because I think that's great. I would imagine, again, safety being probably the biggest single consideration for most people in the bike and using bicycling. If you're a shift worker and you're going to work in the dark or you're coming home in the dark, I would imagine that makes it a little more complicated to get you to ride a bike. Is that about right? Yeah. We heard some of that initial feedback. We just put our first working group meeting and that was something that was indicated as a concern, lack of lighting or lack of facilities for people to feel safe to get to and from home and work. Okay. I had a guy on the show not long ago who runs a company called Lama.com and they basically do software enhancements for scooters or electric bikes that increase safety by giving you some of the same things that a Tesla has. If you're in a Tesla, you can see all the cars that are moving around you. You can see the people that are near your other front of your car and so forth. Some of that's doable on a bike or a scooter. It's just cost money. Yeah. The other thing, I'm a slave to gadget websites. There are all kinds of lighting things that you create one lighting, creates your own bike lane and another one got front and rear lights and so forth. The first thing is to get people to think about it and the next thing is to get people to feel safe again. It's the same kind of problem. Yeah. I've seen those. They're really neat. I think those present an income, quality or inequity challenge. Those obviously cost money. I like bikes as a means of transportation because it is a really affordable and really independent means of transportation for folks. Thinking about folks who can or maybe can't afford these additional technologies to help them feel safe, I think it's a big issue. I think providing lighting and more protected facilities would certainly help without having to ask people to purchase fancy technology to feel safe while getting to and from work or wherever they're going really. Yeah. A lot of these things to me, I just wrote a piece for Civil Beat about how Bikki needs to expand its footprint and add electric vehicles and basically in the name of equity and diversity. There are people probably in Kalihi and places to the west who would ride a bike to their job at Alamoana or Waikiki if it were safer, if there were a Bikki station nearer to them and basically if there was an electric bike that they could share because let's face it, nobody wants to get to work huffing and puffing and sweaty and everything or at least not most people. It would seem to me it's all kind of interrelated in terms of getting people to consider the biking as a possibility. So to go on a little bit, the other part, this is kind of, we're talking about the personal, the second part of your endless job title, personal mobility. Tell me again, I'm sorry, tell me the second part. Active transportation is in there. Okay. So tell me what active transportation is in 25 words or less. Sure. Active transportation is really focused on people walking and biking and I consider active transportation also in transit. So you have to most likely walk or bike or scooter or roll whichever motor transportation you want to use to get to a bus stop often. So I really consider those as sort of our active and shared forms of transportation, so walk, bike, roll, transit. Okay. By roll, you're talking about scooters, skateboards. Anything with wheels. Anything? Yeah, it could be a wheelchair even, but really anything with wheels and I try to include the word roll just to be more inclusive. Right. I'm always running into a bike. I'm also always running into that. You can say biking and everybody understands what you mean, but then you get into scootering and skateboarding and one-wheeling and next show I'm going to have, my micro mobility moment is going to be about these new, they're called moon walkers. They're like skates, but they're electric. I've already shown some electric inline skates which scare the hell out of me, but these are more like a regular old-fashioned kid's skate. They're about four or six wheels and they're electric powered and you walk, but it enhances your walking ability. It's like being on one of those walkways at the airport. You're walking, but because the sidewalk is walking with you, you're going faster and these are very similar. They're kind of personal and they look a little more, to me, a little matter very realistic for most people or many people, but a little bit better than online electric skates. I think we're looking at a world of expanding innovation and opportunity in the alternative transportation area, which is good and also a little scary and a little bit. The other problem I see is we're kind of coming to some kind of potential conflict. We've got bike lanes and the traditional cyclists, many of them feel these electric bikes are going, they have more power, they have more speed. I don't like them or I'm worried about them and then you get the skateboards and the scooters and all the rest. Do you see that as being a problem, a kind of confrontation, especially here in Hawaii where even the best bike lane is not going to be as big and as pleasant as in other places where there's a lot more land. Are we heading for some kind of a conflict between different kinds of riders? You know, Peter, when I was in Portland, Oregon, I went for a bikeways training for work and it's really amazing how sort of everybody using different modes are able to kind of very safely navigate what is more traditionally considered like a bike facility. I think it's possible for folks to coexist. I think it'll take some getting used to, especially because sort of the electric personal devices are a lot faster. But I certainly feel like they can help fill in a huge gap for people who are sort of interested in not driving as much to actually get out of their cars and then use these devices. Like you said, I think people are really concerned about being sweaty here. It's really hot. So I think we could navigate it. I think certainly there will be some conflicts and some kind of getting used to. And I think Portland facilities are a little bit wider and a little bit thicker. So I think as we see more demand for non-auto mobility, I think I'm hoping that we'll see more and wider and better non-mobility facilities being built. And I think the getting used to part is very, very important. I think whenever these discussions come along and people start talking about Amsterdam or Copenhagen or even Portland, you have to stop and remember it took Amsterdam or Copenhagen 40, 50 years to become these incredible biking metropolises. And I would guess that at the beginning when the city fathers and mothers decided to do this, they met a lot of resistance, which is perfectly understandable. But I think we've got to do the thing. We've got to bike along at the rate we can bike. And then as we get more bike lanes and we get more bikes out there, it's kind of a circular argument. If you get more bikes, you'll get more bike lanes. If you get more bike lanes, you'll get more bikes. So I think that the getting used to it part is going to be the challenge because we all would like things to, well, most of us would like things to go faster, except when you're trying to make a left turn off King Street and you're got to look for the bike lane. Then I'm thinking, people are still mumbling and grumbling about that one. I think it's really interesting that the city's put out reports saying that the King Street bike lane has also increased industry and safety. So they've seen less crashes, less dust, things of that nature because the King Street bike lane was put there. So I think even if people were going to grumble, I'd like to think that it is also a safety measure that helps everybody be a little bit safer, including people walking and biking and then also less crashes for people driving. So I hope that we can think about safety as a priority rather than how fast can I get to where I need to go in my car? I think it helps people slow down and really notice other people, other road users who aren't in their cars. Exactly. That's what's not what I think is good about the traffic calming and polyhighway, which I use a fair amount to get over to Kailua and back, they put in some speed bumps and always going over them, you think it's absolutely necessary. But that's kind of your emotional response. But in the other in your head, this is actually making things safer for a lot of people, not just cyclists, not just car drivers. Everybody could afford to go a little slower, especially on an island like this one. So that's terrific. Anything else you want to talk about with active mobile, active transportation or vehicle miles traveled? Anything else that's going on that you feel is important to talk about at this point? Yeah, I just want to add a few more things, Peter. The reason why we're so focused on trying to reduce our vehicle miles traveled by expanding our transportation choices is because we know that we don't currently have the capacity to power everybody's electric vehicle. So we know that if we need to power 50% of the existing cars on Oahu, that will need between 6,000 and 13,000 acres of land for us to renewably power those cars. So that's just half of the cars on Oahu. That's not statewide, just half of the cars on Oahu. So thinking about, because we live on an island, land is so precious, land is so scarce, what would we rather use that land for? If we don't have to power so many vehicles, we could use that for agriculture, open space, affordable housing. We could use it for helping to preserve the rural character of certain neighborhoods and areas statewide. So really thinking about how can we reduce our energy consumption or energy demand for powering vehicles by then expanding choices for folks to choose if they want to use more energy efficient modes of transportation. So I always find that number to be really startling, especially for folks who live on an island that will require so much land to renewably power our personal vehicles. Right. And I've seen statistics, even if everybody had electric vehicles, we would obviously be in better shape as far as emissions are concerned and climate change impacts, but it's not going to do it by itself. Even if everybody were driving electric and that would be a long-term goal, that's not enough to help us control the climate change that we're seeing every day. Yeah, and I always remind folks electric vehicles aren't fully zero emissions, especially when our power source is not fully renewable, but it takes a lot of energy to manufacture and produce electric vehicles, the lithium batteries that go into electric vehicles, as well as sort of the particulate matter that comes off of both conventional and electric vehicle tires, right? So there are other environmental concerns with vehicles in general, and if we can have less vehicles on the road or more efficient use of our vehicles on the road, we'll see less of those environmental challenges come about. So yeah, I would like to remind folks electric vehicles aren't fully zero emissions, they're lower emissions, typically. Again, it depends on the power source. And origin of the materials and the factories in which they were made and so forth. I think at least some of the automakers realize that you can't make an electric vehicle using old-fashioned kind of energy-consuming and raw material-consuming systems. You have to try to make those within the limits possible as efficient and as carbon-free as possible. So it's all good in the right direction, I think, but it's not a solution by itself. So we only have a few minutes left, so tell me about your good habits, your basically habits. You bike a fair amount, I take it. Yeah, I try to bike as much as possible. So again, like some land use challenges, right? So I live in suburban Honolulu in a really silly neighborhood, so it's quite tough to walk. So I don't bike in my neighborhood personally, but what I do do is I take the bus into town for work or for any of my recreational activities, and then I hop on Bikki. So I use Bikki to make those nice short trips. I could make on the bus, but I know I have to maybe sometimes wait for the bus, and I enjoy getting exercise. So I'll take my Bikki from downtown to Ward or Kaka'ako to go to yoga or to meet friends for Pohana, things of that nature. And I really try to sneak in as much biking as I can because I don't live in a very bikeable neighborhood. So whenever I'm in town, I try to get a bike right in if I can. And that also helps me with my job, right? Being an informed person on a bike helps me to make better decisions and advocate for other things at work. So I really try to get in a bike ride as much as possible. So yeah, lots of biking while I'm in town, but not necessarily from home directly. Got it. If there, I'm sure thought about an electric bike, would that be or, you know, there's some places that even are too hilly for that, but would that meet your needs in terms of to and from home? Yeah, I've been thinking about that more often because my car recently broke and I'm trying to sort out my transportation. So sometimes I'll drive to the transit center near my house because the bus stops running at 6 30 p.m. And so that means I either need to be home before 6 30 or I'm not leaving the house or I need to get an expensive like lift ride home. So I've been thinking about, I think it's about 32 or so miles from my house and I walked it before it took me an hour because of the hills. And I've been thinking about like, should I get an electric bike to meet that need? But I think I'm a little worried that this infrastructure in place worries me a little bit in terms of biking home. But my dad just bought my mom an electric bike and she's like too afraid to, my mom also doesn't have a driver's license. So before I was taking her up in my car and taking her places when she needs to go places, right? So she's mobility constrained because she doesn't have a driver's license, but bought one for my mom, bought electric bike for my mom and she's been too afraid to use it. So to be honest, I'm a little afraid to use it. I've not been on an e-bike before, but I thought maybe one of these weekends I'll take it out and see if that is a good option for me to take the e-bike on the bus maybe to get just to and from that the transit center to my house. So I recommend it. I think there are some bike shops that will give you some lessons or at least get you started. So I encourage you to do that. But I am glad you're out there experiencing the reality of active transportation and vehicle miles travel. Kiana, thank you so much. This has really been interesting. I've learned a lot and I do want you to come back when you've got more to tell us about some of these things you're working on, the hub study, the shift worker transportation demand management part I think is especially interesting because you got a specific audience that you're trying to reach and try to influence. So that would be great. And now I am going to put the cherry on the on this cake and give you your micro mobility moment. Here we go. This is every week I try to talk about some weird or wacky or wonderful thing in the world of electric transportation. Go to the next slide please. And this is a cake electric bike. It's made in Sweden and it's used primarily or they're very big on using it for utilitarian purposes delivering caring caring family and so forth and the owners got interested in wildlife preservation. And it turns out that there are these huge wildlife preserves in Africa thousands and thousands of square miles and the poachers come in and the only way to get to them is with an all train vehicle or a motorcycle. But of course in the middle of the night you can't sneak up on somebody and on a motorcycle. So next slide. The folks at cake outfitted some of their electric bikes with some special provisions so they could be used in the bush. And now these guys who are really you know braver than I am because they're out there trying to catch poachers they are using these electric bikes you know one more slide to to sneak up on the poachers because they can they're so quiet of course they can get right up on the poachers and trap them and you know save the save the earth by saving the wild animals of Africa. So that's my that's the micro mobility moment. You can look up cake it's called ride cake I think you probably can't read this but if you can pause it you can grab this link and it you can see a video about it but I think it's one of the fascinating uses special uses of electric vehicles that make them fun and interesting and active. So thank you again Kiana. Thank you for all you do. Thank you for being here on the show with us. I as I said I insist on you coming back I want to hear more about those those studies that I hope to see you at either at the mayor's advisory council or getting together to figure out how we can make cycling and all of the transportation better here in Halilu and across the state. Thanks a lot. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn and donate to us at think.kawaii.com. Mahalo.