PART 1: The Land Use-Transit Nexus
Introduction
In his book Trains, Buses, People – An Opinionated Review, Mr. Spieler provides a brief, but insightful review of Honolulu’s transit success. He highlights our geographical advantage that creates a dense/linear corridor, that is perfect for transit. But he considers Honolulu a “basic” bus system. He mentions the current controversy over the rail cost overruns and schedule delays, and it’s lack of connections to Waikiki and University of Hawaii at Manoa (UHM). In the end, Mr. Spieler provides hope that Honolulu can live up to its transit potential.
Overall, I was expecting a more detailed and critical analysis of our current and future transit system. Instead, I got a brief one-page write-up and a few maps. To be fair, Mr. Spieler did have to review 46 other cities, and Honolulu is a relatively small, somewhat insignificant, outlier of a city.
Still, I think Honolulu deserves a more thorough analysis. To fill this gap, I’ll extend Mr. Spieler’s review of Honolulu’s transit system using the “Basics of Successful Transit” described in his book. I divided this analysis into two parts: PART 1: The Land Use-Transit Nexus, and PART 2: Transit Quality of Service.
Continue reading “An Opinionated Review of TheBus and Honolulu’s Transit Success (Part 1)”